My plane is now in the NYC ADIZ and I was thinking about doing a little VFR flying this weekend. From those who have been flying in the ADIZ has ATC been able to keep up with demand? Are there delays in getting squawk codes or communicating with ATC?
Thanks for any input or tips that you may have.
Larry - N171CD
flew yesterday from CDW and got code in two minutes…coming back while in the air took about 5 minutes of standby.
sgg
In reply to:
My plane is now in the NYC ADIZ and I was thinking about doing a little VFR flying this weekend. From those who have been flying in the ADIZ has ATC been able to keep up with demand? Are there delays in getting squawk codes or communicating with ATC?
Thanks for any input or tips that you may have.
In the Washington ADIZ, I have been lucky on some occasions and gotten a clearance in under 5 minutes.
I have also been unlucky and had to wait 25-30 minutes for a clearance sometimes.
If departing from an airport within the ADIZ, it helps a LOT if your airport has a tower or at least an RCO. I tried to fly out of an airport with only a GCO (where it dials the phone to contact clearance), and it was hell. Continuous busy signal for about a half hour.
As for coming in, I have heard some people have to hold and remain clear for a while due to workload.
If you are IFR rated and current, I would suggest filing IFR and then cancelling outside of the ADIZ. There have been several times when ATC has said “All VFR departures, call me back in 15 minutes - we’re working IFRs as fast as we can…” and allowed only IFR traffic to depart.
Things seem to have improved over the last few weeks, though - I think at least in DC they are starting to staff more ATC clearance folks.
Steve