Fri, Mar 28, 2003
Provide Graphical TFRs, Please
AOPA is pressing Congress for several initiatives
that would help general aviation pilots get timely and
understandable information on airspace restrictions. As Congress
works on next year's funding for the FAA and the Department of
transportation, AOPA is asking Congress to hold FAA accountable to
its promise (from over a year ago) to provide pilots with graphical
advisories for temporary flight restrictions (TFRs).
Specifically, AOPA is asking that Congress direct FAA to make
graphical TFRs and notices to airmen (notams) available to the
flying public immediately via the Internet. AOPA also wants the
graphical TFRs to be made available via the FAA's Direct User
Access Terminal (DUAT) system.
AOPA
President Phil Boyer, in a letter to a key congressional committee
chairman asked, "During a period of time when pilots are subject to
multiple airspace restrictions, how can the FAA fail past
instruction by Congress to provide airmen with graphical TFRs?"
Congress previously directed the FAA to publish graphical TFRs
in an earlier omnibus spending bill, but FAA failed to act. FAA has
been promising readily available TFR maps for some time. Even
last October, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey
told an AOPA Expo audience, "You need a good picture. You're going
to get it." AOPA is now asking Congress to hold FAA's feet to
the fire.
AOPA is also asking Congress to direct closer
coordination between the FAA and the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) in developing security-related airspace
restrictions.
"This coordination will serve to prevent a proliferation of
politically driven, non-security related airspace restrictions and
ensure the appropriate analysis of intelligence and security issues
are performed," said Boyer. "AOPA wants to see a requirement that
ALL security TFRs or airspace restrictions be coordinated through
TSA."
A better FAA process for proper coordination of security TFRs
and graphical TFR dissemination via the Internet are two common
sense solutions to the new security challenges facing pilots... and
long overdue.
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