Mike Koscielniak will discuss Wind Turbines and their impact on aviation safety.
This is a re-upload to fix the AGL/MSL on slides indicated in the video.
Topics covered:
History of Wind Turbines
Types of Wind Turbines
The number of Wind Turbines in the US and Colorado
Marking and Lighting of Wind Turbines
Charting and Flight Planning
Flight Safety Concerns
Short BIO:
For the past nine years Mike Koscielniak has been the Chair of Flight Safety for the Colorado Pilots Association.
Mike is a private pilot: Single Engine Land and Sea as well as a Tail Wheel endorsement.
He is a thirty year member of the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association, Seaplane Pilots Association and Civil Air Patrol (Safety Technician).
Mike is also a FAASTeam Representative.
Mike retired in 2021 after (47) years of executive management positions in manufacturing.
Mike received his AA and BPS from the University System of New Hampshire.
All right good evening everyone and welcome to another edition of CPA presents my name is Mike Celiac I’m the flight safety chair for the Colorado Pilots Association and tonight’s topic is about wind turbines in the airspace system if you would like wings credit for this online seminar please send your
Full name and email in the comment section of the zoom session or you can send me a request at flight safety colop pilots. org I input all the information into the FAA um website but I don’t submit it until a week after the seminar they generally send me a notification
Saying close it and that’s when I close it because it gives people time in case they forget to send me an email all right so let’s begin tonight we’ll be discussing the the following topics as they will relate to wind turbines and wind farms we’ll be looking at the history of
The wind farm wind turbines types and sizes marking and and lighting charting and flight planning and safety concerns and what prompted me to do this is I found an article in the November December 2023 issue of flight of uh FAA safety briefings magaz skip all this stuff here kind of went to
A little bit all right it was published in a another publication called clear for takeoff in October 27 2023 the article was written by a Michael Rous uh Aviation safety inspector with the faa’s flight procedures and airspace group and the title of the uh article was The Winds of ch change wind turbines
And their effect on the national airspace system after I read the article I sent an email to Mike asking him for his permission to use some of his article uh the diagrams and and some of the stuff that he wrote about and he wrote back to me and said not not a
Problem go right ahead and use what I need for the presentation a little bit about the history of wind turbines you can see to the left the gentleman standing there with a eight bladed turbine and what we’re looking at today out in the uh out in Colorado and all around the
Country so what they from my research they said the first electricity generating wind turbine was installed by a Joseph Freelander at the Vienna International electrical exhibition in 1883 however the first automatic wind turbine to generate electricity was built by Charles F brush in 1887 now there’s a little bit of word
Play going on here electricity generating wind turbine in the first automatic wind turbine so I don’t know what the differences were and how they operated but the dates are impressive I was really surprised to see 1883 and 1887 Joseph freelanders Halliday wind motor at the Vienna International electrical Exposition in 1883 this is
Just a pencil drawing that I found online it doesn’t really tell us how it worked Charles brush’s windmill of 1888 was used for generating electricity and if you look at the down in the right hand of that photograph you can see an individual standing there so that gives
You some kind of scale of how big this thing was in 1886 s a Scottish Professor James blle in Glascow built a vertical AIS wind turbine that actually worked to generate electricity 135 years after electricity was founded it is the first known electricity generating wood turbine in history you can see that
Dates around the 1880s late 1880s and here’s a picture of his turbine and uh through the research that I’ve done there there’s even some uh Styles today that are similar to this that are in use and being sold by some companies that you can run probably run uh your house off
Of construction of wind turbines in the United States started in the 198s there are approximately 7,800 wind turbines in the US across 44 States the FAA and wind farm this was a part that I found pretty interesting in accordance with title 49 of the United States code section
44718 and 14 CFR part 77 which is titled safe efficient use and preservation of the navigable airspace the FAA is responsible for conducting aeronautical studies to ensure the safety of air navigation the fa’s flight standard service along with many other offices within the FAA review and comment on aeronautical studies such as wind
Turbine farms and other types of potential obstructions that may affect navigable airspace flight standards is responsible for evaluating proposed wind turbines and wind turbine farms for potential VFR effect as part of that process flight standards identifies potential VFR routes flyways and other concentrations of VFR traffic within two statute miles of the proposed
