Flight restrictions have been put into place around Bedminster, New Jersey, where President Donald Trump is spending his vacation.
That area includes a 10 mile circle in which no private planes can fly, and limited operations in a 30 mile zone.
That zone extends into parts into central New Jersey along with Bucks and Northampton counties in Pennsylvania.
Van Sant Airfield in Erwinna, Bucks County, is in that zone. It’s a museum of sorts, celebrating planes when they were made of wood and fabric.
The airfield’s bread-and-butter is open cockpit bi-plane rides.
But the 30 mile ring requires planes to have radios and a radar tracking device called a transponder. Most of Van Sant’s fleet, including its gliders, do not.
In fact, only three planes are so equipped.
They now must file a flight plan and the pilots of those three planes must leave the circle before they can do any sightseeing.
“And I am going to go by the rules and hopefully won’t make anybody upset, do it how want me to do it and see how it works,” said Flight Operations Manager Bar Eisenhauer.
Still, most of his fleet will be grounded.
He is asking the federal government for a waiver. He proposes a pie-shaped wedge of airspace that would allow planes without electrical systems to fly in and out of the ring.
“If I get a two mile wide corridor, shoot straight out, I can deal with it. If you give me 5,000 feet I can deal with it,” said Eisenhauer.
Eisenhauer made his request a month ago,
Article source: http://6abc.com/politics/headaches-over-flight-restrictions-for-trump-vacation/2276077/
