Another Reason I'm Not Flying Anymore

Somebody buzzing around VFR forgot that politicians are fundraising *everywhere*.

If the signal was "buster", an authorization to go supersonic, he must have really been stupid (low altitude), or might have been a protester of a new sort.

Another reason to not buy the airplane, after winning the lottery.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/washington.jets.scrambled/index.html?hpt=Sbin

(CNN) -- Residents in Seattle, Washington, were shaken Tuesday afternoon by what sounded like explosions after two F-15s were dispatched in response to a report of a small plane that entered restricted airspace where President Barack Obama was campaigning for Sen. Patty Murray.

The rumblings -- caused by sonic booms from the jets -- rattled buildings, windows and nerves in the Puget Sound region, according to CNN affiliate KIRO. Viewers of the affiliate from as far away as Tacoma -- about 40 miles south of Seattle -- reported hearing the booms.

Dozens of residents called the city's 911 system, causing it to shut down in some areas for about an hour due to the flood of calls, Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department told KIRO.

"Many house and car alarms have been set off that we will not be able to respond to," Troyer told the affiliate.

The jets were launched out of Portland, Oregon, and "were on afterburners the whole time," Allen Kenitzer of the Federal Aviation Administration told CNN.

The plane in question -- identified by the FAA as a Cessna 180 -- left the temporarily restricted airspace before the jets intercepted it, said John Cornelio of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

The pilot of the plane later landed it near Lake Washington, Kenitzer said.

The incident is under investigation.