Calling Freeper GA Pilots: Freep CNN poll

CNN main web site poll ^ | October 12, 2006 | CNN

[theBuckwheat]

CNN is now polling with the question:

"Should small planes routinely be allowed to fly directly over big cities?"

Poll located on the right, almost at the bottom under QUICKVOTE.

Presently, the results are running well in the NO column.

Speak up or face more restrictions in aircraft operation.

[TXnMA]

LOL! Stupid idea...

To fly around (instead of across) metropolitan Houston, you'd have to carry supplemental fuel tanks!

[Jaysun]

Where's the damned poll?

[Nuc1]

Pretty far down and on the right side. I Freeped it but now I have to delouse my computer. FWIW who cares what CNN or the people that listen to them think anyway.

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Lesseee....a Ryder truck was used in the Oklahoma City bombing so big trucks should be prohibited near big buildings also, no??

(Tks - voted the poll)

[The KG9 Kid]

I definitely think there should be no-fly zones for private light aircraft over urban civic centers -- namely the skyscraper forest of a major metro area. Of course, executive helicopters will need to land on helipads but we don't need amateur pilots with 75 hours behind the stick doing barrel rolls through Manhattan using NYC as their own 'Microsoft Flight Simulator'. That jackass should never have been screwing around the way he did. Now look at him.

What's also important is that little planes don't belong anywhere the big planes are flying into and out of. Municipal airports are for light aircraft. Major international airports are for heavy passenger and cargo jets as well as medium turboprop planes.

Mixing these two types together is a disaster waiting to happen.

[BARLOCK]

What's also important is that little planes don't belong anywhere the big planes are flying into and out of. Municipal airports are for light aircraft. Major international airports are for heavy passenger and cargo jets as well as medium turboprop planes. Mixing these two types together is a disaster waiting to happen.

Do you fly at all, or are you just making this stuff up?

[theBuckwheat]

So, what is the real issue? What danger do single engine aircraft present to cities that are so unique that they must be restricted while we allow other aircraft, not to mention other vehicles or even vessels and railroad equipment to freely traverse the same area?

If anything positive comes from this accident, it is to prove that what the TSA and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has said all along. That is simply that light aircraft cannot carry enough weight of anything to do much damage to urban structures.

Of course, some damage was done. But we don't think of the damage that other vehicles regularly do to people and structures, indeed so much damage that when a SUV jumps the curb and ends up half buried in the front of a coffee shop it is only news for a few seconds at most. It certainly doesn't make the front page, even below the fold, of the NY Times.

We regularly allow thousands of trucks into cities that carry more weight in fuel than Cory Lidle's Cirrus weighed in total when fully loaded. We allow those trucks to pass by day care centers, playgrounds, to park next to hospitals, to sit in the street unguarded while the driver attends to the delivery. We don't give them a second thought.

It must also be realized that not all aircraft crashes in cities are of the same class as Lidle's Cirrus was. For example, in 1992, a fully loaded El Al Boeing 747-F crashed into two apartment buildings in an Amsterdam suburb, taking the lives of 43 people on the ground.

On November 11, 2001, an Airbus A310 operated by American Airlines crashed into a residential area of Long Island, killing 260 people.

Indeed, it would take decades of the occasional crash of light aircraft in urban areas to equal the death toll and damage done by just these two airline crashes. Yet, we never talk about restricting those aircraft.

But most importantly for people worried about the threat of light aircraft to cities. Just exactly what do you think will happen if we ever have to shoot a hijacked jumbo jet down with the F-16s that are flying air patrol? You worry about the "threat" presented by an aircraft that weighs less than a Honda Civic, yet expect the government to protect us by doing what? Shooting down a 1/2 million pound aircraft and not showing any concern over what will happen to many square blocks where the flaming wreckage will land.

[G-Man 1]

Some times mixing the big planes don't work out so well either Smiling Jack. Go back to watching cartoons or C-BS news.

[The KG9 Kid]

Evidently I've swatted a hornet's nest of civilian pilots who care deeply about the issue of civilian light aircraft flying in places where only big passenger jets belong or in areas that ought to be resticted.

Well, whatever. You're particularly burned up about this for some reason, "Jack", but who cares?

[The KG9 Kid]

Too bad those incidents you name aren't the only ones where light civilian aircraft got tangled up with a big passenger jet over a metropolitan area. Here's the ones I remember growing up in Southern California:

Aeroméxico Flight 498 disaster (82 killed)

PSA Flight 182 disaster (144 killed)

[theBuckwheat]

My reply was directed specifically at the false issue that general aviation presented such an unique risk to urban areas that they should be restricted from flying over them.

If we are going to measure risks rationally, we ought to direct our attention elsewhere. But like with firearms, a certain segment of the Ruling Class find it easy to live and breathe hyperbole that is disconnected from reality.

[The KG9 Kid]

It's unreasonable and not my desire to restrict general aviation from flying over the greater Los Angeles area, for example, but I still think that the corridors where passenger jets vector into and out of LAX ought to be clear of general avaiation. I also don't like the idea of light private aircraft navigating through the artificial mountain range of a major city's skyscraper forest at low altitude.

Shooters face more than unreasonable restrictions on where they're allowed to shoot anymore, but I've never thought that I should be allowed to find an vacant public alley in downtown Manhattan NYC and set up a little shooting range for me to practice with an AR-15.

I don't want to burden private pilots with unnecessary restrictions on flight. Is restricting general aviation from flying through the concrete canyon of a skyscraper forest unreasonable on my part? Let me know.