Location so once they do all the studying they have an obstruction evaluation group within the faas air traffic organization which determines the actual traffic volume using traffic data sources when the aeronautical study is completed the FAA issues a determination letter to the person or entity submitting the construction proposal the
Letter States whether the proposed structure constitute constitutes a hazard to air navigation or not and includes a list of Provisions such as how the structure should be marked and lighted so there’s a whole process that they go through before the energy companies or individuals can go ahead
And say okay we’re going to put a a wind farm here um from 2018 to 2022 you can see in 2018 there were 1,6 79 wind turbines built that year and in 2019 it went up and in 2020 it almost doubled and then you’ll see a slight decline from 2021
2022 and for the data that this came from 2023 the first quarter so this is a little bit of old data going on here but you can see from 2020 2021 2022 that was during the covid period so I understand why the construction went down a little bit construction of wind turbines in
Colorado I found out started in the 1990s and the picture on the left there is pretty much what we see here in Colorado there are approximately 21 wind farms in Colorado to date there are approximately 2,250 wind turbines in Colorado The Rush Creek wind project is a 600 megawatt Wind Facility in eastern
Colorado it is located south of the town of Lyman and there are prob about 300 turbines and it’s the largest wind farm in Colorado and if you fly down oh say towards Kansas along I70 you’ll you’ll fly over Lyman and you’ll see that to the north of the town
There’s an Ulta wind energy center in California and it has 600 wind turbines and that is the largest in the United States the Ganzo wind farm in China is the largest wind farm in the world it has 3,500 turbines types and sizes and this is an interesting one if you look at this
Picture this one one in the center is a solid uh solid Hollow core so so to speak um um Tower and if you look at these other that are in the picture they’re they’re a tubular probably steel frame and I saw in a video this week as
I was doing my research on tur turbines and wind farms one of these uh overs sped and when it over speeds it just goes crazy in the the KN the Nel on the top here the little compartment that holds all the electronics and the generator and stuff the structure started to twist and
Eventually all these little skeletal frames here just started to pop off and then this whole Tower went down that was interesting I didn’t didn’t see that before never seen that before until I started doing the research on this even these uh solid core Towers there’s some videos and and reports out there that
These have failed the tower has failed the uh the turbine blades have failed there’s a lot of video stuff online you can see these things just disintegrate have land units this is what we see here in uh Colorado fixed water units in fact I read some um reports
While I was doing um research that quite a few of these have been run into by ships I was surprised another picture of some fixed water units out in the ocean then they have floating units now the fixed water versus the floating units um the floating unit they can go to deeper
Waters uh unlike traditional offshore turbines which require long Towers anchored into the shallow seat floating turbines can operate in water of depths up to a half a mile which is approximately 2,000 ft so between the floating units and the stationary water units that’s the difference they can go
To deeper water with the floating units and you’ll see on the edge of the the turbine blades there’s a red paint so you can try to see them a little bit better visually if you’re out there on the water and then they have these air units
And this is to bring power to a remote offgrid area where Towers aren’t particularly or practically or economically feasible these are basically for short term and I had never seen this before it’s pretty neat like a kite and inside the kite is the termin blade it’s pretty
Interesting now the size of these uh turbines this is the average yearly height AGL in feet wind turbines built the last five years 2018 and 202022 and you’ll notice 2018 average height was 344 uh feet AGL 2019 they went higher 2020 513 2021 little bit higher 2022 a little
Bit higher now the higher you go the better air that you get and the faster air that you get and that’s the reason that they’re getting taller each year and then if you look at 1980 to 1990 they averaged about 125 feet and then if you look at the
Future they get the blades are getting bigger the towers are getting taller and they’re anticipating you know 1,131 fet AGL and who and they might even go higher than that depending on what article you’re reading what company’s doing the building what part of the world um what that these things are being built
At so you’re going to see them getting bigger and um a lot higher so and if you look at the rotor diameter you can see the rotor diameter is a much larger as well what we were looking for in the past on for onshore wood turbines they
