VC-25 (AF One) and F-16s do some sightseeing...

[Right Seat Driver]

Personally I take the opposite view that people need to calm down and stop freaking out and panicking over stuff like this. It's not the government's responsibility to inform everyone in the NYC area that a plane will be doing a photo op. Just my .02

"2"

[brickhistory]

Personally I take the opposite view that people need to calm down and stop freaking out and panicking over stuff like this. It's not the government's responsibility to inform everyone in the NYC area that a plane will be doing a photo op. Just my .02

Anti '2.'

It absolutely is in Big Blue's interest to not step on it's crank like this. Besides the impression of yahoo's with toys out for a joyride it gives, it also could have easily been avoided with just a little common sense.

Several years back, a former SAC guy died. The good was that a B-52 was fragged for the fly-by at Arlington. The bad news was that no one thought of the need to tell downtown DC.

Can you imagine the emotions of non-DoD folks (and believe it or not, that is the majority of DC) of seeing a big, noisy jet thundering low over the Pentagon?

9/11 redux...

Fortunately, the day prior to the event, the clue light came on and local media was alerted and the timing was much publicized.

Cars everywhere were stopped along the sides of the roads, bridges, etc, etc, to watch the mighty BUFF thunder by. It was a moment.

Same thing could have happened for this - the faux Air Force One with the green lady in the background would have been for NYC.

Now, I bet this photo never sees the light of day.

'Tards.

[WheelsOff]

I see your point, however I'm still keeping my ground on this one. The government has much bigger things to worry about. Neglecting to inform the general public that a plane would be doing a low pass by the SoL is trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Edited April 28, 2009 by dml02b

[brickhistory]

Ok, if it's not the government's responsibility to notify the local leadership (yeah, I know some podunk mayor's aid took the call) about a flight of a large government jet cruising in a non-standard way over one of our top two largest cities and the same one that experienced another period where large jets flew in a non-standard way that caused the really, really big hole in the ground in Manhatten, then who's is it?

I agree, however, that people should calm the f*ck down.

But the vast majority are sheep and to expect other behavior is just a disappointment in waiting.

[Guest Lockjaw25]

Let the finger pointing begin!

[BQZip01]

I'll bet there are multiple lawsuits in the works now. What's the over/under on the first one filed?

No bets here.

Anti '2.'

It absolutely is in Big Blue's interest to not step on it's crank like this. Besides the impression of yahoo's with toys out for a joyride it gives, it also could have easily been avoided with just a little common sense.

Several years back, a former SAC guy died. The good was that a B-52 was fragged for the fly-by at Arlington. The bad news was that no one thought of the need to tell downtown DC.

Can you imagine the emotions of non-DoD folks (and believe it or not, that is the majority of DC) of seeing a big, noisy jet thundering low over the Pentagon?

9/11 redux...

Fortunately, the day prior to the event, the clue light came on and local media was alerted and the timing was much publicized.

Cars everywhere were stopped along the sides of the roads, bridges, etc, etc, to watch the mighty BUFF thunder by. It was a moment.

Same thing could have happened for this - the faux Air Force One with the green lady in the background would have been for NYC.

Now, I bet this photo never sees the light of day.

'Tards.

...and that would make the photo completely worthless and would make even less sense...

Seriously, these folks need to lighten up. It's not like they didn't do any training the fact they combined a photo op in is miniscule part of the mission and a miniscule part of the $300,000

[189Herk]

Anyone else think it's ridiculous that they fly pro in a 747? Talk about a waste of money...I guess you could apply that to all non-tac airlift. Airlines don't practice landings...why do we??

[HERK_Nav]

Wow... so here is the solution to this act of "stupidy" and "investigation"

NOTAM

M0123/09 - MULTIPLE STUPID PEOPLE IN THE VICINITY OF NYC, 51000 FEET

MSL AND BELOW. 28 APR 13:17 2009 UNTIL THEY GROW UP. CREATED: 11 MAR 13:08

2009

TFR

FDC 9/1234 - NY.. FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS

ALL OF NYC EFFECTIVE 0100 UTC TO 0000 UTC

DAILY IMMEDIATELY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION

91.137(A)(2) TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ARE IN EFFECT WITHIN A 200

NAUTICAL MILE RADIUS OF 40.689201355N/74.0447998047W AT AND BELOW 51000

FEET MSL TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR OVER ZELIOUS PUBLIC AND POLITICIANS

OPERATIONS. PROVIDE INFORMATION SERVICE SYSTEM OF FREEDOM FRIENDS (PISSOFF)

555-555-1212 NO ONE IS IN CHARGE OF THE OPERATION. NEW YORK/ZAB/

ARTCC TELEPHONE 555-222-1212 IS THE FAA COORDINATION FACILITY. WIE UNTIL UFN.

