Any restrictions on where one can fly?

R

rpa170

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,

Just a quick question: are there any restrictions you can fly if you're an ATC. Say if I got a corporate job out of my home airport which hypothetically was located in my facilities airspace...are there any restrictions on me flying there? I thought I heard once that there was, but it just seems kinda silly. Thanks!
 
Huh? Are you asking whether a air traffic controller who is also a pilot is allowed to fly in the airspace that his ATC facility controls?

There's (unless he's retired by now) a controller who commutes to work at RDU from Lake Ridge Aero (8NC8) in a Piper Tomahawk.
 
sfzpilot said:
Hi everyone,

Just a quick question: are there any restrictions you can fly if you're an ATC. Say if I got a corporate job out of my home airport which hypothetically was located in my facilities airspace...are there any restrictions on me flying there? I thought I heard once that there was, but it just seems kinda silly. Thanks!
Click to expand...

You have to be careful with the "corporate job" part of that but other than that their is no restrictions. Basically you can't use the position of ATC to assist in monetary gain or the appearance there of. Flying for a corporate outfit may be questionable, you'd have to check into it.

A couple controllers where I work own a newer C172 they fly around all the time in. A flight school uses it most of the time.
 
Ages ago, when I flew freight, we had a guy who was a tracon controller that they were going to promote to cp. FAA nixed it, saying he could be a line pilot, but not a cp as it might appear he was giving priority handling to company aircraft. He never did, but I guess they didn't want to deal with the inevitable accusations from competing companies.
 
For private flying, do whatever you want. Use of a Commercial certificate is a fine line. If you report it and get approval yes you can. Probably wouldn't have any resistance to using CFI privileges. Charter or freight gets more complicated. Having said that, I do know of a controller who has approval flying right seat in a corporate jet, which he does occasionally. I wouldn't imagine a full time controller doing anything close to a full time corporate gig though. As a controller you sometimes have to be careful to not make it look like you're in a position to benefit a private company (poorly worded on my part, but I think the point is fairly clear).
 
I haven't had to deal with it for a while, but at one time, the restriction was that any FAA employee, not just a controller, could not fly commercially in the area where they had authority. So, as an example, inspectors working at a FSDO might ferry aircraft, but they could not takeoff or land within the district they were assigned. For a controller, a tower controller just could not fly commercially from that airport. Back when the AFSS folks were employees, they couldn't fly commercially anywhere that their AFSS might brief. On top of that, any outside employment has to be approved by the designated ethics authority, typically a lawyer at region headquarters. Not all of them would give the same interpretation of the rules. Outside of that, there were some people who broke the rules intentionally or through ignorance above an beyond just bad guidance from management.
 
Castle have/had a cleveland center controller who flew part time for them. That would be in their airsapce.
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
Huh? Are you asking whether a air traffic controller who is also a pilot is allowed to fly in the airspace that his ATC facility controls?

There's (unless he's retired by now) a controller who commutes to work at RDU from Lake Ridge Aero (8NC8) in a Piper Tomahawk.
Click to expand...
Pretty sure he's retired. I didn't see that Tomahawk move once while I was at Lake Ridge in 2009.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top