NORAD Flight Exercise Planned For Washington, D.C.

No. 087-09 September 30, 2009 The North American Aerospace Defense Command and its geographical component, the Continental U.S. NORAD Region, will conduct training flight exercises on Thursday, Oct. 1 in the National Capital Region (NCR), Washington, D.C. Exercise Falcon Virgo 10-01will occur between midnight and 2 a.m. EDT. The exercise comprises a series of training flights held in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Capital Region Command Center, the Joint Air Defense Operations Center, the Continental U.S. NORAD Region (CONR), Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard and CONR's Eastern Air Defense Sector. Exercise Falcon Virgo is designed to hone NORAD's intercept and identification operations, as well as procedural tests of the NCR Visual Warning System. Civil Air Patrol Cessna aircraft, Air Force F-16s, and Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopters will participate in the exercise. Residents may see these aircraft approaching and flying in the vicinity of the Washington D.C. area as part of this exercise during the late night and early morning hours and continuing through the scheduled exercise hours. In the event of inclement weather, the exercise will push to the next day. For more information on the Exercise Falcon Virgo, please contact CONR Public Affairs at (850) 283-8080, or the NORAD Public Affairs Office at (719) 554-6889.

I know somebody a few months back said they have these exercises all the time. I just stumbled across it and thought somebody might find this information useful.

People thought NORAD should had done something on 911.
But an Air Force officer said internal flights were not their concern.

Looking for invading flights were the original purpose although a
tentative penetrated occurred at one time by three Russian planes.
Defecting pilots with the potentially penetrating planes were escorted
by our planes.
Guess that knocked down any attack plans by Russia.
Why attack America if they will all land.

Perhaps NORAD has expanded to include missile attacks.

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne
People thought NORAD should had done something on 911.
But an Air Force officer said internal flights were not their concern.

Looking for invading flights were the original purpose although a
tentative penetrated occurred at one time by three Russian planes.
Defecting pilots with the potentially penetrating planes were escorted
by our planes.
Guess that knocked down any attack plans by Russia.
Why attack America if they will all land.

Perhaps NORAD has expanded to include missile attacks.

An interesting situation.
Get the offending planes with their trained pilots and then
test the defences.
See if NORAD actually worked against the so called super
planes.

Never happened to my knowledge, I live 10-12 miles outside of the city and haven't heard let alone seen any "flight exercises" lately. would be cool though. Opening up the no-fly-zone for two hours?

I have seen a lot of military helicopters flying around lately, usually its just the cops but these definitely weren't cops.

this is a little off topic; however, last friday, saturday and sunday there were lowing flying planes just top of the tree line in a north georgia mountain town near blue ridge, georgia.

i was not able to get a look at 3 of them and definitely saw the first one which looked military. i know it wasn't commercial but the funny thing about all 4 was they were headed in the same direction toward dalton, georgia.

i know georgia is a far cry from the dc area but i think it also strange it occurred during the same time frame.

how can i determine if a joint military exercise is or will take place in my area?