CREATED: 27 APR 22:10 2009

Maybe we should stop all fire and police runs in the city as well? The sirens might scare someone.

Not insensitive to the events just tired of everyone needing a "hug" and being told they're special.

'

Oh ya and this isn't a new concept we have flown over the city for numerious "Photo Ops" both pre and post 9/11.

Edited April 29, 2009 by HERK_Nav

[PapaJu]

Although the general substance of this link was covered in a link someone posted above, I'll provide the CNN story just due to the immense amount of FAIL in what members of the public were quoted as saying:

https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/28/low...lane/index.html

[Guest PerArduaAdAstra]

This can all be summed up fairly simply.

Tell everyone what is going on so all the tourists, NY news organizations and the good people of the big apple can go out and photograph this great symbol of American freedom and military power as it overflies Lady Liberty and Ground Zero = Really good publicity

Keep it quiet and make sure that it stays quiet = Really, really f**king bad publicity.

Easy choice in my fairly worthless opinion.

[StoleIt]

Anyone else think it's ridiculous that they fly pro in a 747? Talk about a waste of money...I guess you could apply that to all non-tac airlift. Airlines don't practice landings...why do we??

Airline pilots fly about 3 times a week....and they don't carry POTUS around.

AF1 can't afford to make a bad landing. Every landing they make has to be text book perfect, not because POTUS will be pissed if they spill his drink, but rather its the social/quazi-diplomatic impact that could be had by watching AF1 bounce down the runway 4 times.

[OverTQ]

In 04 I was lead in a flight of AH-64's flying back from Ft Drum. I thought it would be cool to take the VFR corridor through NY. I was surprised and appalled by what I heard on the radio. I guess no of the many helios there though were monitoring the freq. But amount of disdain and pure venom caught me off guard. I waited until I had heard enough then I reported my point and let them know we had been monitoring the whole time. The rat F*&ks didn't say another word until we checked off.

[Hacker]

I urge all of us who fly military airplanes into the state of NY to absolutely inundate Chuck Schumer's and Mike Bloomberg's office with calls notifying them that we are going to fly in their state. Make it part of the standard WANTS check.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Hacker

[Spoo]

In a related subject - Rwy 15/33 at Reagan National. Traffic flies directly over the Pentagon @ about 200-500'. Walking out to the parking lot you always see visitors stop dead in their tracks, watching in horror...

Now over on Rwy 19 you fly the river visual down the Potomac. If you fly off course over downtown DC I think they shoot you down. I don't know where I'm going with this one...I guess you want to be on the east side of the river when shit goes down. Ever notice when people talk about 9/11 you only hear about the WTC?

I hate people.

EDIT: By people I mean John Q. Public...especially A-hole Virginia drivers who don't give you "the wave" when you let them merge into traffic, people who can't tell an M-1 Abrams from an F-22, people who think banning guns will do a fncking thing to stop crime, or people that don't use their turn signal - EVER. WTF do they think that little lever is for?!? You know...People? Get the idea?

Edited April 29, 2009 by Spoo

[TacAirCoug]

I hate people.

You could have stopped right there and I'd have been fine with it.

[Spoo]

You could have stopped right there and I'd have been fine with it.

Thanks, but I got all pissed off and needed to vent before the really cool 1400 Staff Meeting.

Just shoot me.

[Guest Lockjaw25]

Tell everyone what is going on so all the tourists, NY news organizations and the good people of the big apple can go out and photograph this great symbol of American freedom and military power as it overflies Lady Liberty and Ground Zero = Really good publicity

Keep it quiet and make sure that it stays quiet = Really, really f**king bad publicity.

Exactly. Now we are seeing the "pricetag" of this flight displayed all over the place and it is all being attributed/linked to us, as in USAF. I know it was a training flight, you know it was a training flight, but the news mentions it almost as a snarky aside. All it would have taken to prevent this is an announcement.

