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Article published: Sep 23, 2005
Shaw proposes airspace changes
Military says controversial initiatives necessary for training

Shaw Air Force Base is proposing major changes to its training airspace in both South Carolina and Georgia and is in the midst of a public comment period before it prepares a final environmental impact statement.

The Air Force will hold a series of public meetings during the first week of October to explain the proposal and receive input.

Art Byers, airspace manager for the 20th Fighter Wing, said the wing needs the changes to allow pilots to train more realistically, especially as the pilots' mission changes from suppressing enemy air defenses to destroying them.

"They are not able, with the existing airspace, to do a full-blown" suppression mission, Byers said.

The destruction of enemy air defenses mission requires that pilots set up farther away from their targets and fly closer to the ground to ensure they're destroyed, he said.

Shaw would like to change two military operations areas, or MOAs — the Gamecock MOA in South Carolina and the Bulldog MOA in Georgia.

The MOAs are mapped three-dimensionally, and military pilots must stay within both horizontal and vertical boundaries while conducting training exercises. Civilian pilots flying visually can fly through MOAs, though some pilots at public meetings said they worried about safely crossing a MOA, especially in light of a recent collision in Oklahoma between a crop duster and a military jet in which the crop-duster pilot was killed.

When the MOAs aren't in use, all aircraft can fly in the airspace. The Air Force proposal states that it wouldn't use the Gamecock and Bulldog MOAs at the same time.

"We have a valid, legitimate need for this airspace, but we're willing to share the airspace with other users," Byers said.
In South Carolina, the proposal would extend the Gamecock MOA over western Clarendon County and southeastern Sumter County and would delete a portion of the existing MOA over Georgetown County.

In Georgia, the section called Bulldog A would slide beneath Bulldog B, meaning the lowest that pilots could fly throughout the area would be 500 feet.

The Georgia proposal is the most controversial, Byers said, because of the lowered floor.

The controversy is reflected in some of the public comments included in the draft impact statement.

Ed Ratigan, the manager of aviation programs for the Georgia Department of Transportation, blasted the Air Force in two letters for poorly communicating the proposed changes and the probable effects of the changes on airports, and therefore economic development, in communities beneath the Bulldog A MOA.

"We are concerned with the very flawed beginning of this airspace initiative to change the Bulldog MOAs. We request the military make a realistic effort to gather public input," he wrote in October 2004.

In January 2005 he wrote, "How do you propose to address the noise issue? Existing problems in Bulldog A, with the same floor, have gone unresolved for years."

The South Carolina Department of Commerce objected to the length of the Gamecock MOA, writing that it would block instrument-controlled air traffic traveling north and south.

Other federal and state agencies wrote that they couldn't comment specifically on the probable effect on the environment or wildlife without knowing exactly where the transmitters would be located. The Air Force rents land to install the transmitters, which send out signals simulating the types of air defense systems pilots might have to destroy during combat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote that it worried about the effects of low-flying military jets on bald eagle and wood stork populations in the Bulldog MOA.

Byers said the Air Force is willing to work on any issues.

"This is not a huge airspace grab that the Air Force is trying to make," he said.

The proposal will carve out "avoidance areas" around civilian airports, with a three-mile horizontal radius and a 1,200-foot vertical ceiling, "to allow civilian pilots and airplanes to fly in and out of those airports without any interference," he said.

As required by federal law, the environmental impact statement includes the main proposal — the one the Air Force would like to enact — and two alternatives, as well as a "no-action" alternative.

The first alternative includes the same amount of airspace, Byers said, but has less management flexibility. The second alternative includes less airspace, he said. It only lowers the floor of the Bulldog MOA to 3,000 feet and doesn't extend one portion of the Gamecock MOA as low to the ground.

Byers said that at the same time the Air Force is going through the environmental impact process, it is also working on a formal aeronautical proposal for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Eventually, he said, both documents will land at the FAA, which has the final authority to make changes to airspace.

The draft environmental impact statement is available at www.shaw.af.mil and at public libraries in Sumter and Clarendon counties.

Contact Staff Writer Leslie Cantu at lesliec@theitem.com or 803-774-1250.