Have to respectfully disagree with you. An additional handful of routes north-south that could provide flow between S.C./Florida, and the Washington to Boston corridor would provide some relief. This evidenced by the fact that they are doing it for the holiday season, and as I mentioned when I worked in that part of the industry the airlines were begging for this. What I am asking is:

Is there any way to do this, and still provide the DoD the airspace they need?

 

Sure, let us go supersonic over land...people would stop *****ing about delays in a hurry.

 

The problem is SC to FL and DC to BOS cuts through most of the east coast training airspace. You can not cut a tunnel through the air space you would have to share it with guys diving from FL450 while looking over their shoulder. It works next weekend because no one is working next weekend. Or if they were the boss just told them they aren't.

 

Sounds good, who do I write!

Seriously, If each warning area was shifted eastward about 25 miles what issues would that create for the DoD?

Onfinal

 

It creates fuel issues for training for starters. There's other things that go on out there too with heavies, ships, etc. I already don't like fighting 100+ miles off shore in the winter and don't need to get pushed out further when it's that cold!

 

Slice, FDXLAG, et al:

Thanks for the information. Very informative!

As always, thanks for your service to the American People.

Best Regards,

Onfinal

 

No offense meant.

Yes, plenty of folks fly through the confines of those Warning Areas IFR when they're cold, but ATC will not clear any non-participants there when they're in use. My point was that I can't honestly imagine why anyone would want to take a short cut through a hot Warning Area or MOA under VFR. There are guys in there going supersonic, practicing BFM/ACM, and occasionally firing all sorts of air-to-surface, air-to-air, surface-to-air, and surface-to-surface missiles.

We trailed 5 miles of wire in Whiskey Areas. I always wondered what we'd find if anyone ever sat down and correlated the dates and times we lost wires mysteriously to unexplained helicopter crashes...

Anyway, to address your question, I would speculate that it would help a little, as it would free up additional arrival and departure corridors, especially at LGA/JFK/EWR. The backlog, as I understand it, is more of an airborne separation and sequencing issue than one of runway utilization. Most of the traveling public (and our esteemed lawmakers) probably assume the opposite, since that's where they see throngs of airplanes lined up. What they don't see are the speed restrictions and flow control beginning at the Canadian border or airliners stacked like pancakes over FAK. As others have mentioned, the real solution is modernization of the ATC system and adequate controller staffing, which will only result when both are properly funded.

(Take, for example, ATL, where the standard call is "Airliner 1, cleared for takeoff. Airliner 2 position and hold," followed shortly thereafter by "Airliners 3, 4, 5, 6, without delay, cross." Rinse, lather, repeat. Contrast this to JFK, where it's "Hold short, awaiting IFR release.")

Another issue that I doubt if anyone crying for this in Washington has even considered is whether most of the aircraft that could potentially take advantage of this airspace are even equipped for overwater ops. I think someone once told me that JetBlue is occasionally able to cut the line at Kennedy because they carry the rafts required to depart to the east and avoid the congestion, if that route is available. I bet most of the RJ's at JFK don't.

 

Funny how the airlines were the "bad guys" all summer long, when opening a few routes a couple of hours a day would have relieved a lot of the conjestion. Isn't that what NOTAMS are for???? Two years ago we were delayed for almost 2 hours and had 750 miles added to our route of flight so the military could launch a small rocket from Cape Canavral (sp). The controllers were practically crying because the launch created such a backlog along the east coast. We were going from EWR to SJU, but had to be routed over land due to the launch. Funny thing is, is that the 2 minutes or so it took to get the rocket into orbit cost us a fortune in fuel, and delays. I'm sure it cost the airlines a pretty penny.......all for 2 minutes. Safety is one thing.......stupidity is another.

 

Speaking only from experience flying in W122 off the Virginia/NC coast, it would really crap on some important training to run an airway through the middle of it. Above 390 it would probably not be a problem, though.

The Whiskey areas are the only places we can do full-up no restrictions combat maneuvering. Supersonic, chaff and flare, up to FL500...that's valuable training that I can't get in the 7,000-240 standard MOA block over the CONUS. In the Whiskeys you can have big, multi aircraft air-to-air engagements with 80+ mile setups, which is also very unique.

As is, the W122 airspace is all ready shared by jets from Langley AFB, NAS Oceana, Seymour Johnson AFB, MCAS Cherry Point, MCAS Beaufort, and probably some more I'm not thinking of off hand. It's very heavily used.

So, I don't know...there is probably a tradeoff in there somewhere, it depends on how that corridoor would actually help congestion. It would be a huge tragedy to lose big chunks of airspace for 5 flights a day or something.

 

These measures will do NOTHING to reduce delays. No new routes are being opened, we will continue to fly the same airways we have for years. Yes... the same routes across the ocean ... BOS to ORF, ... CLB to MIA.

The delays are caused by the bottlenecks at departure and arrival! Not enough runways and not enough controllers. The rare airborne delays are caused be weather... not a lack of airspace.

And how does increasing penalties for overbooking solve anything!?