Scared of mid-airs

On 3 Aug 2006 12:40:33 -0700, "
wrote:


In your experience in the USAF who did the actual coordination with the
FAA? In my experience it was a group at a numbered AF HQ, and the time
it took for unit-level schedule changes to make it up to the HQ and hit
the FAA caused a long delay,
with the flying unit assuming that the airspace coordination had been
done when it may or may not have actually occurred, which resulted in
aircraft on MTRs that supposedly were cold, unanticipated arrivals on
ranges, multiple units using the same MTR, etc.

It would vary with the unit and the mission. Typically the airspace
for training was local to the base--i.e. Holloman airspace was theirs
and not shared for example with Cannon. Nellis airspace belonged to
Nellis and George airspace belonged to George.

Very little went through numbered AF. Coordination of daily schedules
and airspace requirements would flow from the Wing to the ARTCC.

Ranges were controlled by the military.

MTRs could be used by multiple units although a majority of the routes
that I saw were base dedicated. Some could be used by other bases and
that was coordinated between the bases and ARTCC. There was no such
thing as an "unanticipated arrival on ranges"--you had a scheduled
range time before takeoff. If you didn't have scheduled range time you
didn't go.

We kept track of specific flight schedules via the frag orders, which
sometimes matched reality and sometimes not.

Frag orders are "frag"ments of the total operations order. This is a
real operations term, not a training document. You get a frag at a
unit in combat. It is part of the total operations plan for the day
generated at the component command Hq level. It, by defnition, IS
reality.

We had a continual
problem with weekend use of MTRs when schedules changed but the USAF
had nobody on duty on Saturday/Sunday coordinating with the FAA in the
region where I worked.

From the time I entered active duty (which was 1964) I was never at an
installation that did not have a command post which operated 24/7.
Even units which did not conduct operations on weekends had such a
function. In those days the point-of-contact was the "airdrome
officer" who typically was located in base operations. There was
always someone on duty.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com