FAA, Air Force Completing Final Work For Airspace Expansion
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Federal officials are completing the final work required on a newly approved aerial training area over the northern Plains, and military bombers could begin roaring overhead as soon as September.
The U.S. Air Force could be able to begin using at least parts of the expanded Powder River Training Complex over the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming as soon as the Federal Aviation Administration completes mapping work on the training airspace, an Air Force spokeswoman said Tuesday. The FAA approved the plan last month to roughly quadruple the training airspace to span nearly 35,000 square miles, making it the largest over the continental U.S.
The airspace will be used by B-1 bombers from Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and B-52 bombers from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The Air Force says the expansion will significantly boost training opportunities for Ellsworth and Minot aircrews. It’s expected to save Ellsworth up to $23 million a year in fuel costs by reducing the number of training flights to other states.
But before aircrews can start practicing in the newly expanded training area, the FAA has to publish the airspace expansion in its aeronautical maps, Air Force Spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement.
That publication is expected in September, but it will only open up certain parts of the training area. The full airspace won’t be open until an aircraft recall communications system is installed, said Qusi Al-Haj, who oversees the western part of the state for U.S. Sen. John Thune’s office.
Thune has been pushing for the expansion since 2006.
Al-Haj said the system is necessary to help prevent inconveniences for other aviators in the area and to ensure that aircraft can be recalled in an emergency.
Stefanek said the Air Force currently has no firm date for when the installation of the communications system will be complete but called the project’s completion a “high priority.”
Under the plan, any given location across the training area could experience up to nine low-altitude overflights annually. Supersonic flights would be limited to 10 days a year during large-scale exercises involving roughly 20 aircraft.
The Air Force has said as many as 88 civilian flights a day could be delayed when the large-scale exercises are conducted, but that number would likely be smaller.
Elected leaders in Montana have said the bombers would disrupt rural communities. Gov. Steve Bullock wrote in a mid-March letter to the FAA that the expansion “would be at the expense of the livelihoods and economic prosperity of Montanans.”
Opponents could petition to have the FAA decision to allow the expansion reviewed by an appeals court.
Lawmakers and Air Force officials are also thinking longer-term. South Dakota U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem has been working to get funding for an expensive, specialized device used to electronically simulate enemy air defenses. Noem’s office said a site in Belle Fourche is expected to get one of the training aids in fiscal year 2019, which would be an improvement over current capabilities.
A spokesman for the Air Force’s Air Combat Command Airspace, Ranges, and Airfield Operations Division said in a written statement the Joint Threat Emitter “provides a wider array of simulated threats.”
