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Show Letters to the Editor . . . Dear Sam: In reply to the letter from Joseph Zemaitaitis in last week's Times Independent. In-dependent. I especially appreciated his writing since it lets us get to the heart of the problem. prob-lem. Joe refers to only one encounter of record and that one at 1400 ft. apart. I don't doubt the distance, but I'd like to know how . close it would have been if BOTH of us had not taken evasive action a couple of seconds or so before we met? On May 4th, between 7:40 and 7:50 p.m., approximately ap-proximately 50 miles South of Green River, with a five man crew aboard. ab-oard. I had a near miss, head on, that I estimate was less than 1.000 ft. and it is of record with the Air Force. Another one occurred last fall about 15 miles South of the Target area. I was flying northerly and was overtaken by a two plane Fill formation flying at the same altitude, one plane passing on either side of me. Within an hour or so I received a phone call from Cannon Can-non Air Force Base (I believe it was a major) and I was read the "Riot Act". . .for what reason. rea-son. . .being in the air I guess. Mr. Ferral can verify this. About a month ago (obviously this Fill was involved in some extra ex-tra curricular activity) Jim Duerock and Scott Boyd had departed Hite with full loads of passengers pas-sengers and were climbing climb-ing out in an easterly direction. Jimmy said he watched the Fill come around in a turn and head back toward him then disappear behind and below, knowing Scott had a close one. Scott confirmed con-firmed this when he arrived, ar-rived, saying he'd nearly been run over. Scott reports re-ports another incident where one crossed in front of him on a southwesterly south-westerly heading at low level in the area between Fort Bottom and the Bow Knot. Merrill Fisher and a passenger reported one so close just north of the target area that they heard it above the noise of their own craft. Jim reports one in that same area so close that had everything stopped for a few seconds he could have read the pilots name on his helmet. I do not doubt that some excellent equipment is available at the missile base but the above incidents incid-ents should point out that there are some holes in the system. As for the cooperation comment -the turning right from the target instead of passing pas-sing over the airport and the mlormation regarding regard-ing their schedules that they give us each week, 1 consider these only common sense actions. We appreciate the consideration con-sideration shown us on our busiest day, Friday, but the Only time this courtesy was extended was on the last week of their scheduled ; flights when they terminated at 2 p.m. At last week's meeting, meet-ing, I was assured that the entry point would be moved 8 miles to the East and there would be no Fill missions scheduled sched-uled on Friday afternoons' until after Oct. 1st when our busiest season ends. These actions will reduce re-duce the hazard level many fold. There are still two areas to be closely watched - one is about 15 miles South and the other area is just North of the target. There is a concentration of low level general aviation traffic in the latter area as it arrives and departs Green River. In another section of the last paper it appears to me that one man has gone on record indicating that these seven incidents in the first elev en months of the program are of only minor importance. I sincerely hope, and will work diligently to assure, as-sure, that he never has to eat his words. Sincerely, Jim Hurst |