Were averaging 492 ft and now some of the future ones are 770 feet maybe even higher again these things are massive I don’t know if anyone who’s been driven on some of the back roads through these wind towers in fact some of them are right next to some of the highways and
You just stop and look at these things as they’re just going round and round and you can just hear the turbine blades going through the air it’s just it’s amazing offshore uh previously 629 fet average future offshore again 1,131 feet or even bigger or larger it’s kind of scary uh found
Another um resource online here and they’re looking at uh the differences between 2019 and 2035 um height the rotor diameter you can see it’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger uh average 71 feet onshore offshore 95 ft so again each company has different specifications now the radius of the
Wind turbines I found this pretty interesting you you see an A380 airplane there and it’s about half the radius or half the diameter of the U of the wind turbine 261 feet for a radius and 505t diameter and don’t hopefully they don’t get too close to these things and try to
Fly between the blades because that would be a disaster but it just gives you an idea how big these things are going to be getting this is a comparison of a 747 jumbo jet compared to the blade diameter of the wind turbine and it’s just uh amazing to see that um
Marking and lighting this is a vestus this uh these guys here they had three plants here in Colorado one made the towers one made the blades and one made the uh call it the uh can’t think of it right now uh the I’m not even going to
Try the body where the generator is and up top here the two lights wind turbines are normally painted white or light gray to improve daytime visibility the color palette was determined by an internal FAA study that strikes the balance between Aviation safety and being Community friendly in addition snow prone areas are evaluated
For additional markings to improve the visual Clarity of the wind turbines against the snow covered La landscape in unnown instances they might in the middle of the blade paint it red PL paint the tips of the blades red something to give it a little bit uh better contrast with the snow in the
Background uh I know traveling from Colorado to New Hampshire this past fall we went through a lot of turb wind farms and and as we’re driving by we’re like is that gray or is it white and then we really couldn’t tell with the cloud cover then when the clouds moved the sun
Went on to them and they were white but after a while you looked out there and you thought Su are white and Su are gray here’s one that’s uh painted white this is the name of the the uh electrical company that built them and on the top
Here you have your um the lights and this is some kind of a sensor another uh view of some wind wind farm out in the out west and these guys right here look like they’re gray the two over here and then the rest of them look white lighting lighting is pretty interesting
This is one of the things that really caught my eye when I was reading the uh um the article I thought every wind turbine have to had to have lights on them and it had to be a lit all all night but that’s not the case but this
Is an impressive picture that I ran across wind turbines are typically lit with medium intensity flashing red lights placed as high as possible onto the turbine the cell sometimes only the perimeter of the wind turbine farm and or an arrangement of interior wind turbines are lit so
This is one of the things that I found that was I was surprised about that not all of the Wind Farm turbines have to be lit some wind turbines Farms utilize what’s called aircraft detection Lighting systems ADLs which are proximity sensors proximity sensor-based systems designed to detect aircraft as
They approach the obstruction so you be flying along and nothing nothing nothing and then all of a sudden the whole place is going to light up or some of them are going to light up or depending on the uh how they’ve configured it all of a
Sudden you’re going to see a light show on this picture here you can see a light right here and a light right here so I think from what I read each um turbine has to have two red lights and here’s a better picture closeup on top of the nasel uh two red
Lights and here’s a wind farm uh that looks like all of them are lit up from what we can see charting and flight planning now we’re coming into the Crux of the situation wind farms in the United States so as you can see this is Colorado right here and up just below
Cheyenne along the uh Wyoming Colorado border there’s a bunch of wind farms and on the uh Colorado here out towards Kansas um the Eastern Slope no nothing on the western slope of Colorado wind power in Colorado and this is why from the wind studies that were done this area in
Pink the uh resource potential is considered good so you can see up here the Colorado Wyoming border the Front Range Burlington area down in here below Lamar and then what they’re considered fair is the yellow or yellowish orange color so a lot in the Front Range but over here Grand Junction
On the western there’s nothing nothing at all and then in these mountain passes there’s good wind but it’s not conducive to construction of a wind farm so here’s a a pretty much a map of most of the what I said the 21 wind farms here in Colorado and again you can
