Three military bases in Arizona are proposing to expand the MOAs in southern Arizona and New Mexico. We strongly object to parts of the proposals. These expansions will impact recreational use of some airstrips, including Sacaton, Amigos del Cielo, and Thurmond. The expansions will lower the floor for supersonic flights to 500’ AGL, which impacts flights over mountains and wilderness areas. They will also expand the hours of use and no longer be “by NOTANM” in some cases.
The main site is
https://www.arizonaregionalairspaceeis.com/
Our comments on the previous version (2022) are on our web site nmpilots.org under “About Us->Documents->Advocacy“
There are several public hearings scheduled in various places. Ron plans to attend the one in Reserve on Sept. 10 and would love to see lots of pilots attend. There are also two virtual hearings on Sept. 4 and 5. You can see the schedule and register for the virtual hearings on the planning site.
From the documents:
“The Proposed Action is to address existing and future training deficiencies due to insufficient airspace available to aircrews stationed ad Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Luke Air Force Base, and Morris Air National Guard Base in Arizona. This would necessitate modifications to the volume and attributes of ten existing MOAs. The MOAs proposed for optimization include Tombstone, Outlaw, Jackal, Reserve, Morenci, Bagdad, Gladden, Sells, Ruby, and Fuzzy. The modifications include updating the published times of use; expanding the boundary of one MOA (Tombstone); adjusting the altitudes of existing MOAs to support low-altitude training; authorizing supersonic training at lower altitudes in more MOAs; and authorizing use of chaff and lowering the minimum release altitude for flares.”