GA Pilot Escorted Away From Discovery Launch Zone

I don't necessarily see it as a waste of money. An overreaction, maybe. But who the hell in Florida doesn't know when there is a shuttle launch? You can't turn on the TV, look at a paper or listen to the radio when there is a shuttle launch. Then throw in the fact that its the first shuttle launch in 2.5 years, first one since a major NASA disaster and the most watched launch in history and you have a pilot that was obviously living in a cave.

Plus, the F-16's were already patrolling in the air, it's not like they had to scramble them to intercept. It also sounds like they didn't even rush to get over there so I doubt there was much extra fuel wasted.

Though how do you come up with the 19 mintues for 20 miles? If the cub was going 65 MPH, and it took the jets 19 minutes to close the 20 miles to the cub, they were only going @55-60 mph more than the cub. 120 MPH in a F-16?
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Don't think so.
 
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Though how do you come up with the 19 mintues for 20 miles? If the cub was going 65 MPH, and it took the jets 19 minutes to close the 20 miles to the cub, they were only going @55-60 mph more than the cub. 120 MPH in a F-16?
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Don't think so.

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The Cub had to penetrate the 40 mile barrier and then was intercepted at the 20 Mile point. Assuming the cub was heading DIRECTLY for the launch site (which I doubt, but makes for easy math) the cub traveled 20 miles before being intecepted... at 65 MPH...

20 Miles/65 MPH = .307 hours converted to minutes... roughly 19 minutes.

SO from the time the cub entered the TFR zone until it got intercepeted was 19 minutes... easy math...

and it was a waste of money... the entire country is wasting money. This is just one example. Why have a 40 nm TFR anyway... money wasted setting up the TFR, enforcing the TFR and it still didn't necessarily do any good.

Now they are going to waste money tracking down this cub pilot, who had no chance whatsoever of getting any where NEAR the launch site, and use this as another reason to destroy GA and the aviation industry.
 
Cause we all know terrorist will stop since there's a TFR in place......

As far as easily knowledge of the shuttle, there were a LOT of times living in ORL that I didn't know the shuttle was going up until I got to the airport and saw all the TFR signs at the flight school. Even then, they don't broadcast the dimensions or the existance of a TFR on the news. "And for all you GA pilots out there, be aware......." Yeah, the guy SHOULD have gotten a briefing before launching, but if the guy gets up at 9 AM, drives to the airport, wheels his Cub out of the hangar and takes off for a pleasure flight at about 1,200 ft in good weather, I can definately see how he wouldn't know about the TFR. Not everyone turns on the news in the morning.
 
It's one thing if you just screw up and bust a TFR. It's another thing entirely if you go and say, now that I'm in trouble, I'm going to try to hide everything.

That's the part that bothers me.
 
Oh yeah, not saying the guy shouldn't be in trouble. Just saying how easy it is to not know about the TFR if you have your own plane and have poor flight planning habits.
 
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Oh yeah, not saying the guy shouldn't be in trouble. Just saying how easy it is to not know about the TFR if you have your own plane and have poor flight planning habits.

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Kind of like how easy it is to run your plane out of gas if you have poor fuel usage planning, eh?
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