Friday, December 04, 2009

Air Force to expand training airspace in Dakotas

The Bismarck Tribune website has an AP story posted yesterday written by Dirk Lammers on the U.S. Air Force looking into quadrupling the airspace in which it can it can conduct training exercises with its B-1 and B-52 bombers stationed in the Dakotas.

The Powder River Training Complex, centered just northwest of where South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana meet, now spans about 6,000 square miles. The space can accommodate only one or two bombers at a time, so some B-1B Lancers from South Dakota's Ellsworth Air Force Base and B-52 Stratofortress bombers from North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base have had to fly as far as Nevada for their combat exercises, said George Stone, Ellsworth's airspace manager.

You can read the entire story by clicking here.