See that they’re located right on the Colorado Wyoming border up here uh just south north of Lyman this area here north of I70 I should say and then you got a small one in Colorado green and twin butes but most of them are right around here the i7 quarter in the
Wyoming Colorado border now the big wind farms in Colorado again we’re looking at up here these five boxes the Colorado Wyoming border down here around Lyman uh Burlington Flagler so quite a bit and there’s a few other little ones like this one right here and there’s one up
Here but the big the big boys I have uh in the red boxes here we are in Lyman all right now the elevation for the wind turbines when the blade is at its 12:00 position this is where the number comes from not the middle of the Hub of the
Nasel nasil nasel of the um the blades but the top dead center 12:00 position of the blade so in this area they average 6,382 ft AGL and here’s the town of linan just southeast of this uh Southwest of this uh wind farm so and I if you’ve traveled
I70 through liman you’ll see it on the left you just north of the airport Burlington Colorado the uh top average top of the or the the highest I should say um point from the top of a blade is 4,928 AGL and this is just south of Burlington
Colorado uh south of Kit Carson County Airport this is the Northern Colorado southeast of Cheyenne Wyoming and we’re looking at uh to the West here 5,979 AGL and 5248 AGL for the top of the blade the highest spot um I’ve flown into Cheyenne a few times and I imagine some of you people
Watching this have as well and if you’re going straight up 25 in the Cheyenne you will see it uh to the to your right as you’re flying up north it’s pretty impressive Flagler Colorado 588 AGL top of the uh top of the blade at 12 o’clock position just south of the town of
Flagler and Flagler airport which is a private airport on your sectional charts there’ll be a wind turbine prediction uh depiction and I’ve highlighted these in red and you’ll see wind turbine obstruction with high intensity lights May operate part-time so that’s a wind turbine that is that has
Lights uh and then you get the uh wind turbine farm and it shows you 2894 AGL UC UC means under construction and then this is an interesting guy wires May extend outward from structures and we’ll get into that a little bit later about the guy wires but it is uh
Depicted on your sectional chart in the legend the boxed elevation figure on VFR aeronautical charts associated with wind turbide farms accounts for the mean sea level height of the wind turbide blades when passing the 12:00 position okay I was under the impression it was AGL I’m
G to have to double check into that mean sea level I thought it was AGL all right UC under construction all right sorry for the confusion on that I didn’t catch that safety concerns okay according to the ntsp accident data there have been at least six wind turbine related
Accidents from 20 from 2003 to 2023 with eight F fatalities the rotating blades are unlighted obstructions that can extend several hundred feet above the lighted nasel blade Hub wind turbines can generate low altitude turbulence up to several miles downwind of the turbines something to be uh mindful of attempting low altitude flight
Between wind turbines could be hazardous because meteorolog meteorological Towers Mets some less than 199 ft AGL may be embedded within the wood turbine Farm Mets are very difficult to acquire visually and are not always marked lighted or charted and further on into this discussion there we’re going to be
Talking about Mets because it’s been responsible for four uh fatal accidents in the US some wind turbines May signific ific L exceed 499 ft AGL and extend into class E airspace 700 ft AGL floor and greater Pilots should always be aware that wind turbines in motion could result in limitations of air traffic
Services in the vicinity of the wind turbine Farms I was not aware of this part in extreme circumstances this can extend from more than one nautical mile horizontally around the nearest turbine and at all altitudes above the wind turbine farm wind turbines may also adversely affect Doppler weather radar returns due
To the reflectivity and motion of the rotating blades pilot should be aware of this when evaluating weather radar data near wind farms to avoid mistaking the motion of the wind turbine blades for actual weather I did not know this until I read the article here’s a picture picture that I
Found online at the Noah site and it’s showing you the wi turbines on a ridge and this is the ridge here here’s the radar station all right and then they’re calling it spous multipath scatter region so the Radar’s hitting the turbine blades and the turbine blades are dispersing the uh reading across the
Region so if you’re doing Next Rad Radar you have to be careful that it’s not turbine blades that are giving you a false indication wind turbine clutter has not had a major negative impact on forecast or warning operations yet there’s the big question right there yet so they’re
Anticipating it however with more and more with more and larger wind turbines coming online Radars in some parts of the country will have multiple wind farms in their line of sight commun cumulative negative impacts should be anticipated at which at some point may become sufficient to compromise the
