SUA Collision Avoidance

How vigilant do you need to be in special use airspace? After touring McGuire Air Force Base tower, radar approach control, and base operations, I’d say, “very.”

Alexander Sack

Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 05:02 AM ET

Verified

Military special use airspace exists in places to keep these bad boys clear of other traffic. Do you really want to risk going nose to nose with a C-17 by blundering into an Alert Area?

Key Takeaways:

Mid-Air Collision Avoidance (MACA) events are crucial for educating general aviation pilots on safely operating within and around complex, high-traffic Special Use Airspace (SUA) and military operations.
Military aircraft often operate with ADS-B off, making general aviation pilots' reliance on ADS-B for traffic avoidance a liability; VFR pilots should always obtain Flight Following when operating near or within SUAs.
Pilots responding to a TCAS Resolution Advisory (RA) assume responsibility for separation, must notify ATC of deviations, and should always contact ATC to confirm if a Restricted Area or other SUA is "hot" before entry.

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Various special use airspace (SUA) and the military operations that accompany them are somewhat enigmatic—we know we should stay away, but we really don’t know the particulars. And if you’ve ever taken a longer trip, encountering an SUA is inevitable. So it’s critical that we understand how to operate in and around them.

That’s why the U. S. Air Force hosts several Mid-Air Collision Avoidance (MACA) events to educate the flying public on how to conduct operations in and around their SUAs as well as provide a forum for the free flow of information between the military and the general aviation community. Each ATC sector has a specific wing that hosts the event. In my case, it was the 305th Air Mobility Wing, which is the Air Force’s strategic airlift and air refueling wing under the control of the Air Mobility Command and the senior airfield authority of Joint Base-McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (McGuire, KWRI).