FRZ Thaw

I recently came across an article about one man's journey to obtain clearance to fly into the FRZ, the Flight Restricted Zone around our nation's capitol, AKA the "Freeze". It was inspirational and disheartening at the same time. Inspirational in that it was the impetus and information that myself and a friend of mine needed to push us over the edge to want to obtain the clearance. Disheartening in that our country has changed so much in such a short period of time. One can literally see our freedoms slipping away one by one at the hands of so many lawyers, hiding behind the guise of a politician. This aside, the fact that there remains an avenue to fly to a general aviation airport close to our nations capital is a small triumph of a few determined people navigating the political maze of irrationality.

The FRZ is roughly a 13-15 nm ring around the DCA vortac (look here on the bottom of page 2 for a detailed explaination of the ring boundaries) and is a highly restricted area of flight to purported by the TSA as necessary protect many of the strategic buildings. Needless to say the necessity of this "protective zone" has been debated, and outright ridiculed, by many in the aviation industry with some arguing that you can still rent a truck, pack it with -name-your-choice-of-explosive- and park it in front of any of these buildings. In spite of this, the truck rental business have seen no regulation or oversight at all. However this post is not put forth to continue that debate, rather it seeks to inform pilots who are willing to jump through the TSA's hoops and play their game in order to gain access to the three, still operational, airports inside the ring, AKA the DC-3.

The DC-3 are comprised of Potomac, Hyde Field, and College Park. All are with in an easy drive to downtown DC (notwithstanding the traffic) and the train into DC is within a 2 minute walk from College Park (the train ride taking another 10-15 minutes). College Park has the distinction of being the world's oldest continually operated airport. My understanding of the history of letting GA flyers gain access back to these venerable airports stems in large part to the efforts of Potomac's Dave Wartofsky. I do not know what strings were pulled or governmental bearucratic mazes he and others navigated, however, speaking for myself and possibly on behalf of all other GA pilots who enjoy flying to the DC area, a heartfelt thank you.

So I suppose the real question is, why. Why would anyone subject themselves to FAA and TSA scrutiny only for the privilege of being able to fly into the FRZ and land at one of the three airports? Well for one reason, they are all really, really close to DC. College Park in particular, you can literally, land, walk about 2 minutes across the road to the metro station, and take the train right into the heart of DC, about a 10 minute ride for about $7. Pretty convenient. Also, I suppose there is the opportunity to see some pretty cool sights from the air as long as you stay clear of the myriad of restricted and prohibited areas. My understanding is that fuel is very reasonably priced at these airports as well.

At any rate, with a good sense of the process, much of it gleaned from the article mentioned above and the College Park website, a good friend and fellow pilot, Greg, and I decided to take the FRZ challenge, drive to DC, and obtain our super secret decoder ring pin codes. The College Park website is a real treat and literally walks you through all of the steps to take including things like which hallway to walk down at National, when to turn left, what door to walk through, etc. Armed with the information, our pilot certificates, medicals, logbooks, passports, driver licenses, checkbooks, filled out PIN code request forms, and anything else we could think of that might be requested, we saddled up in my old pickup, and headed East.

First stop was the FAA's Baltimore Flight Standards District Office (FSDO). Greg has wisely called ahead an set up an appointment to meet with a gentleman who could take a look at our paper work. The office is located in a non-descript office park just off of route 97. We walked into the "lobby", a small 5'x10' room and rang the bell. After waiting a few minutes a our contact opened the side door and introduced himself. After a bit of small talk he disappeared with our driver licenses, logbooks and pilot certificates. He came back about 5 minutes later and said we were good to go and that he had entered our data in "the computer", and that his role was just to verify that we were in reality, pilots.

Next stop was the TSA where we were to be fingerprinted. What we ended up doing was driving from the FSDO office to College Park, talking to the guys at College Park a bit, and then taking the train to the station closest to Reagon National. This travel plan was Greg's idea and I have to say it worked out quite well. It is quite easy as there is only one transfer, and then train takes you right to the airport. Simply put you take the Green line from College Park-U of Maryland to L'Enfant Plaza and transfer the the Yellow line and go three stops to Reagan National.

Once at Reagan, we followed College Park's fantastic step-by-step directions to the TSA office for fingerprinting. It just so happened that at the TSA fingerprinting office their electronic fingerprinting machine was down. That literally could have ended our escapade however the lady running the office that day was a real champ and called the local police department to ask them if they could fingerprint us the old fashioned ink and paper way. They obliged and off we treked for about 15 minutes including a short bus ride to the other side of the airport to get fingerprinted. Once we located the office, the person who did the fingerprinting for the local police there got us in and out in about 1/2 hour or so. Back at the TSA office, the nice lady there took our fingerprint forms from the police station, put her magic mark on the pin issuance form told us where to pay our $27 and that was pretty much it.

We then had a quick lunch at the Reagan airport and hopped on the metro again to go back to College Park to give them our completed form and proof of payment. After that step, and poking around College Park airport a bit, we were done. We got back in the car and jammed on home back to Pittsburgh just beating the notorious DC beltway traffic. About a week or so later I got a phone call from College Park where they gave me my super secret password to file to fly into the FRZ. All in all a pretty quick and painless process. It's sad that we have to go through this at all, but a least the good folks at the DC-3 have figured out a way to visit their wonderful airports again.

Below are some helpful links for getting through the process:

Airports:
College Park
Potomac
Washington Executive - Hyde Field

If you will be flying into College Park, there is the direct link to their instructions:
http://www.collegeparkairport.org/vetting.html

Here's a link to Hyde Field's step-by-step instructions:
http://www.hydefield.com/transhowto.htm

AOPA's official writeup:
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2007/070726adiz-advisory.pdf

Into the Deep FRZ article
http://www.aopa.org/flightplanning/articles/2008/081222deepfrz.html?WT.mc_id=081226epilot&WT.mc_sect=sap

Application for PIN issuance - Maryland Three Airports
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/pin_issuance_form_1108.pdf

FAA Issues DC Special Flight Rules Area Final Rule
On December 16, 2008, FAA issued a final rule converting the Washington,
DC, Metropolitan Area Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) into the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA). The rule became effective on February 17, 2009. The rule requires all pilots who operate within 60 nautical miles (nm) of the DC SFRA to receive special awareness training, which is available online at FAASafety.gov. If you have already taken the training you will not have to take it again. The rule states that it is a one-time requirement. However, FAA strongly recommends that pilots operating under VFR within 60 nm of the DCA VOR/DME review the online course from time to time. The course will be updated to be consistent with the Special Flight Rules Area final rule. The final rule may be viewed at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-29711.pdf.