The interesting thing about the SFRA is
you can pretty much do whatever you want...
...to a certain degree.
All over the United States, there's a lot of airports
that don't have tower controls, so you self announce.
So this area is a self-announce area in one of the busiest airspaces in the world.
And there's different reporting points through the SFRA.
What you're basically going to do is talk, and you'll hear other aircraft
that are doing the same thing.
Anybody who is in that Special Flight Rules Area
will be able to hear us.
Because we are transitioning the airspace, we're going to stay at 1100 feet.
This is a visual flight.
You're not flying instruments with this at all.
If the weather is no good, you're not doing this flight.
Above the SFRA is totally controlled airspace,
and that airspace can be controlled
by either Teterboro, LaGuardia, Newark or Kennedy.
I typically don't do
the Special Flight Rules Area for photo missions.
The viewpoint at a higher altitude is typically better
for aerial photography, and that's what we kind of specialize in.
If you lose an engine, you have to really think a lot quicker
when you're this low.
You have to report
with every reporting point, and it's a bit of a negotiation.
So sometimes if there's a helicopter in the way,
we might talk to the helicopter directly and say, "hey, we're coming through".
And they say, "yeah, we got you in sight".
If you wanted to turn around the Statue of Liberty,
it's left turns around the Statue of Liberty at 1100 feet.
If you're going to do this flight,
it's really important to do it with somebody who's already done it.
Especially for new pilots.
It's best to take an instructor who's done this before.
It's like everything else in aviation.
It's not necessarily hard. It's just not forgiving.
So the key is: know what you're doing before you do it
and don't do anything that is off the script.