Forum: F-16 News

ATC wrote:

MOAs are published to top out at FL180. If the GA pilots were around 17.5, they likely thought they were close enough to the top to not interfere.

The charts that depict MOAs top out at FL180, however if a MOA is published on that chart, then it will list the actual top of the MOA somewhere on the chart. Usually this can be found on the same little tab as the keys under "Special Use Airspace" or something similar.

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As a corporate pilot, I personally think that MOAs should be redesignated as a restricted area. I don't believe non-participating VFR traffic should be allowed to enter. Unfortunately, the same types of people who think it is "their right" to fly through them are the same idiots flying VFR into IMC, running out of gas, or generally giving GA a bad name.

It's very easy to find out if an MOA is hot. It's even easier to avoid one when it is.

Jake

I definitely agree with you about them being restricted instead of MOAs. The problem is that it is a huge battle to keep MOAs, let alone expand them. Turning them into restricted areas would be politically impossible.

Too Funny, F-16 drivers and fans defending the poor judgment of a poor pilot. Blaming the APG-68 radar for not seeing the vfr planes, funny but ok. So let's talk about his SA, If he is a halfway decent pilot I'll bet he had a pretty good idea where the rest of his flight was.

So when he was training OVER THE U.S. I'll bet he had an altimeter and airspeed indicator to tell him what his plane was doing. So when his hud read FL17 and an airspeed of 300...

Did he think the commies were invading? Of course he did! Who wouldn't? those damn tricky reds! so he had to run up and show Ivan his plan had been foiled.

You know why this made news? because the 99% of the responsible F-16, F-15, F-18 pilots know better.

Don't defend the Luke pilot. He made a mistake, he got called on the floor for it, end of story. You want fully restricted MOA's? Call your Congressman. Right now, they are not off limits. This isn't Freeway traffic, an F-16 pilot does something bad to a civilian airplane, the F-16 pilot ejects, the civ. pilot is dead. He did something stupid, he got reprimanded, that's that.

They got pulled over for being dumb and are now claiming "police brutality!".

During Red Flag 10-3 on the first Tuesday we had some bonehead in a GA aircraft flying around the Elgin MOA at 10,000 feet, smack dab in the middle of the recovery time. He somehow seemed surprised when ATC warned him of the dangers he was putting himself and everyone else in the MOA in. Now if I actually go ahead and believe that he had no clue what he got himself into, and that he was not just our for a sight seeing tour of the exercise, then this guy should have his ticket pulled for poor pre-flight planning. It would have been real easy for him to see the Elgin MOA on his chart, and would only take another minute to find the MOA hot times on the NOTAMS. Either way there is no reason a GA pilot needs to be in the MOA while it's hot. Where we are able to train has already been restricted enough and is only getting worse, with noise sensitive areas etc. the last thing we need is to have ten's of thousands of training dollars and flying hours wasted all becasue some GA pilot in his Mooney wants to take a shortcut getting to Vegas.

vegasdave901 wrote:

Don't defend the Luke pilot. He made a mistake, he got called on the floor for it, end of story. You want fully restricted MOA's? Call your Congressman. Right now, they are not off limits. This isn't Freeway traffic, an F-16 pilot does something bad to a civilian airplane, the F-16 pilot ejects, the civ. pilot is dead. He did something stupid, he got reprimanded, that's that.

Oh really vegas dave? Simple as that you say? What happens if the vipers were doing some BFM sets and one dude never sees the yutz plowing throught the MOA because he's pulling his cranium off of his stumpy neck at 8-9 Gs checkin' 6 and he plows into aforementioned GA knuckle-head and now viper guy is a mort?

It's not that simple. I can't tell you how many times I had to Knock It Off for some clueless GA guy plowing through a MOA with no clue as to what was happening around him.

Regards,

Horhay

Forum: F-16 News

Bad Press for Luke F-16 Driver