We’ve had twenty new Blue Sky members join the club in the past four years. These new members may not be familiar with the Blue Sky Shuffle. It’s a new dance (actually, same as the old dance) but we could be doing the shuffle as soon as Jan 20.
When the President comes to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, the presidential TFR goes into place. It has an inner (no fly) ring with a 10NM radius that blankets N51 and closes it completely. In fact, the Secret Service leases space on the airport and uses it as a Command Post. It’s not unusual to see a pop-up radar facility and a few Ospreys there.
Now to the dance steps…Central Jersey 47N is just outside the “no-go” inner ring, so when a TFR happens we move all three planes to 47N. We’ve always had sufficient warning of a coming TFR and prior to the beginning, we notify the membership of the relocation and where you can find our planes tied down at 47N. The club often needs help getting the planes relocated. “It takes two to tango”, so if you’re able to help out with a repositioning flight, you usually need a dance-partner to drive or fly you in one direction.
47N is in the outer ring (30NM radius) where flight is permitted with certain restrictions. The airport is so close to the inner ring that the traffic pattern for RW07 is shifted to the south side (right traffic). There are a number of rules that dictate flight ops inside this outer ring e.g. no training, maneuvering, loitering, touch and go’s etc – basically you can fly in and you can fly out. You also need to squawk and talk to ATC. Easy enough and should not deter anyone from flying.
How long do these TFRs last? Depends. Often they are only for a long weekend but they could be as long as a week or two around holidays. When they expire, we do the dance once again – the Blue Sky Shuffle.
Separately…there is a FAAST sponsored webinar coming up, next Wednesday 1/15, that qualifies for WINGS credit and should cover everything you need to fly in and out of the outer ring.
