I am a private pilot with instrument rating, presently working on my
commercial license. I started flying in my home country Sweden in 2001,
got a Swedish private pilot license in 2002 and then I moved to
Baltimore, MD because of my work. I arrived in the US in August 2002.
One of the first thing I did after arriving in the US was to seek out a
local FBO to be able to continue flying. I had already gone through the
background checks necessary to be eligible to obtain a US validation of
my Swedish license. When arriving in the US I had accrued about 85 hours
of total flying time. Now, three and a half years later, I have 420
hours of flying time.

I rent my aircraft and fly mostly from Martin State airport, just north
of Baltimore, and from BWI. I have rented aircrafts from Tipton (KFME)
south of BWI, but stopped because of, in my opinion, a chaotic and
unsafe environment caused by the DC ADIZ constraints. Recently I have
started to drive 50 miles to Frederick which is outside the DC ADIZ.

My flying is strictly for personal pleasure. It is a way for my wife and
I to travel around the Eastern US during weekends and see things we
would not otherwise have been able to do. We have visited places like
Nantucket, the Outer Banks, Niagara Falls, Boston, etc. Most often,
however, we go flying over the Delmarva Peninsula, Pennsylvania and
northern Virginia, admiring the nature and stopping in what have become
our favorite towns and villages.

After the introduction of the DC ADIZ in February 2003, the flying got
more complicated than my first experiences. At that point I basically
stopped flying because several very bad experiences where we could not
get clearance to get back into the ADIZ (I was flying out of Martin
State and Tipton at the time). There were also a few occasions when
safety was compromised both on departure and arrival from Tipton
airport. Tipton is located close to the BWI Bravo airspace and north of
the DC No-Fly zone. This leaves a very small area for maneuvering. In
the early days of the DC ADIZ, airplanes were supposed to remain in the
Tipton traffic pattern until receiving clearance to leave the ADIZ. This
could take a considerable amount of time and on nice sunny days, the
confined airspace around Tipton would be over-crowded, with several
mid-air incidents. On one occasion I was circling the Tipton pattern
waiting for clearance to leave the ADIZ (I had been circling for almost
20 minutes) when two airplanes almost collided (I was fortunately not
involved in this incident but heard it play out over the radio). One of
the pilots reported to ATC that they almost had a mid-air. The same
pilot had asked for clearance to leave the ADIZ repeatedly before the
incident. The answer from ATC, which was completely over-worked with BWI
traffic and ADIZ traffic, could only reply with a laconic "Roger". This
made me stop flying for a while, and I have so far not come back to
Tipton airport.

I managed to obtain a US private pilot rating as well as an instrument
rating in 2003. In 2004 I started working on my commercial license.
While training for the instrument rating I could handle the ADIZ by
filing an actual instrument flight plan and fly around both inside and
outside the ADIZ. My commercial training, however, involves maneuvering
flight in visual conditions. Here every training session has involved a
long wait for filing an ADIZ flight plan, "transportation" to a suitable
training area and coming back. This has added to the cost of my training
to the point where I now drive my car more than 50 miles to Frederick to
fly from an airport outside the ADIZ. Although the Frederick area is
squeezed in between P40 and the ADIZ it is a haven for us pilots
'trapped' inside the ADIZ.

I started my flying career in Europe, where restrictions and costs for
General Aviation have effectively curbed its development. As such it was
a dream to come to the US and experience the vibrant atmosphere of GA,
where it is possible to use a small airplane for both personal pleasure
and business, where almost every little town has an airport making
transportation so much easier. However, with the present development
flying in the Baltimore area has become as restrictive, or worse, than
flying in Europe. The really sad part is that no pilot I have talked
with, nor any one involved in aviation, has been able to find any
positive benefit from the ADIZ from a security point of view. In fact,
no one I have discussed this with has questioned the flight restricted
zone (FRZ) around Washington DC (except for those flying out of College
Park airport). It is the extended ADIZ, which doesn't exclude light
aircrafts from flying in the area, but makes it complicated and, in some
cases, more dangerous to fly. Anyone who has made a weight and balance
calculation knows that light aircrafts are -- light. They cannot be used
as weapons the way heavy commercial aircrafts can be, or a truck, so why
are they treated differently? The Washington, DC,ADIZ is operationally
unworkable and imposes major burdens on pilots and air traffic
controllers alike, all with minimal security benefits, and it must NOT
be made permanent.