This is not a normal post for the Blue Ice Aviation blog, but I believe it’s important. There has been a proposal to expand military operation in the vicinity of our base of operation. This includes an MOA (military operating area) that would cover the mountains just North of our house. The floor of this new MOA would be 500′ AGL. I appreciate our military very much and understand that they need a place to operate. The problem is, they have already designated a Wisconsin sized chunk of Alaska for military operations … that’s more than 65,000 square miles. Their hope is to do extensive training in this area, both land and air. I am afraid they will not stop with lowering the floor of their airspace, but will continue until civilians are not able to use this land for recreation. This is not fear mongering, it is common sense in view of the federal government’s track record. I personally hope they drop this whole notion of expansion, but considering that they have already invested years of planing and nearly 2 million dollars, it’s probably an idea we are stuck with. You can visit their website and post comments for or against this proposal at http://jparceis.com/. JPARC is only accepting comments through tomorrow March 4th. If you have an intelligent opinion you might throw it in the pool of comments, it does make a difference at this stage in the game.
Thanks,
-Matt Keller
