TXPR Border Crossing

[Warren Montgomery]

This is long but the subject was bounced around here a while back without resolution.
Warren


TSA Closes Border to 'Terrorist' Canadian
Aeronca Champ

Land of the Free Has New, Unknown, Inflexible Rules,
Outside FAA's Vision

By Lauren (L. J.) Lee

It still seems insane: a Monty
Python-esque nightmare; a dark
passage through the twilight zone of
US bureaucratic hell.

On August 1, 2002, I was told I could not cross the US border back into
Canada after my annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh. It took five hours,
dozens of phone calls, and finally, some nut-squeezing from
Washington to get me out of the land of the free.

I was flying my 1947
Aeronca L-16, the military
version of the popular
7AC Champ. It doesn't
have electrics. It doesn't
have a transponder. The
authorizations for
no-transponder
operations are all there in
the FARs, though I've
often had to advise ATC
and FSS where to find
them:

FAR 91.215.b.3, in
very simple terms,
allows aircraft with
no engine-driven electrics or transponder to penetrate 30 NM
Mode C veils, but not the upside down wedding cakes.
FAR 91.215.d.3, again in very simple terms, gives ATC units the
power to authorize no-transponder flight in airspace they control.

I'd already crossed the border under these rules several times this
summer, talking to ATC all the way, with clearance and without incident.
August 1 would be different.