In the US, you can get shockingly very far without having to chat with ATC.
Well, most people. :)
There's no "requirement" that pilots announce their intentions on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports, some aircraft may not even have radios.
Really the only way to handle this is to put your plane in a locked hanger or chain it to the ground with a lock and then pay for whatever flight tracker that will alert you whenever a specific tail number is in the air. Follow it and then call whatever local police when it lands.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/l4k9he/douglas_ad...
Edit: also this version of the biscuit story is missing the final extra flavor text! The version I read ended something like, “What I love about this tragedy is that there is another bloke who has been telling the exact same story about an insane person stealing their biscuits. Except his version does not end on the punchline.”
Seems plausible that something like that may be going on here
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Interestingly, airplanes can also get repossessed. Special pilots get all the legal paperwork arranged and just show up and fly a plane out.
I suppose the high skill needed means that most pilots wouldn't want to steal airplanes, and it would not make sense to steal any airplane that needs special support from the manufacturer (the new owner can't keep it flying). Cars are much lower skill to steal and maintain and have a much broader market.
Flying one in a safe manner and following all the rules can be pretty difficult however. For example there is an area near me that is from the air as boring as any other part of Texas. It's controlled airspace because it is the Bush Family Ranch. The secret service will investigate you if you fly over it.
You can also easily get yourself killed through a stall/spin, flying into IMC/bad weather, etc.
A lot of pilot training is how to plan for weather, check performance, handle emergencies, and not create chaos for everyone else.
1. Landing.
2. Knowing what to do when things go wrong. Any time you read about jets avoiding near collisions, landing in heavy crosswinds, landing safely after engine failure, etc etc, you have many checklists and years of rigorous training to thank for that.
But seriously, there are lots of airplanes sitting on ramps for months at a time with no security so it's a minor miracle it doesn't happen more often.
At the uncontrolled community airport I got my PPL at there were a few pilots who were known to have expired medical certificates and long expired flight reviews flying planes that they owned that hadn't had an annual inspection in years. All older guys who had nothing to lose if the FAA found out and grounded them.
I'm not sure why the owner of that aircraft doesn't setup an alert for it's tail number on one of the many aviation tracking sites. Call the airport management, police or local FBO once he sees it on approach to land at some airport.
That said how is the airport not doing something about this? They just keep letting it happen?
Maybe that's too far in a rural area for this conversation though.
It's not so easy to land a plane in real life, even if you have a lot of flightsim experience. It is definitely possible and there are people who have done it, but I don't think it's the norm. A lot of flying, especially landing, involves sensory inputs. Additionally, replacing the battery in that Cessna probably requires taking the cowling off. Not properly securing the battery or cowling may result in a bad time if something comes loose. Once again, doable, but you can do as quickly as you can with a car.
> I know literally nothing about flying. How does this work? Wouldn't the air traffic controllers see it on radar and try to radio it then call in the military (I've probably watched too many movies.)? Always blows my mind when I hear this kind of stuff in this day and age.
If you takeoff from an uncontrolled airport and stay clear of controlled and restricted airspace you don't have to say a single thing on any radio and no one will care about you. The controllers would see the blip on their radars but there's no requirements to check in with them (although it's generally a good idea) so they'll mostly keep other aircraft who they are talking to away from you.
Now, if you do fly into controlled airspace near an airport with a tower without talking to anyone, things will change. A slight excursion into the controlled airspace for a short time may go unnoticed, but the more blatant and prolonged the deviation, the larger the response will be. Fly into LAX's airspace and get in the way of their flights and you'll eventually get a visit from some friendly fighter jets. (There are some exceptions. For instance, there's a few narrow corridors through LAX's airspace that don't require talking to ATC. One of those corridors even goes directly over LAX's runways at a few thousand feet.)
Before those electronic methods became ubiquitous pilots used paper charts and references and used ground references, pilotage and navigation aids to determine their position on that paper map. For instance, here's the complex airspace around the aircraft owner's home airport. https://skyvector.com/?ll=33.897663018511054,-117.6024627647...
I dunno where I'd put it on the difficulty scale of things, but with lots of flight sim experience, it seems you're a lot better equipped than others. I've landed a Cessna, and I'm not a pilot, just eager enthusiast with some flight sim experience over many years. The person co-piloting/supervising told me I did great, and that he only allowed me to land the plane because I demonstrated proficiency in the air. I wouldn't say it's "hard", probably I'd have more trouble with finding and replacing the battery than the actual flying part.
For example, ATC might give an altitude restriction for safety: “Cessna 123AB, maintain VFR at or below three thousand for crossing traffic.” Observing this restriction is important, but staring at the altimeter will likely result in the heading wandering all over the place and ironically even a tendency to over-control altitude that may cause wandering up and down. The proper way to execute it is to learn what the level sight picture looks like, put the nose there, trim for straight-and-level flight, and occasionally peek at the altimeter and VSI to confirm that it’s staying there. If the pilot gets distracted, say looking down at an iPad for a bit, look outside first to get back on heading if necessary, check the instruments (“take a picture with your mind”), and make small adjustments to get back to where it should be.
ATC operates on lots of buffers. For a restriction of three thousand, that crossing traffic is likely to be at 4,000 or higher.
If you're someone that has enough land to make a strip and can afford the plane, you'd be amazed at what you can "get away" with out the anyone of authority noticing.
Written by a guy who actually lived on the islands where this was happening (where I also happen to live).
You'd think maybe the DEA, ATF, FBI and/or FAA would find enough interest in this to operate some level of sting operation or crack down.
My understanding was you cannot fly without filing a flight plan (or is this just a Canada-specific thing?), and that flight plan has to be submitted by someone, so there has to be a trail here. If the plans were not filed, after all, how would he be able to tell the plane was flown "multiple times" during one of this extended absences?
Flying home one day he found himself flanked by two fighter jets and escorted to the nearest commercial airport. He was hustled into the back of a black SUV and taken to his home where is family was gathered in the living room giving statements to a bunch of men in suits. Turns out the POTUS was is town for a visit, and my friends father had failed to read the temporary flight restriction advisory..
On the other hand you can't enter Clasa B airspace (the airspace around large airports) without permission from ATC. You also can't fly above 18,000ft in the US under VFR. That keeps small planes mostly away from the big jets.
In the U.S., ATC does not receive VFR flight plans (except for the weird special case of the D.C. SFRA, but even those are filed as IFR flight plans), only Search and Rescue. Flying in instrument conditions requires being on an IFR flight plan.
… someone can without anyone ringing any alarm bells and not phasing the local law enforcement one bit - take off multiple times unnoticed and unidentified on a private plane, and, if they choose to, fly it straight into a freshly refueled jet that I am sitting in waiting to take off.
Shhh, hope “terrorists” don’t read this comment. Or the article in LA Times.
General aviation, in the U.S. at least, runs largely on the honor system. To fly in controlled airspace these days, ADS-B out is required, and there are definitely records of where people go
Maybe they have a similar plane and simply thinks that plane is there own.
pinewurst•3h ago