Border protection flight monitoring

[MEdwards]

From LA Times via the AOPA email newsletter today:

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses a tracking system based in Riverside, Calif., to monitor flights across the country, and identify abnormalities that might indicate criminal activity. However, casting such a wide net is catching more law-abiding pilots than it is drug smugglers. "The number of arrests are laughable for all the work they do. This looks like an agency in search of a mission," said AOPA President Mark Baker."

I like this guy.

[danielfindling]

I had an interesting border experience this winter. I live near Detroit, MI which is a US Canadian border town. The winter was hard and the lakes were well frozen, so another plane and I landed on Lake St. Clair, which connects Lake Huron to the Detroit River. The lake is the U.S - Canadian border. Suffice to say, shortly after landing on the lake, two military helicopters hovered over our landing site. We clearly were not in distress and on the States side of the lake. Recognizing that we did not do anything illegal, we took some photos of ourselves and planes and departed a short time later. We purposefully avoided the delta airspace en route home (a little out of the way). Never heard anything thereafter.