Airspace Considerations

There is an air corridor off of the departure end of Cairns’ runway 6. I love to take the last 30 minutes of one flight every month and run the ILS approach to RWY 6 because instrument flight is sexy. Ask any instrument examiner, and they will agree with me. I run the approach, and I then stay low for the Lowe East corridor through post, and head back home to lovely Shell Army Heliport. Since I normally run this approach at the end of the flight period, I’m haulin’ balls from the corridor transition at ACP School up to RT 2 and ACP 27 around 1700. You have to stay low and fast to stay out of Lowe AHP’s traffic. The Lowe East is an 800’ MSL corridor. Shell AHP already sits at 400’ MSL. For a flight training area, that’s pretty low over the trees and base! It’s more awesome when you don’t have doors on your aircraft. You’re all Vietnam-chopper-pilot-sexy style, waving at the kiddies in post housing as you fly over the more remote parts of post.

A bird strike is never expected. In fact, it can be a very traumatic event for both you and the bird. 

Now imagine if that bird where not just any bird, but a Raven. I’m talking about a full on, remotely piloted RQ-11B Small Unmanned Aircraft System RAVEN!

I’ve nearly had one of these traumatic events myself in Iraq. No sh*t, there I was, flight lead for a two-ship route patrol travelling south on route Vanessa going from Al-Muqdadiyah to Ba’qubah (which the pilots thought it was hilarious to make the only girl pilot in the troop tell the ground forces that she was "going down on Vanessa" during the ground force check in brief... heathens). I was chillin’ in the left seat, watching for nefarious people doing nefarious things along the road, when…

 *WRRRAAAWRRRRAAAAWRRRRR*

Right. By. The. Windscreen. Right. Under. The. Rotor disk.

The pilot on the controls, a man with considerable flight experience in dicey places, stopped breathing. I stopped breathing, gripping the armored side panel and cockpit glare shield for dear life. The trail aircraft chirped cheerfully over the radio.

“Did you see that?”

Finally my heart started again. We looked at each for a moment. He broke the silence.

“I think the seat cover is now stuck in my butt.”

Yeah, it was a Raven from an infantry platoon that was out doing a routine patrol.

I have inadvertently underflown wires. I have gotten myself into power margins that were not smart. I have been shot at by large calibers of small arms. I have had mortars drop around me on the runway while waiting to take off. Once, I nearly got into a head on collision with an Iraqi tractor trailer truck cab, while in a state of target fixation. These were all things that my pilot buddies and I have tried to do to ourselves. Or with enemy help.

So I’m sure you can imagine my shock when I saw two young members of the flight schooler crowd gawking up at the sky yesterday around 1700 on my way home from work. They were slack jawed and staring up at the sky, like turkeys staring up at the rain and waiting to drown. One of them was holding a rather robust remote controller which was providing inputs for a Raven-sized remote controlled helicopter.

In the middle of the transition from ACP School on the Lowe East corridor to ACP 27 by Shell!

I could almost feel the seat in my butt.

I pulled my car over, got my heart to start beating again, and asked, “Hey, you guys know this is the transition for the Lowe East corridor, right?”

The response? “I asked around and no one told me that I couldn't fly it here."

Who did you ask? Other flight schoolers? Did you actually ask someone who knew the airspace? What do you think are the operating restrictions for remote controlled aircraft in this airspace? Do you even know what type of airspace you’re standing in right now?

(Oh, and in case you forgot all about flight school, Cairns is Class D)

So, this is my public service announcement: Please friend these really nice people on Facebook called the Wiregrass Radio Control Club of Ft. Rucker. They have meetings and dinner at Larry’s BBQ together. And they have fly-ins where they have established a NOTAM to prevent fellow pilots from sucking the seat cover into their butt. Which is sexy.