8 hours ago, dream big said:

Well that wasn't hard, after the Pakistani C-130s violated every airspace in Washington and dropped off DZ and were subsequently restricted to airland missions only :).  

 

That was before that happened, I'm talking Day 1 flying. And yes, the internationals did bust airspace, which could have been avoided if they were given an airspace brief like every other flying exercise I've been in.

7 hours ago, ThreeHoler said:

That sucks. 

Was the AFREP any help?

I'm not sure if the AFREP was contacted for assistance. The SeaTac ATC telecon on D+3 was interesting though. 

25 minutes ago, Spinner said:

That was before that happened, I'm talking Day 1 flying. And yes, the internationals did bust airspace, which could have been avoided if they were given an airspace brief like every other flying exercise I've been in.

I'm not sure if the AFREP was contacted for assistance. The SeaTac ATC telecon on D+3 was interesting though. 

They were briefed thoroughly by the MPC, and every international unit complied minus the Koreans and Pakistanis (at least on the 130 side.)  The Koreans are notorious for debaucherry in every exercise I've interacted with them, to include causing two separate formations to go beak to beak a few years ago.

The coordination with ATC was an epic fail.  The way it was explained to me was that because SEATAC ARTCC (like many civilian aviation entities) is unionized, that they could simply refuse to give IFR releases and the USAF could do nothing about it.  They were having us file flight plans contrary to both FAA and USAF regs.   

Next time we need to have this exercise in Alaska or Nevada, with the abundance of commonly used MOAs and an existing relationship with ATC. 

I wasn't a part of this exercise but it sounds like a lot of lessons observed from other large scale exercises.

ATC can withhold IFR release for congested airspace and controller manning. I don't think it is because they are unionized. They have to have a certain number of controllers on shift to handle the number of aircraft flying. Note I said aircraft. If you have a 20-ship formation, their manning has to account for those 20 as if they were single ship.

Nellis isn't a suitable fix for next go either. The NTTR is always at max capacity with Red Flag/DOE/USAFWS. LFEs at Nellis require ATC coord ahead of time to get folks into and out of the airspace efficiently just like any other location. Planners need to simply solicit feedback from ATC and adjust their flow in/out of TCM accordingly. A telecon 2ish months out never hurts either.  

6 hours ago, osulax05 said:

I wasn't a part of this exercise but it sounds like a lot of lessons observed from other large scale exercises.

ATC can withhold IFR release for congested airspace and controller manning. I don't think it is because they are unionized. They have to have a certain number of controllers on shift to handle the number of aircraft flying. Note I said aircraft. If you have a 20-ship formation, their manning has to account for those 20 as if they were single ship.

Nellis isn't a suitable fix for next go either. The NTTR is always at max capacity with Red Flag/DOE/USAFWS. LFEs at Nellis require ATC coord ahead of time to get folks into and out of the airspace efficiently just like any other location. Planners need to simply solicit feedback from ATC and adjust their flow in/out of TCM accordingly. A telecon 2ish months out never hurts either.  

Fair assessment. What about Alaska? The controllers were awesome to work with for RF-AK.   My comment wasn't a stab at unions- but rather showing who is going to win at the end of the day (unionized FAA workers or DOD.) 

8 hours ago, dream big said:

They were briefed thoroughly by the MPC, and every international unit complied minus the Koreans and Pakistanis (at least on the 130 side.)  The Koreans are notorious for debaucherry in every exercise I've interacted with them, to include causing two separate formations to go beak to beak a few years ago.

The coordination with ATC was an epic fail.  The way it was explained to me was that because SEATAC ARTCC (like many civilian aviation entities) is unionized, that they could simply refuse to give IFR releases and the USAF could do nothing about it.  They were having us file flight plans contrary to both FAA and USAF regs.   

Next time we need to have this exercise in Alaska or Nevada, with the abundance of commonly used MOAs and an existing relationship with ATC. 

McChord C-17's and P-3/F-18's from Whidbey Island come over from the west side of the state to Moses Lake or Fairchild for pattern due to the saturated traffic pattern over on the west side due to SEATAC.  I could only imagine launching 30-50+ sorties a day into SEATAC ARTCC control without proper coordination, that would be a nightmare.

1 hour ago, dream big said:

Fair assessment. What about Alaska? 

Eielson is definitely less congested than Seattle but you'd have to deconflict with RF-A that consumes most of the summer time resources up there (airspace, threats,  AGRS). 

 

I guess the point I was trying to make is that TCM can work, as long as you find fight airspace well outside the Class B and do some solid ATC coord in advance.

15 hours ago, dream big said:

The way it was explained to me was that because SEATAC ARTCC (like many civilian aviation entities) is unionized, that they could simply refuse to give IFR releases and the USAF could do nothing about it.

 Meanwhile all the Army helicopter dudes up there are flying around making CTAF calls. The MAF is too smart for its own good. I still say a VFR departure is "legal" and satisfies the "necessary for msn accomplishment" requirement. 

On August 12, 2017 at 5:47 PM, Spinner said:

There was one overly obnoxious controller who was trying to violate everyone he could, especially the internationals.

Was everyone able to reach shelter in time?

There is plenty of airspace in central Washington all the way to the eastern side of Montana.  AMC should have flown the majority of the iron from another location other than TCM, such as Moses Lake.  Moses Lake would have loved the extra business and it would keep everyone out of Seattle's busy airspace.

The MPC should only spend .69% of their time on flight plans.

Edited August 14, 20178 yr by Right Seat Driver
Clarity

You're saying move away from a MOB where all the support, MX, and enough hotel space exists to go to the middle of nowhere to be able to launch easier? Im not saying this is a bad COA - it was certainly looked at during planning.

We should just go to Alpina and call it good, like in the old days. There ain't shit there. You guys would love that. Throw in some MOPP4 time and its just like 2005 all over again - we could even change the name back to MOBEX... (HEAVY SARCASM)

Chuck

On 8/7/2017 at 8:05 PM, CopyShot said:

Here's a question for OSSers/Airfield Management-savvy types:

 

Once an 1801 is filed, does a record copy of that go in "the system" (I'm sure there's a better name for that, but I have no idea what it is)?  In other words, does the FAA and/or ICAO equivalents ever get the full contents of the form, or just the pertinent route/speed/altitude data to generate the strip?

More specifically, if the PIC block is ever filled in as anything other than "On File", does that go outside of military channels?

Back to the subject at hand, why???? What did you do?

If one were to file an 1801/FAA international flight plan through Foreflight or DUATS(800wxbrief), how do enter AR Tracks or ALTRVs in the route of flight and in block 18?

Edited September 13, 20187 yr by fou

4 minutes ago, fou said:

If one were to file an 1801/FAA international flight plan through Foreflight or DUATS(800wxbrief), how do enter AR Tracks or ALTRV in the route of flight and in block 18?

The short of it is in the route of flight you put the points of the track or altrv only, and then full annotation of the altrv in the remarks. Unlike domestic flight plans, you don’t put “(arip) ARXXX (arex)” in the route of flight portions. But there’s probably an AMC guru here who has a better explanation.