Scared of mid-airs

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...

Has that been a recent change? The airspace we used at Holloman for
most of the AT-38 training was to the East. The restricted airspace
over White Sands was used mostly by the 49th wing F-15s as it was
supersonic and ran surface to very high altitudes. It was used for
both flight and missile testing including Surface-to-air (ie Patriot)
and air-to-air (against Firebee variants and QF aircraft).

To the East we had the Beaks (A,B and C) and Talons (North, East and
West). They were MOAs and extended from 10,000 AGl to FL 450--which
put them both below and within APC (which in those days commenced at
FL180). We routinely had VFR GA traffic particularly in the Ruidoso
Airport area passing under the Beaks, but only rare exceptions of
folks exercising their VFR transit rights. ATC radar coverage, because
of high terrain on several sides, was intermittent at lower altitudes,
but occasionally ABQ Center would give an advisory of VFR traffic and
would always provide notice of IFR traffic along the bordering
airways. We usually had the traffic before ATC said anything.

Probably the ATCAA is the explanation. We just considered it MOA.


It's been that way since the MOA was created 31 years ago.

Incidentally, ATC CAN clear non-using IFR aircraft through a MOA under the
right conditions. One of those conditions is ATC must also be working the
aircraft using the MOA. I know of no location where this is done, however.