Initial Contact: Bigfoot picks up Band 56 and relays information about a pending track (Whiskey Uniform 6-1-5) entering their airspace. Band 55 joins the conversation and is tasked with intercepting the TOI. Intercept Attempt: Band 5-5 has trouble finding the target and requests a bullseye (location) update from Bigfoot. Bigfoot provides the location and instructs Band 5-5 to commit to a specific heading. Band 5-5 loses contact with the TOI and Bigfoot helps them reacquire it. Communication Breakdown: Band 56 enters the conversation and Bigfoot relays information about the TOI to them. There seems to be some confusion about who should intercept the TOI (Band 5-5 or Band 5-6). Target Lost: Band 5-5 loses contact with the TOI again and Bigfoot instructs them to work with Air Traffic Control (ATC) to descend and regain visual contact. Meanwhile TOI turns southbound 8 min short of TFR center…after few minutes MARINE 1 departs and Band 55 receives a new mission to monitor the Point of Interest (POI)

What a mess. You could almost hear Band 55 ready to come cross the radio with, "Bigfoot, if you think you know what you're doing, come on out here. I'll let you fly this jet for a bit and you can show me how it's done."

Surprised they have any time to fly dang airplane with all this communication.....

The tone of the voice of Band55 pilot is "Oh my god you have to be kidding me. You guys at Bigfoot are such idiots. I am very disappointed in your lack of situational knowledge."

What a cluster.

That’s why CBP uses the UH-60 for low and slow in a TFR.

1:59 he says "Bogey Dope" not "bug it up" He calls "Target faded" meaning he no longer has the TOI on his radar, so he calls "Bogey Dope" meaning he is requesting location information on the target, which is why they respond with a BRA.

Bigfoot needs to go back to the deep forest and never return.

A student pilot flying a piper outmaneuvers two highly trained F-16 pilots in the weather.

Get rid of Bigfoot and just have ATC point out the acft to the F16s. They’re already on freq anyways and it seems like there’s so much more workload with Bigfoot constantly playing comm ping pong with them

Not impressed by the air force on this one over a Piper. And Bigfoot is annoying. At least it is good training for a real threat.

There are usually 2 ‘rings’ in a Presidential VIP TFR - an inner ‘core’ (10 or 12 mile radius) and an outer ‘doughnut’ (30 mile radius), both centered on the VIP location. They usually go from the surface to 17,999’ - above that is Class A airspace to 60,000 feet, and you must be on an IFR flight plan anyway. The inner core is usually *forbidden* for ALL air traffic except law enforcement and air ambulance coordinated with ATC, Military Ops in direct support of the VIP visit, regularly scheduled Commercial Passenger service, and Cargo Ops that are on the U.S. Govt. Approved list. The outer doughnut (10/12 miles out to 30 miles) is *restricted* . Aircraft must be from local fields. Aircraft may not ‘loiter’. Aircraft *may* transit the outer doughnut based on ATC workload. *ALL* aircraft must have a filed IFR or VFR flight plan, maintain an assigned Squawk code, and be in two-way comms with ATC. Flight training, instrument practice approaches, Gliders, Parachute ops, Ultralights, Hang gliding, Balloon ops, Crop dusting, Animal Control flights, Banner Towing, Sightseeing flights, Maintenance Test Flights, Model Aircraft Ops, Model Rocketry, Unmanned Aircraft systems (UAS), And Utility And Pipeline Survey Ops are *Not Authorized* From the comms, the offending pilot was in the outer doughnut and was just about to break the inner core. Thus, the ‘expedite, max subsonic’ Bigfoot order. The issue for Band55 wasn’t necessarily getting to the intercept (whether at max Subsonic, or .5 or .6 Mach), it was slowing down quick enough to do anything once there - the point of the outer doughnut is to intercept and divert the target before the target gets to the inner core. However, things change when the inner core is broken (or just about to be broken) - which is why you heard Bigfoot explain that the TOI was 8 minutes out from center (4-5 minutes was the demarcation line at 140 kts). The ‘expedite’ call was justified, as was the ‘unable’ response. NORAD and the two pilots did an excellent and professional job communicating their mission, even when there was a potential conflict between the intent and action request. BAND55 did an EXCELLENT job calmly fulfilling the mission! Bravo, Sir! This Piper student pilot just failed the most basic of flight requirements - the ‘flight planning’ stage. Had the student done a proper preflight briefing, they would have been notified of the active TFR in the route of flight. What is more concerning is that the *pilot is a student* and could have had a *CFI* in the plane, instructing. While it’s not good that the student pilot made this error, it is completely unacceptable for a CFI to have made this error. Glad to hear the positive and appropriate outcome for this incident. I’m hoping that if a CFI was involved, the CFIs license is temporarily suspended until a corrective refresher course can be administered by the local FSDO

Russians and Chinese listening to this and getting ideas

JUDY!

What’s “Bullseye” in this context?

Is bigfoot a ground station or an actual aircraft? Thanks!

"Sub?" and debriefs OTA? worst military radio discipline I ever recall hearing -- stan/eval needs to tighten up on WCs (or is it ABMs now)

And that's a slow-moving plane WITH a transponder. I don't think people have any idea how little defense we actually have against airborne threats. It's not like the movies.

Same garbage that caused the green ramp slaughter in 94...

Were they speaking English because I didn’t understand a goddamn thing 😅

If I were American this would not comfort me 😏

ATC wanted super sonic from an F16 who was near the piper in the first place? Good on the pilot for saying that if he did that he would run the guy over. That's a little something called Fact. If our military cant locate a piper though that just tells us the state it's in and that's just sad.

So much wasted radio chatter

"Attempt contact TOI (Target of Interest) on Guard.". Civilian aircraft don't monitor "Guard". Also, to the Military, Guard is 243.0 MHz, a UHF frequency. Civilian aircraft don't have UHF capability. Also, civilian don't monitor the VHF Emergency frequency, 121.5 MHz unless THEY are the one having an emergency. The controllers are running the intercept as though they are dealing with military aircraft. Go Max Sub (Subsonic - approx. 600 Knots) to intercept a general aviation aircraft doing 140 Knots???. That would give him a 460 Knot closure rate, way too fast to read a tail number.

I don't know why they were concerned, everyone in California supports the dementia guy.

Seems like much ado over nothing. I wonder how many pounds of JP-8 was wasted? Two F16s and an orbiting tanker.

This must be a DEI exercise....they keep talking about their Bra. Good catch.

Is this in Ukraine? 😂

Boring