McChord to increase nighttime training

TACOMA — Residents near McChord Air Force Base may notice more plane activity as base officials conduct new training in the area to better prepare pilots for wartime.

There will be a 20 percent increase in nighttime training, with more flights by C-17 cargo jets over the area, according to McChord's environmental assessment of the new procedures.

Pilots will perform maneuvers that they will need to avoid such threats as gunfire and antiaircraft rockets, officials said.

The environmental report shows training will include rapid, spiral descents and climbs; landings on just 3,500 feet of the 10,100-foot runway; and high-speed, low-altitude arrivals from the south.

For the past six years such training flights have been done at Grant County Airport in Moses Lake. But the report calls for as much as 60 percent of those flights to be moved west to McChord.

The number of air operations at McChord — an average of about 92 takeoffs, landings and closed-pattern training operations each day — should stay the same.

The report states that changes would not increase the likelihood of a crash, nor would one occur over a populated area. No C-17 has crashed since the aircraft entered service.

About 10,000 more residents — over 1,600 acres — will be affected by the flights, mainly those to the northwest and northeast, the report states.

Most of the changes, however, will go unnoticed, McChord commander Col. Wayne Schatz said. Pilots are performing some of the maneuvers already, and the base will likely continue to stop training at 11 p.m. or midnight.

"We're trying to balance the need for military training with the need to be good neighbors," Schatz said.