Adventures in restricted airspace
Restricted airspace is something we pilots study and then studiously avoid.
Fortunately, it’s limited enough in most places to easily bypass. But here in the Intermountain West, huge swaths of the stuff can dictate 100-mile detours.
Jean and I regularly experience this flying from Flagstaff to Alamogordo, New Mexico to visit family. To bypass 135 miles of restricted airspace encompassing White Sands Missile Range, we must steer east past Socorro and then 90 miles south, or southeast to El Paso and turn north.
Normally we take the shorter northern route. But when weather recently shrouded northern New Mexico, we launched via El Paso.
En route, we reflected on restricted-airspace lessons we’ve learned…
**Read Greg’s entire column, “OFF LIMITS?“** (Mobile-friendly version HERE.)
Photo: Arizona Highway 85, viewed from 100 feet.
(This column first appeared in AOPA Flight Training magazine.)
Greg
©2018 Gregory N. Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!