Ability of radar data users to perform their missions so what they’re telling you is watch out because as these things get bigger and uh more widespread it’s going to play Havoc uh on your forecasting with the radar accident investigation final report one of the in my research I found
One um how would we say uh significant maybe not significant but it came up more in my search and this was an accident in 2014 in hore South Dakota that occurred April 27th on 2014 and this is the n NTSB report that I found online there were four fatalities they’re considering a
Controlled flight into into terrain or object CFI T this is the plane it was a piper pa32r 300 Lance uh this is not the actual plane this is a just a uh um you know what a lance looks like and it had four individuals on board during a dark night Cross Country
Flight and there we have it right there Dark Night Cross Country flight the instrument rated pilot was approaching the intended airport for landing when the airplane collided with the blades of a wind turbine Tower the weather had started to deteriorate and precipitation Echoes were observed on radar Witnesses
In the area describ low clouds windy conditions and precipitation in addition um in addition weather briefing records and statements made to a witness indicate that the pilot was aware of the current and forecast weather conditions for the route of flight investigators were unable to determine why the
Airplane was operating at a low altitude however the pilot was likely attempting to remain clear of clouds even though both the pilot and the airplane was capable of flying an instrument metal allergic yeah conditions an examination of the airplane systems and engine re revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal
Operation the investigation revealed that the wind turbine Farm was not marked on either sectional chart covering the accident location however the pilot was familiar with the area and with the wind turbine farm and I’ll go back to Darkness cross country nighttime investigators were not able to determine
What the pilot was using for navigation just before the accident the light on the wi turbine tower that was struck was not operational at the time of the accident so we got nighttime conditions the lights on the turbine were not working and the wind farm was not on the charts and the
Outage uh about the light was not documented in a notice to Aran the wind turboid that was struck was the fifth Tower in a string of towers oriented east to west then the string continued South and Southwest with an additional 13 Towers if the pilot oberved the lights from the surrounding wind
Turbines it is possible that he perceived a break in the light string between the wind turbines and obstacle free zone so he may have saw the lights on the towers to his left but he didn’t see any lights on the towers in front of him so he thought okay there’s no Towers
There it’s an obstacle free zone I’m good to go according to the FAA the pilot was familiar with the accident area specifically the pilot was is familiar with the wind turbine farm and and had expressed his concern about the wind turbine Farm to the FAA flight standard different district office in Rapid City
South Dakota but unfortunately the details of its concerns were not available so we’re not sure what his concerns were about the specific Wind Farm but he knew about it according to the FAA the 90th edition of the Omaha sectional chart effective from 2 4 July 2014 through 5 February
2015 added the depiction of the accident when far just south of the city now what I noticed I did some research today and I found out that sectional charts went on a 56 day publication cycle beginning February 2021 so this accident happened before that date uh 2014 I believe prior to
That sectional charts were published every 168 days to two years uh but because this accident the next round of sectional charts did show the depiction of the wind farm so here’s the accident site it’s just south of Highmore South dakota he was coming up from um Texas on a North looks like a
Northeasterly and the wind farm was just south of the hore South Dakota airport so he was coming in on his approach to the Highmore airport now you knowe the wind farm was not on this sectional prior to the accident and you can see the location of
The Wind Farm in the red box and then you got the hore airport right up here to the north east of the um U wind farm and you got 2726 2515 for the height of the wind turbines this is uh the morning of the when they came and
To get the wreckage uh you can see to the right there’s a truck you can see some more uh turbines up on high on the mountain see the base of this turbine sitting right here this is the a fuselage laying on the ground here looks like some parts over
Here this is some of the parts that they got from the field and they’re laying them all out to the NTSB and the FAA taking a look at the wreckage trying to figure out what happen it’s the wind turbine number 14 and you can see one of the one of the blades is
Broken hanging down on the ground it looks like there’s some some blade down here not sure can’t tell another picture of tower number 14 with the Broken Blade close up of the Broken Blade probable cause the Pilot’s decision to continue the flight into known detering weather conditions at a low altitude and
