Orval Fairbairn wrote:
In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

(snip)
Or, conversely the numbers of deaths of military pilots due to
mid-airs with GA pilots operating cluelessly in restricted, warning,
prohibited airspace, MOAs and oil burner routes. It's a two-edged
sword, Larry.

IIRC, Ed, only in prohibited airspace can a mil pilot not expect to
encounter a civil VFR. Restricted airspace can be "cold," thus available
to VFR use. MOAs and oil Burner routes are *NOT* protected airspace!

They may, or may not be charted -- only ATC knows if the military is
active in them, so the responsibility of collision avoidance falls on
all pilots -- especially those operating beyond 250 KIAS.


As a former military air traffic controller I read these posts with
some bemusement. While I don't fully agree with Larry's viewpoint, I
think that some of what he says has merit.

Even ATC (mil or FAA) sometimes doesn't know what is going on with
low-level training routes - I've seen enough of those activities to
know that (at least in my time) they were operated haphazardly, i.e.
they were sometimes legally active when nobody was using them, and
sometimes there were aircraft using the routes when they weren't
legally active. The NOTAMs weren't always valid, sometimes they were
non-existent, the times were off, etc. Most of this was due to a
misfunctioning in the USAF organizations that scheduled airspace usage
and which coordinated with the FAA. Several times I saw airspace
usage/scheduling conflictions which couldn't be solved because it was
the weekend and none of the USAF scheduling people were at work. I
know of several GA-fast mover near-collisions due to GA aircraft going
through OB routes where the route was not legally active but there were
multiple fast-movers on it. If I were a GA pilot I would assume that
any OB route is hot all the time. As far as where low-level training
routes actually are, I also saw a case where the route had been
modified by the USAF and nobody else had been told.

Besides OB route misuse, I've also seen the misuse of special-use
restricted airspace by the military, not by intent but by sheer
laziness.

Military pilots are most of the time professionals but they work in a
system that allows the simultaneous use of airspace by both civilian
and military users, and not everybody is always playing by the same
rules.


John Hairell )