I live about an hour east of Richmond, where the plane was escorted. I don't know if this was on the national networks, but on the local news at noon today, they had video of the plane departing RIC on its way back home. They said after the investigation was complete, the FBI determined it was a complete accident, and no charges or reprocussions would come of it. Good to hear, for our sake as pilots.

I dont know about you, but I think I would request flight following anyways while flying in such an area. Isn't a transponder pretty much standard on a 182 these days?

What I want to know is how a f-16 can escort a cessna?:)

LOL... Thats exactly what I was thinking. Must have been some pretty scary high speed fly-by's is all I can envision. http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

Thats great to hear. I'm glad they didn't invoke the horrendous "enemy combattant" statute and keep him without question for any amount of time they wished without charges! Obvious why they didn't of course, but you never know in these strange days...Thanks for the update, http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

As an update, it seems the F16's didn't intercept the Cessna until 15-20 minutes beyond its "one to two mile" pass over the White House:Plane intercept near White House not timelyhttp://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/20/plane.intercept/index.htmlAgain, it was an accident by the pilot, but this shows how lax the security around Washington still is post 911. If they're not going to have tight security - why have any at all? Doesn't make sense to me.Evidently there have been "about a dozen violations of restricted air space around the White House since September 11", but this one was different because the pilot wasn't monitoring and didn't respond to emergency freq. contact. Not only did he transgress restricted airspace - but prohibited as well. Ouch. FAA, here I come.http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

True. Also, much of the resulting damage to the warships was caused by their own fuel and munitions which were set on fire by the Kamikaze aircraft.

Hi.>>They said after the investigation was complete, the FBI determined it was a complete accident, and no charges or reprocussions would come of it. Good to hear, for our sake as pilots. << FBI may not do anything, but you will not get away with it as far as FAA is concerned. You cannot get away with these types of mistakes. If you do not know where you are, in the Airspace, you belong on the ground, period. He will be lucky if he gets away with remedial training and a 2 year blemish on his record and rightly so. TV

Yes, I am also curious about the technique used to escort a C182. Can anyone definitively tell me what the stall speed of an F16 is?

>I disagree, fighter aircraft in WW2 were quite a bit bigger >than cessnas. They weighed a lot more and carried a lot more >fuel. They also had much more payload capability. A cessna >can only carry maybe anywhere from 500lbs to maybe 750lbs >and that is including the passengers. The reason the >Kamikaze aircraft did so much damage was mostly from the >bomb they carried on their belly. A cessna could never fly >with such a load. A cessna 152 only weighs 1100lbs total!! >less than most cars! This aircraft was a 182 but still not >very heavy. >D. Griner With my accurate flight models I can find pretty well just how an AC flies overloaded. I set my C172 1000 lbs overweight (to 3500 lb gross) and it still had better climb than at 10,000 ft with the normal load. With low fuel and only a suicide pilot one could easily carry 1,500 lb of ammonium nitrate. Nearly one ton. With a low pitch prop one could optimise thrust to do even better. A quick calculation suggests about 4900 lbs would be the limit of level flight with an optimum prop and 150 HP engine. That leaves 3300 lb payload past 10 gal of fuel and a pilot. Pick a day below 59 F and higher Barometer and one could even climb. I knew a guy from Thailand that once was in a group thinking of using an RC AC to get the leader. Ron

I guarantee its a great deal higher than normal cruise speed of the 182