By Amy Higgins
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Local private pilot Jack Karch thought the slow-moving white vans looked out of place creeping down Airport Road, checking out the planes lined up at Lunken Airport. So he called police.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

• Pilots who appear under the control of someone else. • Anyone trying to access an aircraft through force - without keys, using a crowbar or screwdriver. • Anyone who seems unfamiliar with aviation procedures trying to check out an airplane. • Anyone who misuses aviation lingo - or seems too eager to use all the lingo. • Any members of your airport neighborhood who work to avoid contact with you or other airport tenants. • Anyone who appears to be loitering. • Any out-of-the-ordinary videotaping of aircraft or hangars. • Aircraft with unusual or obviously unauthorized modifications. • Dangerous cargo - explosives, chemicals, openly displayed weapons - being loaded into an airplane. • Anything that strikes you as wrong - listen to your instinct. • Pay special attention to height, weight and the individual's clothing or other identifiable traits.

A national association hopes that the rest of the country's 640,000 private pilots also act on their suspicions - and help keep smaller airports safe without too much federal intervention.

"We are in different times," said Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). "Pilots are so worried about so many restrictions being placed on them."

Boyer held a town meeting Thursday evening with private pilots in Cincinnati to discuss issues facing the aviation industry - including fears of terrorists using small aircraft for attacks and the government's efforts to prevent such attacks. Despite rumors about terrorists planning to use crop dusters and Fox's 24 television show showing a terrorist with a nuclear bomb in a single-engine plane, such fears are unfounded, Boyer said.

Still, the government's new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has placed new restrictions on general aviation pilots, such as "no-fly zones" around Washington.

AOPA wanted to be proactive, Boyer said, and work with the TSA to keep aviation safe without needless regulations. So the AOPA worked with the TSA to come up with Airport Watch, based on the neighborhood watch programs where neighbors are encouraged to report anything suspicious.

Karch, who flies his Katana DA-20-C1 out of Lunken, thinks pilots will be diligent in calling in suspicious activity - just as he did with the white vans. Turns out in that case, the vans were filled with federal drug enforcement agents looking for a plane suspected of carrying drugs.

But he worries that many small airports are not staffed and frequented 24 hours a day. Still, creating a new police force to patrol the country's 5,400 public-use small airports is "overkill."

E-mail ahiggins@enquirer.com