A subsequent failure to remain clear of an unlit wind turbine contributing to the accident was the inoperative obstruction light on the wind turbine which prevented the pilot from visually identifying the wind turbine so half of it is the pilots uh inability to remain clear of the tower which he said he knew
That there was a there was a wind farm there uh but also whoever owns the uh Wind Farm they did not make sure the maintenance was done and that all the lights were working so they’re giving it like a 5050 uh 50% probable cause on the pilot and 50%
To the owner of the wind farm so sad situation four individuals were killed if you’re interested you could go to the NTSB website and you put in this NTSB number cn14 f224 and it will come up with uh what they call docket items and there’s 30
Docket items and each docket item can be multiple pages one of the docket items especially the pictures of the aircraft uh damage and uh was U I think 17 pictures but there’s 30 different items on there from weather report um uh all kinds of stuff I I forget
Exactly but it’s a very interesting if you go in there to the ndsb site and look at all that stuff I looked at every docket item in all the uh the paperwork that was submitted for this report and it’s very impressive this one happened in England the air accidents investigation Branch it’s called
Aib investigates civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents within the United Kingdom it oversees territory territories and Crown dependencies the available literature would suggests that the possibility of encountering weight turbulence from the wind farm at this area air for Airfield is remote however it cannot be entirely ruled out it was a PA 22150
Tripac and the accident happened at Beverly Airfield in Yorkshire England with one person on board and he had minor injuries but the plane was total this is the PA 22150 tripac similar to the accident aircraft here is a picture of the actual accident aircraft you can see in the background
The wind farm one two three four five six seven eight nine May if that’s a turbine blade and here’s a a picture from the air you can see all the turbine blades down the bottom 1 two 3 4 five six 7 8 n here’s the airport up
Here Runway 12 Runway 30 most Northerly wind turbine is right here so they believe some turbulence went across the runway lifted up the um the airplane’s right wing I believe and caused it to nose over during the flare and a crosswind landing the aircraft’s right wing lifted
Causing it to slew off the Runway and came to rest in a nearby Field the pilot suggested that the turbulence effect from a wind farm to the south of the Airfield may have been a contributory factor in the loss of control this one happened on February
2nd 2017 a diamond da2 A1 hit a turbine in a wind farm in mely Germany it was one fatal there was only one person on board and according to the news report I read this was the first time a plane had run into a wind turbine in
Germany there have been other us crashes in wind farms there were four crop dusters all were fatal accidents and what through the research that I read they were from the meteorological Tower guy wires in one of them that I read the pilot was just coming up after he released the the
Herbicide or whatever he was spraying on the crops he was flying into the Sun and he did not see the Tower or realize how close he was to the guywire and and he was killed for um informational purposes you can look up all these uh different uh
User guides obstacle files cfrs FAA um documentations they’re in the FAA safety brief magazine November or December 2023 Edition November December 2023 Edition or you can go to the faa.gov you can look them up in that in that way um the FAA safety brief magazine is published
Online uh on the faa.gov website you just got to put in FA safety magazine safety brief magazine and they archive uh so you can go back many years or if there’s something interested that you’re looking for you can put in keywords and and get stuff that you want um just um
At the end of this going through this and as we were looking at the sectional charts and if you noticed most of the wind farms were south or north of an airport the lineman um um and some of these other i’ have to go back and look at them but it just
Brought thought about it just now about especially the one in England where there was you know maybe weight turbulence from the blades that caused the uh turbulence to hit the guy’s airplane as he was coming in for a landing so we have to be cognizant of that fact here in
Colorado if we’re going into an area where there are wind turbine and wind farms okay open for questions all right do I have to shut this off no they just have to unmute themselves oh okay I’m gonna back out of this okay there we go all right I’m open for any questions folks
Okay if you do have a question you just have to unmute yourself oh me no no the person asking the question okay any word on how many more uh Farm uh turban Farms are coming to Colorado no I didn’t find anything about uh the the future stuff um we probably have to go
