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Old April 10th 04, 05:07 PM
Larry Dighera
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Thank you for your input on this issue.

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 01:37:36 GMT, "Aloft" wrote in Message-Id:
:

20 days a year/90 nights a year is not what I'd call an airspace "grab",


What would it take for you consider it an airspace grab? The military
already "owns" 50% of the area of the CONUS.

Unfortunately, the Restricted Area doesn't go away when it's not in
use; it's there 24/7.

more like an improvement in safety for those few times a year when the
Marines want to do a full dress rehearsal.


This begs the question, why was the USMC denied a Restricted Area when
the MOAs were implemented? Didn't they want to conduct "full dress
rehearsals" then? There were good reasons for implementing the MOAs
and not Restricted Areas at that time. I'd venture there has been no
significant change in the criteria that prevented the RA in the past.

Do you fly around that area much?


No.

If you did, you'd know what a hazard is created whenever the Marines
conduct a full-scale exercise, as they did this last weekend.


I would expect MOAs to be hazardous when hot. Isn't it interesting
that no Restricted Area to 11,000 feet was required for those
exercises? But then, the USMC wasn't flying their UAVs and lobbing
live artillery shells, were they?

Despite NOTAMs and flyers on FBO bulletin boards, idiots
still continue to blunder into those hot areas, threatening not only their
own lives, but the lives of the military aircrews operating there. You know
the type I'm talking about; the 60-something pilot who's flown that
coastline a thousand times so he doesn't own a current terminal chart, never
bothers to check NOTAMs, doesn't feel comfortable talking to SoCal so he
doesn't, never bothers to check FBO bulletin boards, etc, etc. Basically
your airborne Sunday driver.


I fail to understand how a new Restricted Area will mitigate the
hazard of the type of pilot you mention.

Now, I'm sure you're saying, "well, that type
of pilot won't even know about the restricted area". He'll find out when
ATC asks him to jot down a telephone number.


So you feel that the new 24/7 RA will get pilot's attention after the
fact? Perhaps it would be significantly less intrusive to let
Darwinism take its course.

And by-the-by, R-2503A already encompasses the airspace in question from the
surface to 2000 ft.


Not exactly. The San Onofre Low MOA extends about 3 nm farther
offshore from the R-2503A Restricted Area.