COMMENTARY     FRIDAY 1-17-03
Welcome to 2003!

SFAR 94 EXPIRES,  NOT - Yes, SFAR 94 technically expires on Feb 13th.  The Feds need help in fixing what's broken within it; and lacking guidance may simply renew ' the document' as published for another two years.

IT WILL BE FIXED ANYWAY - For various reasons I am confident, exclusive of the 'transient' issue, that these matters can be dealt with outside the standard public procedural FAA SFAR/NOTAM process; a process which was neither designed for nor is well-equipped today to deal with these kinds of issues.  (See the UNCLASSIFIED link).  I offer as evidence SFAR 94; a well-intentioned bureaucratic miss-fired first try at something new; nothing more, nothing less.

IMPACT - Potomac originally lost some based pilots, but has since picked up quite a few.  On 9-11, like many others, we initially got the wind knocked out of our sails, but we have since brushed off and are now standing again.  Our commercial tenants that could adapt are also doing okay.  

We continue to pick up the most interesting assortment of based friends and associates you could imagine coming to and from Washington DC (!)

PILOT CLEARANCES - As became apparent during the initial clearance process, many of our pilots had already 'vacated their privacy' in having prior security clearances from their day jobs (ahem); so this weird quasi-military clearance is just another clearance.  Some bits are smart, some bits not.

SECURITY PROCEDURES - For cleared pilots the airspace clearance procedures are little more than any 'ol IFR clearance, with a twist.  No heavy lifting, no big deal.

As a pilot myself, personally and regularly using the TFR clearance process, in addition to listening to our many users, the air-traffic stuff is easy if you know what you are doing, IFR or VFR.  

If you can handle a simple IFR clearance, or ever hope to be able to, then these steps are a cakewalk.

FLIGHT TRAINING - Potomac continues to have private training (yes, even they get cleared), almost all are military, and Potomac students get to make some interesting logbook entries; "Flew combat IFF procedures first time today, was 'sorta fun."

More coming as I can.  

Enjoy!

David Wartofsky