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:

Operating safely near Special Use Airspace (SUA) is critical, especially since military aircraft often fly with ADS-B off, making general aviation reliance on ADS-B for traffic avoidance a liability.
Mid-Air Collision Avoidance (MACA) events educate pilots on safely navigating military airspace, strongly recommending the use of Flight Following for VFR flights near SUAs to enhance separation and receive ATC advisories.
Pilots are primarily responsible for avoiding conflicts, including immediate responses to TCAS Resolution Advisories (RAs), and must always confirm the active status and altitudes of restricted areas with ATC to prevent violations.

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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).