Moveable No Fly Zones

You arrive at the field ready to chase hamburgers, and the pre-flight goes well. Since you are only going a couple of cities over and the WX is clear and a million, you decide not to call for a weather briefing. That may be a problem. You can still take off but someday you may be spending quality time with law enforcement officials and the lawyer of your choice.

9-11 forever changed general and commercial aviation. One of the changes included the introduction of the temporary flight restriction (TFR) areas that can be activated with very little notification. They can be very confusing if you read the Notams in text format. Here is one for Washington D.C. Good luck with that. Since deadly force can be used if you violate a TFR the other options are a look at graphical TFR's which can be found in several places including AOPA or to call a flight service station. One thing you don't want to see is an F-15 out the side window which would oblige you to follow the intercept procedure. That would be the signal you flew into a moveable, prohibited, air space. Someone did today.

Two F-15s already in the airspace over the New York metropolitan area were sent to chase a plane that had wandered into a restricted flight area Monday, set up in connection with President Barack Obama's trip to New York City, an air defense official said… The aircraft left from the Central Jersey Airport in Hillsborough and returned to the airport before the jets reached it, he said.

Unfortunately, it gives all general aviation pilots a bad name when it happens.