[jstolzen]

No Uh oh for us. A hijacked plane would never make it into our radar w/o being shot down first. I think air entry is the least of our troubles.

Well..this raises a question I've often wondered about.

IF a small plane is flying over a residential neighborhood..is it ALWAYS on someone's radar? Or, just if it's around an airport (and picked up by airtraffic control)?

[Calpernia]

>>>IF a small plane is flying over a residential neighborhood..is it ALWAYS on someone's radar? Or, just if it's around an airport (and picked up by airtraffic control)?

I actually don't know. I'm very obediant when it comes to the laws of gravity.

HOTD, can you answer that?

[steve86]

IF a small plane is flying over a residential neighborhood..is it ALWAYS on someone's radar?

No, absolutely not. Civilian radar coverage is spotty and affected by terrain even in airport traffic areas. If a pilot makes an effort to not be seen, by turning off the transponder and/or flying at low altitude or behind terrain obstructions, he will not be seen on radar (or not be distinquishable from a truck on the ground).

Back when I was flying, we know where to go to practice aerobatics without eliciting questions from air traffic controllers. (What we were doing was legal but we preferred to concentrate on flying the plane rather than chatting with controllers. There were no scheduled flights or population nearby).