The club is led by Army and Air Force officers with a range of aviation backgrounds in both military and civil aviation. The West Point Aviation club also operates a well-maintained Piper PAвЂ“28-140 Cherokee and rents other Cherokees or an Archer for flight training and competition practice. вЂњThe mission of WPAC is to provide leader and military skill development opportunities to cadets interested in Army Aviation as well as achieve consistent success at regional and national collegiate flying team competitions,вЂќ its charter says. Many of the cadets and faculty involved in the academic program also devote time to WPAC. West PointвЂ™s best-kept aviation secret is the West Point Aviation Club (WPAC). Cadets develop hypotheses, make test plans, and take measurements in flight. The cadets in the program take an in depth look at the engineering aspect of flight, how the aircraft works, and why. These Skylanes are used to support the academic flight program, which is part of the aeronautical engineering minor in the mechanical engineering major. The two Cessna 182s are operated by the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering. Stewart is a dual-use military and civilian airfield and is home to the 2nd Aviation Detachment, the вЂњWings of West Point.вЂќ In their hangar, across from two UHвЂ“72 Lakota helicopters, you will find the ArmyвЂ™s only single-engine piston fixed-wing aircraft. About 30 minutes to the northwest of West Point, вЂњover the mountain,вЂќ lies New York Stewart International Airport (SWF). Many of them gained their passion for aviation as cadets through participation in one of West PointвЂ™s not-so-well-known general aviation activities. Today, most officers who graduate from West Point and become military aviators go on to fly helicopters only a few will go on to fly fixed-wing aircraft. You can feel how complex and tight the airspace by the exchanges. The fighter pilot had trouble finding the Cessna on radar, which is not surprising for a low-flying small aircraft operating around a metropolis like New York City. One of the F-16s checks in with New York Approach using the callsign NOBLE 12 and asked for vectors to the TOI, or Track Of Interest. We now have very rare audio of radio communications between air traffic control and the Vipers, which usually communicate on UHF so they are not recorded on standard VHF frequencies, trying to find the aircraft, intercepting it, and then the Cessna pilot's response.ДЄs you can hear below, the action began around 2:00 PM local time. The homeland air defense mission, in general, falls under the purview of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

The light aircraft was intercepted by F-16C Vipers from the 187th Fighter Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard-the famous Red Tails-that were on temporary duty providing air patrols for the high-profile event. General Assembly, at which President Biden was in attendance. Army strayed into restricted airspace around New York City that was in place to protect the annual U.N. It got very lively in the skies over New York City today when a wayward Cessna belonging to the U.S.

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