To oh who’s that um I can’t think of who they are know but EXL energy if they’re putting any more farms in um I’m not sure who the other people are that we have here out in the Colorado area um but I don’t believe that there’s a
Moratorium on them um but from the research that I’ve done um to put this together I did not come across anything that said of anything about new construction do have a question in the chat uh who’s responsible for enforcing the enforcement of FAA mandated marketings that would be the um there’s a
Division um let me see oh I know where it is in the fa safety briefings magazine the November December issue in that article that was written by Mr Rous there is uh marking and Lighting the FAA publishes a document that they’re to go that they’re to follow uh it’s advisory circular 7074
60-1 it’s called obstruction marking and lighting and that’s produced by the FAA they’re responsible and I imagine they work in conjunction with the uh builder of the Wind Farm um and then they have possibly have to sign off on it before it can start up
I’m not sure about how how it goes along but they have to approve the plans of the wind farm so I’m sure that’s part of it we also have a question uh are there consistent nms about wind farms under construction or about to go online from from what I was just reading
And found out that that wind farm was not on a chart probably not uh even though they’re supposed to put them in the nms uh some might things might get overlooked one of the things on the legend in the charting and in the uh the direct not the
Directory the supplement if you see something that’s not on a chart you can report it to the FAA um there’s a process that you have to go through and there’s a form you fill out and you can either and you can email it to the fa or
Send it to them and then they will try to inor incorporate it into the next chart and or supplement on that 56 Day schedule if they can get it in if they can’t get it in on the first one they’ll get it in on the second one so I hope
Everybody found that informative I certainly did when I read the article and uh I had never seen in any of the Publications that I read aopa um C plane Pilots Association and and uh there’s even a Aviation safety magazine that I get uh I had never seen anything about
Wind farms or turbines so this caught my attention and I felt that I should bring it up at our next CPA presents and get it out there and uh now it’s as well as uh we’re doing this live session it’ll be recorded so if anybody wants to go
Back and look this up or pass it on to your fellow Pilots about uh wind turbines and where they are in the state of Colorado and what to look out for them we do have a couple other questions that popped in here what is the recommended vertical and horizontal recommended vertical and
Horizontal um see I think that would follow the same thing as just any to yeah I did I did run across that that they I think it’s two statute miles from the farm and two stat miles above the farm uh have to look it up in here ah
Here we go James Greer provided that minimum safe altitudes and uh the reference to the r a information in part 91 9119 uh my general rule of thumb on on Wind Tower or any sort of anything spinning that’s up in the air um I try
To give that as big of a birth as possible yeah I definitely would not just not just from I I don’t want it hitting me but also from many sort of turbulence that it might be generating uh off of the blade tips and William commented and said the the Met
Towers would be a surprise because they are temporar and shorter than the turbines um crop duster definitely was threatened by the N power and they were hard to see Mike did you find out if there’s some reason that their lighting requirements for these towers are different than other
Towers no I I didn’t uh come across that it’s part of there um uh what do they call that the lighting guidelines the paint and lighting guidelin it’s part of that uh FAA book or booklet or whatever it’s called but I can definitely uh look into
That for you and uh send you an email about it okay thank you okay now that was one of the the eye openers was the lighting where not every Tower had to be lit you could just light the perimeter or you could just light so many within the farm
I was always under the impression every one of them had to be lit I remember when we first out moved out here from Colorado to Colorado from New Hampshire across the Midwest especially Nebraska um coming through there we went through quite a few wind farms at night and the
Lights were I think every Tower over there was lit up because it was just it was like a light show on both sides of the roads it was incredible but that was one of the the things that really struck me you could be flying along and not see nothing and
Then that automatic sensor would turn on Ando all of a sudden it probably scare the heck out of you I’m glad everybody um came out uh just as a side note uh March’s um presentation is going to be by a company called hmmh and they are doing the part one 150
Study for Centennial Airport we are going to have the vice president of M hmmh give a presentation uh he’s been in the noise monitoring business for 30 plus years so we’re looking forward to that well thank you everyone for participating appreciate it and uh looking forward to seeing you next month