Air Force Base Amnesia Update

As I reported last month folks in my corner of northeast New Mexico have worked themselves up into a lather over the fact that the special operations squadron at Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, N.M .plans -- surprise -- to fly airplanes from that base, kept open in the 2005 BRAC round due to fierce lobbying by the state's congressional delegation.

Though the city council in my town, the original Las Vegas and the Taos city council passed resolutions against plans by the Air Force to conduct low level flights with V22s and MC-130s over northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, it looks like the Santa Fe city council will not join the mob, even though it too initially planned to oppose the flights.

The Albuquerque Journal reported on Friday that the Santa Fe city council will consider soon a new resolution which states:

""The governing body of the city of Santa Fe supports the best possible training opportunities for the armed forces of the United States," the new resolution said. "The governing body of the city of Santa Fe supports an environmental assessment that determines the potential environmental and socioeconomic consequences of the proposed LATN [Low Altitude Tactical Navigation ] training area in Northern New Mexico."

The Wall Street Journal had a good piece on this controversy today that included one truly loopy comment by a resident of a town just north of me.

This woman (and you can find her name in the Journal story) says she already is plagued by overflights by Air Force planes, including a recent one flying so low that she and her husband "we were looking into the eyeballs of a pilot bearing down on us."

Since I cannot see the eyeballs of an approaching driver on I-25 while traveling 75 miles an hour (82, if I'm truthful), the fact that this couple could see the eyes of a pilot in a much faster aircraft means they have such extraordinary visual acuity as to merit some serious scientific study.