So Im flying back at night to my home airport in Bellingham WA KBLI which is a large Class D airport with 737's and the like coming and going. Im on tower frequency and inside D airspace about 1.5 miles out on my base leg about 1300 AGL when a large fireworks rocket explodes above and in front of me. What the...? I click my mic and inform Tower that just for their information a rocket exploded above and in front of me. They kindly replied that I was flying over the indian reservation and sometimes that happens. Oh...okay. Another day in the life.

It seems like it would be met with the same severity a lasering incident would?

Sovereign Nation Invasion?!?

Wife and I went flying around on the evening of the 4th here. Since fireworks are readily available here, EVERYONE was setting off rockets. Interesting to see. All along the beach and spots inland as well. Some displays were better than the town displays, which were also going off. We had to extend our downwind leg a bit to go around a party that was setting of quite a few large rockets near the airport.

Also flew through a bunch of those flying paper japanese lanterns that people setting off from the beach.

Probably won't go up flying next 4th.

whynotfly wrote:... about 1.5 miles out on my base leg about 1300 AGL when a large fireworks rocket explodes above and in front of me. What the...? .... I was flying over the indian reservation and sometimes that happens....

The Lummi's are on the warpath again.

hotrod180 wrote:

whynotfly wrote:... about 1.5 miles out on my base leg about 1300 AGL when a large fireworks rocket explodes above and in front of me. What the...? .... I was flying over the indian reservation and sometimes that happens....

The Lummi's are on the warpath again.

I see what you did there.

Very funny!

Zzz wrote:It seems like it would be met with the same severity a lasering incident would?

Would not be PC to do such given the launch area.

Well, if you ever wondered what flying in WW2 was like you just found out!

ExperimentalAviator wrote:Well, if you ever wondered what flying in WW2 was like you just found out!

Too true: My father flew 46 missions as B24 pilot, all at night. He wouldn't go to the fireworks displays because it reminded him of flak( he was shot down once, evaded and kept flying). Another friend, Korean War vet said the same. He was a Marine and remembers getting shelled a lot and couldn't stand listening to the 4th of July fireworks...especially the grand finale.