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- Jun 28, 2016
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Hey doods!
So every year the FAA issues TFR's during the International Balloon Fiesta, which is hosted in my home town of Albuquerque, N.M. I personally use faa.gov for NOTAMS because I know this information is accurate. So just for grins I went to DJI's "Fly Safe" page to see if their NFZ information matched the FAA's. It's not even close.
Check out this screen shot from DJI's Fly Safe page:
According to DJI, the START time for the TFR is 16:00 UTC -6, which equals 10:00 which is 10:00 AM.
According to DJI, the END time for the TFR is 20:00 UTC -6, which equals 14:00 which is 2:00 PM.
This is preposterous. First off, Albuquerque is UTC -7. Not UTC -6. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this.
In fact, if you ask Google for UTC time, it's off by an hour.
According to Google:
But according to my World Clock:
This is a 1 hour discrepancy.
Second off, according to the FAA (NOTAM #9/8221), the TFR covers the following times:
According to the FAA, the START time for the TFR is 11:30 UTC. Since Abq. is UTC -7, this equals 4:30 which is 4:30 AM.
According to the FAA, the END time for the TFR is 18:00 UTC. Since Abq. is UTC -7, this equals 11:00 which is 11:00 AM.
Anybody who knows anything about ballooning knows that 4:30 AM - 11:AM makes FAR more sense than 10:AM - 2:00 PM. Most balloons have landed and are done for the day by 10:AM.
So what gives? Am I getting something wrong here? Can someone explain all these discrepancies??? Who do we trust? Who do we distrust?
D
Disclaimer: I have no children. I just said that for dramatic effect.
So every year the FAA issues TFR's during the International Balloon Fiesta, which is hosted in my home town of Albuquerque, N.M. I personally use faa.gov for NOTAMS because I know this information is accurate. So just for grins I went to DJI's "Fly Safe" page to see if their NFZ information matched the FAA's. It's not even close.
Check out this screen shot from DJI's Fly Safe page:
According to DJI, the START time for the TFR is 16:00 UTC -6, which equals 10:00 which is 10:00 AM.
According to DJI, the END time for the TFR is 20:00 UTC -6, which equals 14:00 which is 2:00 PM.
This is preposterous. First off, Albuquerque is UTC -7. Not UTC -6. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this.
In fact, if you ask Google for UTC time, it's off by an hour.
According to Google:
But according to my World Clock:
This is a 1 hour discrepancy.
Second off, according to the FAA (NOTAM #9/8221), the TFR covers the following times:
According to the FAA, the START time for the TFR is 11:30 UTC. Since Abq. is UTC -7, this equals 4:30 which is 4:30 AM.
According to the FAA, the END time for the TFR is 18:00 UTC. Since Abq. is UTC -7, this equals 11:00 which is 11:00 AM.
Anybody who knows anything about ballooning knows that 4:30 AM - 11:AM makes FAR more sense than 10:AM - 2:00 PM. Most balloons have landed and are done for the day by 10:AM.
So what gives? Am I getting something wrong here? Can someone explain all these discrepancies??? Who do we trust? Who do we distrust?
D
Disclaimer: I have no children. I just said that for dramatic effect.
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