Posted on 03/05/2007 1:10:11 PM PST by george76
The Colorado Army National Guard will maintain its annual high-altitude helicopter training on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands in Eagle and Garfield counties at 3,000 hours.
The Guard also has agreed to additional stipulations in order to protect wilderness areas, wildlife and livestock, the White River National Forest and BLM announced today.
The military believes high-altitude combat training is vital for the protection of pilots and aircrews. In combat, aircrews trained in high-altitude aviation have a higher mission success rate as well as fewer accidents.
As such, the Army had asked for 6,000 hours that could spend training in the High-Altitude Army Aviation Training Site area around Gypsum.
Decrease significantly the number of landings within... the recommended wilderness areas.
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
just not American troops.
.
Here they go again...managing our public lands as if Congress had acted.
"The military believes high-altitude combat training is vital for the protection of pilots and aircrews. In combat, aircrews trained in high-altitude aviation have a higher mission success rate as well as fewer accidents."
Absolutely true. Plain old mishaps account for more than 2/3 of the helo losses in combat zones. The high-altitude LXs in Afghanistan are esoecially challenging.
TC
"We all understand and respect the need for this training, and the three agencies sat down to work through potential issues while keeping in mind the important goals of the Colorado National Guard," said White River National Forest Planner Wendy Haskins. ...
.
High altitude maneuvers has what to do with parks?
The Forest Service does not care much for supporting the pilots training.
They have been trying to close these areas for decades.
This is just their latest attempt.
National Forests, actually. That's where the high altitude terrain is in these parts.
Wendy Haskins and her friends have been trying to kick us off our public lands for decades.
This forest area is high altitude and apparently excellent for flight training...and not a national park.
Wendy and her friends would love to have the greenies take over.
I thought that Scott McInnis had put a congressional hold on this longterm training area years ago. He was passionate about allowing the military to have permanent access to high quality training at altitude. He knew that it was very important for the pilots and crews to train at altitude.
If the army needs 6,000 hours then Wendy and friends should shut up and go away.
Can the Army push back for the 6,000 hours ?
Durning this global war, they should have priority ?
Yepper!
BTW, did the Air Force ever find that bomb that was missing when the A-10 pilot crashed his plane a few years ago?
The Air Force was very quiet about what they found.
I never heard many details other than they spent lots of time over a couple years looking around.
Many of the high altitude landing locations are on mountain tops within BLM land, national forest or national parks. Those are the only locations on U.S. soil that are suitable for training our helicopter pilots for similar demands in places like Afghanistan.
Maybe Mauna Loa? All that requires is a bottle of rum for Pele...
IIRC, the bombs were still on the plane. It's a big if, though...
They have been introducing lots of moose.
A least hundreds...maybe thousands ?
None have been hit that I know of ?
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