This reminds me of this story from Germany where a pilot recently had to be guided back to the airport by the German Air Force because he couldn’t find it on his own since he was too wasted. After landing safely, the guy proceeded to pick a fight with the policemen awaiting him at the airport before he was arrested. Moral of the story is: they can’t give you a speeding ticket, but they can arrest you for FUI 
One could have been for massive damage to a public road - since there’s no way that anything resembling a normal highway could support the shuttle’s weight.
>slight hijack<
An American friend told me that all major roads in the US have/had to be approved by the military because the USAF may need to use roads in the event of any emergency.
Any truth to this?
Not really, I was just referring to this story (links to a SDMB post which has links to a video and article).
And what exactly would be the weight of a space shuttle? Just curious
Actually, I’ve been to several such communities where the runways were also streets and vice versa - there’s no reason you have to have separate strips of pavement for cars and planes, although there might be some safety advantages to separating the two types of traffic.
One of my former students called to ask me for some night flying instruction, since he hadn’t done it in a while. He reserved a plane from the local flight school, and we met there at about 9 PM since it was summer time. Using flashlights, we performed the pre-flight inspection, strapped in, and he began the engine start checklist.
The anti-collision lights are pulsing, the fuel pump goes on to prime the engine, and he’s just about to hit the starter when I see a shadowy person standing right next to the prop. I quickly stop him from firing it up, turn everything off, and lean out to see who the hell is dumb enough put themselves so close to their messy death.
It’s a cop, with another guy watching from a few steps behind him. Glancing at my student, I quickly realize what’s happened. As an orthodox Jew, my student has a long beard and is wearing a yarmulke. In silhouette, he looks a lot like Osama bin Laden. Someone saw us skulking around the airport with flashlights, and now we’re obviously about to steal a plane and commit acts of terrorism! With a Cessna 150.
This annoys me.
The cop comes over to my side of the airplane, says an awkward hello, and asks what we’re doing. He’s obviously never pulled over an airplane before, and my annoyance turns to amusement. I simply say, “We’re going flying.”
“Do you have a license?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, you’re not hot wiring it, are you?”
I dangle the keys in front of me. “No.”
“Whose plane is it?”
I jerk a thumb behind me. “It belongs to the flight school. We reserved it with Tom, the manager.”
He scratched his head, and looked at the guy behind him. At this point I volunteered that I was an instructor, introduced my student, and offered to show him either of my two pilot licenses. He took one of them, glanced at it and handed it back. He then wished us a good flight. I thanked him, and suggested the next time he approached an airplane in darkness to keep clear of the prop.
So off we went on our night flight. But a week or two later, my student went out to fly by himself and again found himself talking to a cop. I chalked it up to facial hair profiling.
Landing weight seems to be in the neighborhood of 200,000 lbs.
That’s only about 2.5 times as much as a really big truck. But it’s supported on just five wheels, so the stress on the pavement is much higher than for a truck.
:::scratches head:::
Mach, I hate to nitpick a professional, but I’ve been flying Cessna 150’s for most of my flying “career”, having rented 7 or 8 individual examples (don’t feel like dragging all the logbooks out to get the exact number) and not a one of them had a fuel pump - gravity brings the fuel to the engine, which is why when you’re flying the C150 Aerobat upside down the engine stops running after a few seconds (and the oil runs out, very messy, but let’s not get side tracked) because the fuel runs back into the tanks.
They do have a primer - but not a fuel pump.
Unless this was a highly unusual C150…?
Right you are. This happened some years ago - maybe it was a Cherokee we flew that night. Which of course, is an equally fearsome airplane and the obvious weapon of choice for terrorists. 
Good thing he wasn’t a Sikh wearing a big turban. Both of you would still be rotting in a SuperMax prison somewhere.
There’s a private pilot (I think, anyway) here who houses a Czech Albatross at a small municipal airport. I saw him take off once and wondered how he made it up on such a short runway and still maintain proper noise abatement, speed and altitude requirements.
Vlad/Igor
That’s probably an L-39. I’ve got a few hours in those - lots of fun.
Although I’d prefer 6000’ for that plane, I know people who operate them out of 4000’ strips. The Albatross isn’t terribly loud, for a jet. But yeah, the neighbors probably aren’t amused.
I used to work with a guy who was a CFI. He’s a black guy, but light-skinned. Could be mistaken for Middle-Eastern. Shortly after the trouble with Libya (or something like that – it was in the '80s) he took a student on a flight from Southern California to SFO. He wore a rather unfortunate T-shirt that day; camouflage with printed ammo bandoliers and hand grenades. (I’m sure you’ve seen them.) From a distance he looked a little dangerous. Security approached him.
Security: What is your nationality?
Coworker: American.
Security: No, I mean what is your heritage?
Coworker: I’m Black.
Security: Where’s he from? [indicating the student]
Coworker: Egypt…
:smack: