DEAR AIR NATIONAL GUARD…I love you guys I really do..but can we arrive at a compromise…such as half of the takeoff’s go south and the other half go north..it would really make life a little easier for those of us at the north end of the runway..your consideration of this matter would be much appreciated… The following response is from the Barnes ANG: Takeoffs are usually dictated by winds and traffic in and out of Bradley Int’l airport as they are our servicing air traffic control (ATC) facility for IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flights. We are required to fly under IFR rules by our regulations to the maximum for traffic deconfliction. Usually, Bradley radar control have us on north departures to keep us out of their traffic pattern to the south. Also, for arrivals, the only ILS (Instrument Landing System-bad weather approach) is landing to the south, where we are vectored by ATC to the north of the airfield (about 15 miles) to start the approach, which again keeps us out of Bradley’s civilian traffic pattern. We do try to keep our noise down by climbing to 10,000 feet as quickly as possible, but sometimes ATC (either Boston Center or Bradley Approach) keeps us at lower altitudes due to other traffic or flow needs. So I feel your pain, we would rather take off to the south as it saves us time and gas in getting to our training airspace. I don’t have the breakdown of north vs. south takeoffs, but my guess is we do 75-80 percent of our takeoffs to the north, which as stated above, we can’t control.
