1_E3_AVI_ISSUE 1_magazine | Page 53

53 and do the WANTs check . Whatever it is to make sure you don ’ t find yourself in this situation . But ...
BOAT : But if you do . RAIN : What happens ?
BOAT : You ’ ve checked the NOTEMs , you ’ ve talked to air traffic control , and let ’ s just say you go Nordo ( aircraft flying without a radio ), so your radio quits . And you don ’ t have the awareness because you didn ’ t check the NOTAMs that you wanted to for where a TFR is and you find yourself in a TFR . So all along the way , hopefully , you ’ re talking with air traffic control . And for a TFR it ’ s a 30-mile ring and there ’ s a depiction of that here on the card as well . It ’ s an outer 30- mile ring , then an inner 10-mile ring . Inside of 30 miles , you can go inside of that , but you cannot go inside that 10-mile ring on the interior . So air traffic control , they ’ re going to try to get you to go someplace else if that was not what your flight plan was calling for .
And if they can ’ t get a hold of you on their regular frequency , they ’ re going to talk to you on 121 decimal five , the civilian guard frequency . And hopefully , they can reach you there . And if they still can ’ t reach you there and you ’ re still heading towards whatever it is they ’ re defending , then that ’ s the point at which they ’ re going to launch the intercept aircraft . And then they ’ re going to figure out how to deal with you and hopefully get you to visually move away from the thing that we ’ re trying to protect . And that means that on the backside of the card , you ’ re going to look at the intercept procedures itself and you ’ re going to expect a fighter aircraft to show up on your left-hand wing . It ’ s going to rock its wings and try to get your attention . And as long as it can get your attention and you can visually respond to it or then subsequently check back and talk on the radio frequency , they ’ re going to again reach out to you on 120 decimal five , you ’ ll resolve the issue .
And more times than not , they ’ re just going to let you go on your way because it ’ s probably an innocent mistake . But if you are Nordo ( aircraft flying without a radio ) and you can ’ t talk to them , then you ’ ve got to use the hand signals and the
visual identification signals on the card to put yourself in a good spot , we ’ ll say .
RAIN : So just real quick hit on this too , because you should see that fighter showing up in your left-hand wing . That ’ s going to look slightly different than what you ’ re used to . But it can escalate . Obviously , it can escalate quite quickly . But what are some of the next steps that guy or gal sitting in the jet next to you , if they are not getting if you ’ re not talking to a 121 five if you ’ re not responding to the walk or rocking the wings , what might you see that aircraft do ?
BOAT : Sure . So the initial thing is it ’ s going to get your attention , and then it ’ s going to turn in a direction either left or right . If it ’ s turning left , they want you to go left . If it turns right , they want you to go right . It ’ s pretty straightforward . If you don ’ t recognize they ’ re there , you ’ re too busy looking at something else , writing a checklist , whatever it is , not the end of the world . They ’ re probably going to come back and do another pass and try to do the exact same thing . This time , however , depending on how close you are to the thing they ’ re defending , they may put flares out there just to help get you to see it . And all of this is predicated on the fact that you ’ re VMC , that you can actually see out the window , you ’ re not in a cloud . If you ’ re in a cloud , obviously it ’ s a little bit different story , but let ’ s say you can still see it , you see them turn , you ’ re going to follow them .
They ’ re an F16 or an F15 , maybe an F22 or an F18 . You ’ re not going to be as fast as them , more than likely . And so all we want you to do is move your aircraft in that direction . Remain predictable . Safety is of utmost importance in all of these things . So if it ’ s unsafe for you to do so , then do what you can to get their attention . But yeah , we ’ d like you to follow and at that point , they ’ re going to lead you to a place to go land more often than not . At a minimum , it ’ ll be away from the thing we ’ re defending . And at that point , you ’ re just going to keep following them and just realize that there are typically two aircraft in those intercepts . There ’ s the one you see and then there ’ s one about three miles behind you that you don ’ t see .
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