Removing the military bases would not fix the airport. Airspace would still be restricted over non-military places like the White House and Congress.
And the runways would still be short by modern standards. Larger aircraft, like the 777 and 787 cannot operate out of Reagan National.
–Peter
I bet if the airport property, with it’s riverfront location and view of DC, was offered to a particularly Shiny hotel and resort developer, for $1, the airport would be closed tomorrow.
Steve
That’s fine, obviously it has to be restricted airspace due to security. But remove all those helicopters from the area and there is much less of a chance of an issue like this. It’s very rare, but people will still talk about it for years.
The problem is a significant number of those helicopter flights are for VIP transport around the DC area. Get rid of the airport, and the helicopters will be safer and have a bit more room to fly.
This particular helo was flying an established route past the airport - with a 200 foot ceiling in that spot.
Pilots sometimes talk about the most useless things in aviation, and often settle on the runway behind you, fuel left on the ground, and the air above you. There’s an awful lot of air left above helicopters on this flight route.
At least get rid of the commercial airlines at National, to reduce the traffic. Let the (L&Ses) and their lobbyist paymasters use it for their private helos and jets only. Or, have it for helos only, to ferry the (L&Ses) out to scheduled, or private, flights at Dulles. .
Steve…went through an FBO, the terminal for private planes, once.
I like that idea. If you allow private jets, that’s probably a bigger security risk than commercial, where the airlines have an interest in some level of safety.
Apparently, they are removing the helicopters, not the airport.
Without the constraint of runways. a helo could make straight flight between the airports, overflying suburbs, rather than the sensitive government area.
And they could do it at a decent altitude, instead of the 200 feet above the Potomac that they have to do now.
I’ve only flown on one private plane. 3 of us were completing an internal audit for the company. The Controller flew down for a meeting with local management and he asked us to join him for the ride home (and save the fares for us to fly commercial).
It was the worst flight I’ve ever been on.
I had to pretend I was working the whole way home.
I went through the FBO in Appleton, Wi. Basically looked like a small passenger terminal inside. Presumably, there are some meeting rooms upstairs, so the honchos that blow in, in their private jets, don’t need to go to the plant to berate the peons.
We did get a ride out to the gooney bird, instead of walking.
Steve
Some would not like it, but it is a few powerful folk in Congress that have self-centeredly used threats of funding cut-offs forced local authorities to keep Reagan open.
Is aircraft altitude still determined by air pressure? If yes, on take off, altitude instrument is adjusted to show the known altitude of the airport. But changes in air pressure as they fly through high and low pressure areas can cause those numbers to be inaccurate.
Probably inadequate instrumentation when clearances need to be precise.
When you enter the DCA area, ATC gives the pilot the current altimeter setting, so everyone flying in the area has their’s set to the same barometric pressure.
I believe the standard analog altimeters are good for +/- 75 ft. That’s not much margin for error when there is only 200 to 300 foot vertical separation between the aircraft even when everyone is doing everything correctly.
intercst
