Or at least a Richmond Airport Police Officer would have had me believe this afternoon. See, NYC doesn't have the monopoly on ... interesting airport LEO's. I figure the full (however short) story is warranted.
I went down to KRIC (a fairly small airport) around 1500ish this afternoon to catch a DL 757 (rare for KRIC) and just take in some planes as it had been a while. Upon arriving, I discovered they had switched up the pattern, and photos weren't really possible. I had initially parked at the museum located near/on the airport, but drove to a nearby gas station to grab a drink. Upon returning to the museum I decided to walk around and check out the A-7D, F-14D, and SR-71 on display outside and maybe wait to see if I could get the Airtran 717 departing with the moon in frame. I did this for a bit, all with the camera disassembled and in a bag in the car. A few minutes later when I saw something was scheduled to depart, I set up the camera snagged maybe 7-8 photos of the departure and that was it. Shortly thereafter, an Airport PD car, which had driven right by me before and waved/nodded at me, came by, did a loop around the parking lot, and our encounter went roughly like this after exchanging greetings...
Officer: "Are you taking photos of the airplanes landing?"
Me: "Well I am taking photos of them taking off, but yes sir."
Officer: "You can't do that, it is against FFA policy to photograph airplanes taking off or landing"
Me: "Oh really? I apologize, I was unaware. I can move along if need be."
Officer: Yes, that would be great (Note this last one is not a direct quote, but a general approximation of the sentiment he expressed)
That was it. I wasn't asked for ID, and he was always pleasant enough, not menacing or anything. Obviously we are all aware that no such "FFA" née FAA policy exists, but given that he was so easily giving me a false policy, I didn't feel confident that if I pushed back at all that he couldn't just as easily fabricate an account of me being threatening, belligerent, or resisting him. In this case I rolled out and missed the photo I was hoping for, but it wasn't a priceless photo opportunity.
I guess I am curious what you all would have done, and maybe what I can/should do going forward. I am not willing to perhaps be as assertive and/or, for lack of a better word, aggressive as some are in protecting their rights due to fear of encountering that one cop who might over-react and jeopardize my impending semester in Australia. However I am perplexed and admittedly somewhat disappointed at the prospect of losing the only airport within a 2 hour radius at which I could take photos while home in VA.
Dejectedly yours,
Nick
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