Has Placed A Petition On The White House 'We The People' Website Focusing On Sporting Events, Presidential Visits

The Director of Operations at McMahon Helicopters in Canton, MI, has posted a petition on the White House "We The People" website in an effort to convince the government to reduce the size and duration of TFRs over sporting events and during Presidential visits.

The text of the petition reads:

"Sporting Event Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) prohibit aircraft flight operations within a 3 nautical mile radius of the venue. Every MLB, NFL, and NCAA Football games (with seating capacities 30,000 or greater) carry a TFR beginning one-hour prior to the event – extending to one-hour after the event. There are thousands of these TFRs annually costing aviation businesses millions of dollars in lost revenue. 3-nautical mile radius restrictions are large enough to blanket entire metropolitan areas – shutting down aviation business for the duration in every major market. Worse yet, Presidential TFRs create restrictions with a 30+ nautical mile radius around the President. This is thousands of square miles of airspace. TFRs need to be reduced SIGNIFICANTLY in size."

In a posting on the Pilots of America forum, which the person posting said was originally placed on another, unnamed forum, Nick McMahon said his company has lost an estimated $1 million in revenue because of TFRs. He said a Presidential VIP TFR can cover as much as 2,800 square miles, and that he has had to cancel work such as aerial photography both related and unrelated to sports events given the geographic footprint of the restricted areas .

McMahon said in the posting that AOPA and HAI both feel that it is a "dead issue," so he hopes to get enough signatures on his petition to open a dialogue in Washington.

FMI: http://wh.gov/Vexj