Traffic Watch Services

Traffic congestion is one of the top gripes in every major city in the US. People are spending more time getting to and from work and enjoying it less, and they’re looking to broadcasters for help. How your station responds can make a real difference – not just to your listeners, but to your advertisers as well.

There are different ways to do this, but at the end of the day there’s no substitute for highly trained, experienced and knowledgeable people in an airplane. People who know the airspace, area, the construction projects, and the lay of the land. Not to mention the workarounds when something goes wrong.

That would be us.

We provide traffic watch aircraft, with or without staffing on an as-needed or ongoing basis, by the incident, forever, or anything in between. We can supplement what you get from your existing sources, whether an in-house traffic operation or one of the dedicated providers.

We’ve been successful because we’re different. Our operation was built from the ground up to serve the needs of the broadcast industry with dedicated, specially equipped aircraft and highly trained professional pilots.

That’s a far cry from the typical traffic watch aviation contractor – generally a flight school looking for a way to keep its instructors busy during the week when recreational flight training is not in demand. While that works great for the school and saves you money, what you get is inexperienced pilots with little or no knowledge of what it takes to be a good traffic pilot – which is an entirely different skill set from what it takes to be a flight instructor. And, you’re likely sharing aircraft with student pilots and renters who can – and will – beat them up and cause reliability problems.

If you’re thinking that this doesn’t sound like the best scenario, you’re right. It usually doesn’t work. At the best, you likely wind up with marginal service that somewhat does the job as long as nothing goes wrong. At the worst….well, you get the picture. Things can get ugly. Fast.

We operated traffic watch aircraft for 14 years in the Washington, DC area, up to seven days and 140 hours per week with up to four aircraft at a time. We were among the very first media flights authorized back in the air after post-9/11 airspace restrictions were imposed, and to this day enjoy a carefully crafted, excellent (and we would say, unparalleled) relationship with Washington area security and air traffic officials. What that means to you is that we pretty much go where we want to go and do what we want to do.

In short, we get it done.

We also do road trips – ask the folks in Chicago who started having trouble with their aviation vendor a few summers back. We got the call for help on a Tuesday morning. We had a plane modified for the station’s gear by the next morning. We were on-site in Chicago with an airline transport rated pilot the day after that, along with complete arrangements in place with a local airport and all Chicago-area air traffic control facilities. We filled in there, seven+ hours each day, seamlessly for another two weeks until the local people got a solution in place. They still miss us. Ask for references…we’ve got them.

We have a dedicated fleet of aircraft with advanced, ultra-reliable diesel engines that can stay aloft for up to seven hours at a time. Our Washington, DC area base is just outside the beltway in Clinton, Maryland – minutes from the many habitual trouble spots in the area. Our pilots are highly trained and experienced professionals, not the low-time beginners typically seen in these operations.

We offer up-to-the-minute data via a variety of analog and digital platforms including Twitter, text messaging, and conventional two-way radio. Our advanced, proprietary radio packages take advantage of the latest innovations in automatic noise reduction technology headsets and allow reliable, rock-solid two-way radio communication without the need for client gear in the aircraft while minimizing operator fatigue. As a client, your only worry is the equipment on your end.

Today we offer a wide variety of products and services that extend way beyond the single Cessna 172 we started with in 1997. We can carry your traffic reporter or provide one, but that’s just the beginning:

If you’ve got questions about your existing aviation vendor, we can conduct an operational and safety analysis so you’ll know exactly what you’re getting and what your exposure is.
If you’re tired of the 35-year old technology and headsets in your airborne radio packages, consider our proprietary equipment that interfaces perfectly with the aircraft systems as well as your communications and broadcast gear while taking advantage of the latest in automatic noise reduction headsets.
If aerial video is on your list, our fixed-wing platform delivers suburb HD video at a fraction of the cost of a helicopter – and your viewers will never know the difference.

We’re not here to be the cheapest – cheap generally isn’t a great idea in aviation anyway. What we do strive for is to do is the best job possible while delivering real value and peace of mind to our clients. We like to think that we’ve succeeded, and we can furnish a list of people who would agree.

We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this further with you, evaluate your needs and submit a proposal. Please call 301-234-0065 for more information, or email to stan@fetteraviation.com.

Service available in most markets in the eastern United States.