By Ray Cox | Special to The Roanoke Times
Nothing like exchanging glances with a jet fighter pilot skimming low down a Giles County valley, traveling at a good clip but way short of Mach 1, to gain renewed appreciation for the majesty and might of the United States of America.
Another path to similar insight is met while gazing down awestruck on the swept-back wings of an F-15 as it swooshes below the tip top of a North Carolina mountain you happen to be sitting on while tending to aching feet.
Those images form a cinematic backdrop for a question posed by both a reader and the amiable silver screen outlaw Butch Cassidy, albeit in different contexts:
“Who are those guys?”
Q: I live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and want to know about jet aircraft flying in groups of two or more that fly east to west while coming very close and loud. Where are they flying and in what aircraft?
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Aline Mc Kenna
Lexington
A: Low-altitude military flight training has thrilled, delighted and irked Western Virginians for a good while. The bumpy terrain region is well traveled by flying men and women of the armed forces. They arrive in our skies from some of the many military bases dotting the East Coast.
Among reasonably nearby home fields (come to think of it, when you slow roll at 600 mph, pretty much anywhere is nearby) are the huge Naval Air Station Oceana at Virginia Beach and Langley Air Force Base at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton. In North Carolina, there is Seymour Johnson Air Force Base at Goldsboro and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.
This part of Virginia is laced with the pasta bowl of military training routes that cover the U.S. and beyond. These aerial corridors are a joint effort of the Department of Defense and the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Full consideration is given to the needs of both national defense and civilian aviation,” is the way the Air Force explains the idea at its Low-Level Flying Training fact sheet.
Navy aviators have their own challenges, not the least of which being successfully hitting the heaving flight deck of an aircraft carrier. In Navy terms, these pilots have “unique performance requirements.”
“The projection of sea power ashore brings to the theater of war a unique blend of capabilities and vulnerabilities,” reads the flight training manual for low-altitude instruction issued in 2018 under auspices of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas.
One of the purposes of the myriad military training routes aloft is to allow for flights below 10,000 feet at beyond the maximum safe speed 250 knots (287.6 mph) required of other aircraft at those altitudes. These paths are divided into Instrument Routes (IR) and Visual Routes (VR).
When the flyboys and flygirls go low, this is how low: around 500 feet. Typical speeds are limited to 420 knots (483.3 mph) and never more than Mach 1 (the speed of sound, 717 mph) in U.S. air space outside designated Military Operation Areas.
As you might imagine, these activities may not mesh well with more leisurely general aviation or commercial operations in the same airspace. Military and civilian travel therefore is coordinated in advance.
As per FAA regulations, the military is obligated to provide two-hour notice of its flight plans known as a note to airmen (NOTAM) to alert civilian pilots of potential hazards on their route so they may “de-conflict” if necessary.
Military training aerial corridors run to 10 miles wide are defined by a series of coordinates. The Defense Department’s complete list and written instructions for of all the training routes in North and South America is publication AP/1B.
The vast majority of these paths are designated visual routes. The ones passing nearest Roanoke are VR-041, VR-042 and VR-043. All originate at Seymour Johnson. Elsewhere, VR-053 begins at Oceana.
Western Virginia is considered a good training area because the mountainous terrain mimics the specialized conditions in war zones such as Afghanistan.
Here and elsewhere, training aboard jet aircraft is obviously subject to hazard. Flight personnel usually include a pilot and weapons systems officer.
In 2004, a midair collision between an Air Force F-15 out of Seymour Johnson and a buzzard in the skies over Franklin County resulted in a fiery crash.
The two crewmen ejected safely and no injuries were reported on the ground, but there was a loss of $42 million-plus in airplane, according to Jeff Sturgeon’s recap for the newspaper several years later.
Other obstacles to low-altitude training include noise mitigation, part of the constant push-pull with the civilian world. The roar is a hazard in itself, as demonstrated tragically when a 2004 training flight by the British Royal Air Force over Lincolnshire caused a pleasure rider below to be fatally unhorsed by a terrified mount.
Assuming all goes well, seeing these flyers on their training flights is not to be forgotten. Take it from an eyewitness at a long ago Giles High football practice during which time a jet buzzed so low in interruption that the pilot could be observed glancing down at the Spartans’ single wing offense drills.
Even longer ago, a party of University of Virginia boys was taking in the view from atop Mount Cammerer in the North Carolina Smokies. When an USAF jet raced through the valley far below, the hikers looking down on it and nodded their heads in stunned agreement.
God bless the United States of America.
If you’ve been wondering about something, call “What’s on Your Mind?” at 777-6476 or send an email to whatsonyourmind@roanoke.com. Don’t forget to provide your full name (and its proper spelling if by phone) and hometown.
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