W537 (warning area) in use, page 1

A0134/12 - QRRCA THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS ARE REQUIRED DUE TO NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION ACTIVATION OF W537. IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY, ALL NON-PARTICIPATING PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO AVOID W537. IFR TRAFFIC UNDER ATC JURISDICTION SHOULD ANTICIPATE CLEARANCE AROUND W537 AND CAE 1176. CAE 1155 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1316 AND CAE 1318 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION.CAE 1177 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. W537 ACTIVE, CAE 1176 CLOSED. SFC - - FL550, 13 JAN 20:00 2012 UNTIL 14 JAN 01:00 2012. CREATED: 12 JAN 21:20 2012

W-537 on skyvector



Time are GMT. This could be a China Lake launch. Watch out for "eyewitnesses" reporting UFOs. [Eyewitness testimony is very overrated.]

reply to post by gariac

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Do you mind elaborating more on your source and why this draws your attention?
I'm not well versed in aeronautical charts.

Photos? We will be doing well if the entity using the warning area issues a press release.

Source? To get a NOTAM, use this link:
pilotweb.nas.faa.gov...

I generally do a radius search of 120 miles from KINS. That gets me activity from the TTR to Edwards. Click on "radius search". That expands the box. Enter KINS for the location. Change the radius to 120 nm. Click on view NOTAMS.

Now you get a page of highly abbreviated text. KINS is Creech (INS is for Indian Springs) KBYS is Bicycle Lake (Fort Irwin). etc. Now if you go down to China Lake, you can read

M0011/12 - AERODROME CLOSED AT 0230(Z) ON 13JAN12, WILL REOPEN AT 1430(Z) ON 13JAN12 EXCEPT FOR PPR'S AND PRIOR APPROVED/COORDINATED AIRCRAFT. 13 JAN 02:35 2012 UNTIL 13 JAN 14:30 2012. CREATED: 13 JAN 02:37 2012

Now you would think the airport being closed indicates nothing is going to happen. Well it is trick. If the airport is closed, they often means they are going to launch something. In the case of China Lake, something can be a lot of things. Cruise missile (terrain following), a ordinary missile, or who knows what. Vandenberg shuts the aerodrome down too for a launch.

The NOTAM reports list the airports first then then air traffic control sectors. In the case of W537, it is in sector ZLA. Scroll down to the line that reads ZLA Los Angeles (ARTCC) Palmdale, CA. You will see the "R" restricted airspace schedule. These R airspaces can be found on a "sectional" map, though the skyvector link I put in the first post will get you there.

Find "A0134/12" and you will see the NOTAM I put in the first post. The days match, but not the times. However, I suspect the events are related. The people that do the notams often screw up the times. Sometimes they will put a L after the hour to indicate local time. Other times they will attempt to convert to GMT (techically Zulu time) and screw up.

So I think they are going to launch something from China lake out into the ocean. However, they can reserve the time and cancel the flight. Whatever they launch isn't cheap, so if everything isn't perfect, they just cancel and get a new airspace reservation.

Now W537 doesn't have to go inland to China Lake. It can be related to a Point Mugu launch .

Hopefully a pilot will chime in. If you search ATS, you can find threads related to W537 for other events. You may recall the "missile launch" off the coast a few years ago. Lots of eyewitnesses. It turned out to be an airplane contrail.

Eyewitness testimony can be terrible if you don't know what you are observing. I've watched VBG launches. They start slow and then really crank, must faster than a plane. But plane contrails can look like missile contrails, especially from the distance where the two plane contrails look like one.

If you want to track KVBG launches, get the email newletter from
www.spacearchive.info...

China Lake, being more remote, doesn't have a "blogger" like Vandenberg (which is up the coast from LA).

reply to post by Monkeygod333

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Yes, this is a warning, not restricted. If you monitor air traffic over R2508, they often let the Fedex/UPS planes fly over it. Now the Nellis range is a different story. Other than the TTR, unless it is for weather, forget it. If you monitor the radio traffic, ATC will advise planes that want to enter the MOAs that there are high performance fighter aircraft at all speed and altitudes. Translation: are you really really really sure you want to fly the MOAs during Red Flag.

Now in reality, there are times in theater where the fighters and bombers have to deal with civilian air traffic. I read a RAND report where a USAF bomber was release ordnance with civilian air traffic in the area. Bombing is precise enough that they can find a window through the traffic.

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