Originally Posted by
Katamarino
For anyone who might read the above and believe it, it's important to note that it's complete nonsense. There's no more reason that every aircraft's real-time position should be available to every random idiot through a website than there would be for everybody's car to have mandated real-time publicly accessible tracking.
Other than cars operate at lower speed while restricted to marked roadways.
Originally Posted by
Mileometer
Ah.. ok. Yes, I misinterpreted what you wrote. But then the obvious question (to me) is one that asks why does a military helicopter ever need to be anywhere near an already busy civilian airport? Does the military actually use DCA? Or does it fly that close to (or across) DCA's flight paths for another reason? ... And is that reason a good one?
The same reason there is a commercial airport there at all... Important people enjoy the convenience of the close proximity to the nation's capital.
The helicopters are used to transport VIPs in and out of the capital, and those helicopter flights probably have actual operational needs that exceed even Congresscritter convenience.
(Or maybe not and the people who are able to take these military helicopter flights in and out of the capital are also exercising their own convenience flex.)
Edit to add: I believe I read in the coverage that there are something like 40-50 operators of helicopters in this airspace between military, law enforcement, and private companies ferrying VIPs from.the capital to DCA, IAD, Andrews and elsewhere.