Opportunity to say your piece on Air Force proposal to expand WhiteElk airspace

Soaring pilots who fly in America's Great Basin, especially from Ely
and Parowan, might be interested in commenting on a proposal from the
US Air Force to prepare an environmental impact statement that would
look at their proposed change in operations in the Utah Test and
Training Range and expand use of the White Elk MOA in eastern
Nevada.

This is our opportunity to ask the Air Force to consider soaring
operations in their environmental impact statement.

You can find information on the proposal at:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2...7/E7-23137.htm

The AOPA opposes this proposal on the part of the Air Force. You can
find the AOPA's take on this at: http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/article...080103moa.html

The SSA has commented on this. I am attaching below some thoughts
that come from the SSA letter to the Air Force. (This is not the full
text of the letter.)

Please use the address shown in this letter for your comment, and
please remember your letter must be postmarked January 7th (Monday) in
order to be considered. Length is not important - personal examples
are. Your comment will have particular relevance to the Air Force if
you can point to examples of how the change in this MOA will affect
your operations or affect safe operations there. Please feel free to
append any record you have of flights you have made in the Great
Basin.

Thank you for your effort to sensitize the Air Force to the impact of
this proposal on soaring operations.

Regards,

Fred LaSor


Ms. Sheryl Parker
HQ ACC/A7PP
129 Andrews Street, Suite 102
Langley AFB, VA 23665-2769


Dear Ms. Parker:

This comment responds to the Air Force proposal for an environmental
impact statement regarding the White Elk MOA in Nevada. I believe the
proposal as a significant danger to VFR sailplane pilots in the
American Great Basin. You may not be aware of the volume of sailplane
activity and the inherent risk by the proposed Air Force operations.

White Elk proposes to use chaff, flares and supersonic flight as low
as 14,000 msl in the described boundaries. These flights are
described as training operations. Flight training involves crew
supervision in the cockpit and focuses on systems-oriented target
acquisition from panel display or HUD information. This is not an
operation that prioritizes or easily adapts to visual external target
acquisition (See and Avoid practices).

Sailplane operations in this area currently extend up to 17,500 msl,
at flight cruising speeds of typically up to 145 knots indicated,
which yield true airspeeds up to 170 knots at altitude. The
sailplanes are typically NOT transponder equipped and would be
difficult for ATC to identify for traffic advisories to military
aircraft. It is customary for sailplanes to communicate air-to-ground
with their retrieve crew, base of operations, or other sailplane
pilots for PIREPs on flight conditions, rather than with ATC. In this
desolate region, this is a safety of flight issue to limit the
occasions of search and rescue from desert landings.

White Elk has altered its proposal in response to Elko County
Airport's concerns for sufficient altitude for traffic above terrain.
This concentrates military traffic into the layer most likely to
contain sailplane traffic. Sailplane pilots strive to achieve maximum
altitude to extend distance flights, while remaining below Flight
Levels.

At described flight altitudes and speeds, a head-on sailplane target
at 30 seconds prior to midair impact is visually two thousandths of an
inch in size. Closing speed of 700 knots AF and 170 knots civilian is
870 knots, equaling 14.5 nautical miles per minute. Mixing these
operations is a recipe for disaster.

Sailplanes are based out of Ely in summer months, and several regional
and national contests have been flown from Ely and Parowan airports,
and use the White Elk area daily from May to late September. Visitors
arrive in the Great Basin from across the US and around the world to
use this recreational area, free of most airliner and general aviation
traffic.

Some 2007 Sailplane flights in the Great Basin

Parowan, UT 555 flights 244,737 km 132,156 nm distance flown
Ely, NV 89 flights 70,589 km 38,117 nm distance flown
Tonopah, NV 97 flights 34,456 km 18,606 nm distance flown
Minden , NV 146 flights 58,905 km 31,808 nm distance flown

These are only the voluntarily recorded flights which used the named
launch points, and are not inclusive of all sailplane flights made in
or through the state of Nevada.


For flight safety concerns, I strongly object to the concept of
flares, chaff and supersonic flight that may occur not within the
confines of Restricted or positively controlled airspace. The White
Elk proposal as known to us raises the spectre of loss of life for Air
Force flight crews and general aviation soaring pilots.