US fighter pilots navigating crowded airspace in Iraq

[Woodmonkey]

US fighter pilots navigating crowded airspace in Iraq

U.S. pilots flying missions over Iraq come to the region expecting a host of challenges, including swirling sandstorms and urban battlefields filled with a mix of enemies and civilians.

But Naval aviators flying off the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman said one of the newest difficulties has been the least expected: navigating increasingly crowded airspace in a region that has experienced the world's fastest airline growth in recent years.

The mix of U.S. combat aircraft and civilian planes from booming Gulf airlines illustrates the growing divide in the Middle East between countries like Iraq and Lebanon, which are mired in political and sectarian conflict, and oil-rich nations such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar enjoying a windfall revenue and surging investment.

Cmdr. Bill Sigler, head of an F/A-18 fighter jet squadron on the USS Truman, estimated that planes flying off the carrier headed north over the Persian Gulf to Iraq were confined to one-fifth of the airspace available the last time he was in the region in 2002 because of increased airline traffic.

"You have to carve a strip out of the middle of the Gulf and that's frequently below 15,000 feet, which for us is like confining your car to the sidewalk," said Sigler. "It does not give us much to work with."

The Truman's battle group ended its Gulf deployment this week and is returning to Norfolk, Va. It was replaced by the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Civilian air traffic controllers work with U.S. pilots flying to Iraq to keep them on their designated routes, a process that has become more complicated as the number of flights has ballooned.

"Now it is a spider web of networks that crisscross the Gulf," said Sigler.

Civilian air traffic in the Mideast doubled between 2002 and 2007, according to the International Air Transport Association. Mideast airline traffic is still relatively light compared with North America and Europe, but the region's growth rate galloped at more than 18 percent last year — far faster than any place in the West.

The boom in Gulf air traffic — particularly with carriers such as Emirates and Qatar Airways — has been driven by oil-funded airline investments and the region's strategic location as a hub between Asia and the U.S. and Europe, said John Strickland, a London-based airline analyst.

"Between their geographic location and the ultra-long range aircraft that are becoming available, they can pretty much fly nonstop anywhere in the world," said Strickland. "They have really introduced services that wouldn't have been possible 5-10 years ago, and the demand has really come through."

Capt. Fredrick Pawlowski, commander of the entire air wing on the USS Truman, said the increased air traffic has made flying missions into Iraq from the Gulf more difficult but also reflected stability and growth in the region.

"In the last five years since I was here previously, we have been constricted in our airspace, in the routes we can fly in and out of the country because of good things," said Pawlowski. "That is, access is there because we can guarantee it."

But Sigler said the airline growth has brought with it an increased risk of mid-air collisions with military aircraft headed toward Iraq.

Two F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Truman crashed after they collided in January over the Gulf. The three aviators involved were plucked safely the Gulf. Sigler said the incident involved pilot error, but the accident occurred in the same block of airspace where airlines fly in and out of Kuwait.

"Ironically, we thought that if we had a mid-air (collision), it would be with somebody else, not in-house," said Sigler.

Pilots say the problem of crowded airspace gets even more difficult once they enter Iraq because of the layers of manned and unmanned military aircraft, known as UAVs, and civilian planes flying in and out of the major cities — making it among the most crowded skies in military history.

"There are little UAVs, there are helicopters, there are bigger UAVs, there are airplanes, there are bigger airplanes, there are really big UAVs, there are really big airplanes, and there's commercial air traffic over there," said Rear Adm. William Gortney, commander of the USS Truman carrier group and a fighter pilot himself. "It's a real challenge."

Most of the civilian air traffic in the Gulf bypass Iraqi airspace, but several airlines conduct daily flights to cities including Baghdad, Basra, Irbil and Suleimaniyah.

"Our training ranges in the United States have something like that going on, but they don't bring (civilian) airplanes into land right in the middle of your bombing run," said Pawlowski.

The Source