Instead, now John Q. Public thinks we just wasted a massive amount of money but doing low fly-bys with AF One over Lower Manhattan, and because there wasn't an announcement of this, people freaked out. Quite understandably in some cases. There are legitimate cases of PTSD, and there will be triggers. I knew two Vietnam vets of 1st Air Cav who got flashbacks because of firework sounds...so they didn't go to displays, or if they did, they at least knew what to expect. I know a guy who was in "the pit" on the 11th and afterwards, who now can't stand flying. I'm sure there are a lot more.

All it would have taken is a simple friggin press release. Doesn't have to include exact altitudes, exact times, aircraft specs, etc. Is that so hard?

[Ill Destructor]

Let the finger pointing begin!

From the article: "That includes $300,658 for the larger plane, which flew a three-hour mission, and about $28,178 for the F-16 jets, which flew 1.8 hours each, Stein said in an e-mailed statement."

Man... If only the public knew how much we spent on paper and toner. Then they'd REALLY be pissed!

[HercDude]

In 04 I was lead in a flight of AH-64's flying back from Ft Drum. I thought it would be cool to take the VFR corridor through NY. I was surprised and appalled by what I heard on the radio. I guess no of the many helios there though were monitoring the freq. But amount of disdain and pure venom caught me off guard. I waited until I had heard enough then I reported my point and let them know we had been monitoring the whole time. The rat F*&ks didn't say another word until we checked off.

Never been VFR in NYC . . . so what were they saying?

[OverTQ]

Never been VFR in NYC . . . so what were they saying?

Lots of snide remarks about what we are doing here what we thought we were doing. I waited until one guy called us a Cobra. I then came on with a check in for the report point and said by the way, we are Apaches. Lots of silence after that. Being low level rotor scum I thought they would have a military background. Not so.

[60 driver]

Lots of snide remarks about what we are doing here what we thought we were doing. I waited until one guy called us a Cobra. I then came on with a check in for the report point and said by the way, we are Apaches. Lots of silence after that. Being low level rotor scum I thought they would have a military background. Not so.

Now I ask you - what kind of communist homo flies helicopters and doesn't like to see a 4 ship of Apaches?

Off topic, but your story reminded me of a flight near Kandahar a few years ago - except your part was played by my 2 ship of HH-60's and the snide civilians were played by, coincidentally, a couple of AH-64 guys. Pretty similar exchange.

We were just switching over to the range freq, we heard "...and watch out for the f***ing air force guys, they like to fly around with their lights off, and they never talk on the radio."

"Uh...Jolly 21 flight of two copy all, checking in three to the south, visual you."

- crickets -

We'd just swapped out with another unit, so who knows, they might have been right - still funny though.

[Butters]

I heard the reason for all the secrecy was Obama was fling one of the F-16s. Incentive ride or something!

Edited April 29, 2009 by Butters

[Guest Hueypilot812]

Lots of snide remarks about what we are doing here what we thought we were doing. I waited until one guy called us a Cobra. I then came on with a check in for the report point and said by the way, we are Apaches. Lots of silence after that. Being low level rotor scum I thought they would have a military background. Not so.

No, most of the Helos in and around NYC are either law enforcement, executive, sight-seeing or ENG (electronic news gathering). My dad used to work for a company that did leases for ENG aircraft to news stations, and some of their work was in NYC. Most of the pilots that worked for him did NOT have a military background...they did the civilian ratings route, taught as a CFI in R22s and then got hired by companies like my father's. And with the little bit I know about NYC, there's a general disdain for all things military throughout much of the city.

I used to think that most civilian-trained pilots would think a lot like us military guys, but I've been finding that's not the case. One of my best friends went the civi route and I've hung out with his friends (mostly 121 regional guys), and many of them have a huge chip on their shoulder...I've found that some of them feel we were "handed" our flying careers while they had to work to get theirs. Also, I've noticed that an increasing number of them not only dislike military pilots for a perception of not earning their careers, they also clash politically...there's a growing number of civilian pilots that are very uber liberal. A lot of the people I met through my friend are diehard Obama fans and think the war in Iraq is illegal and immoral, and that military pilots are a bunch of hotheaded morons that aren't well trained...I was pretty shocked at some of the attitudes I've seen.

[snoopyeast]

Leaked picture of the flyby.

[brickhistory]

OUT-F*CKING-STANDING!!!

Edited April 29, 2009 by brickhistory