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Comment by jhaski | Hacker News Reader

As a pilot, I know that many of the airplanes are not locked when they are sitting on the tarmac. The keys are usually generic, so you can probably use a key to a similar aircraft to start the engines.

I never really thought about it before, but stealing a jet would probably be easier than stealing a car (minus, of course, the crazy militia who might kill you for repossessing the airplane).

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While taking control of the aircraft might be easier, I'd imagine that you'd be a lot easier to track via radar. That's not to mention that the Air Force is probably going to assume you're a terrorist and I doubt you're going to outrun any fighter jets.

Edit: I was referring to outright theft above, not repoing.

Nonsense. Squawk 1200, and once airborne, you're free to use the radios. The point about not using the radio on the ground was to ensure that you could actually get the craft off the ground without the current owners or FBO knowing what you were up to.

a) that's assuming the a/c you're stealing isn't in class B airspace

b) atc will probably notice when your 1200 blip is doing 250kts and climbing at 2000'/min.

c) this also assumes you can figure out how to turn off xponder mode S (transmitting your 24-bit ICAO address) back to mode C or mode A

The entire article appeared to be presuming that ATC was only concerned with "safe, orderly and expeditious" flow of air traffic and not with murky ownership of the aircraft. In my (non-repo man) experience, that is all that ATC cares about.

ATC won't care about #3 ever. If you're not in class B, ATC won't care about #2. Jets are allowed to fly VFR, too; they just don't very often. In class B, you can get your clearance by cell phone, and start using the radios once you get to the movement area (or at a non-primary class B airport, when taking the active).

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