Flying to Fort Knox (other other bases)

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RussHensley

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Russ Hensley
After the Base Realignment And Closure a lot of the "military" part of Fort Knox moved to other bases. Now there's a lot of administration work going on there.

As such my company bids on government RFP's and other things as a contractor. When I look at the NOTAMS for FTK the only think that I can see there is OFFICIAL BUSINESS ONLY.

I know in Civil Air Patrol we have a waiver for military installations and it's not a big deal, but has anyone flown on "civilian" business into any other bases like this?

I will probably call Fort Knox Operations tomorrow, but thought I would throw it out there. Sure would make the trip there more convenient effective.
 
RussHensley said:
After the Base Realignment And Closure a lot of the "military" part of Fort Knox moved to other bases. Now there's a lot of administration work going on there.

As such my company bids on government RFP's and other things as a contractor. When I look at the NOTAMS for FTK the only think that I can see there is OFFICIAL BUSINESS ONLY.

I know in Civil Air Patrol we have a waiver for military installations and it's not a big deal, but has anyone flown on "civilian" business into any other bases like this?

I will probably call Fort Knox Operations tomorrow, but thought I would throw it out there. Sure would make the trip there more convenient effective.
Click to expand...

Dunno what it takes nowadays. Pre-9/11, I used to visit Whiteman AFB, home of the B-2 bombers. They weren't very busy since they only had about a dozen B-2s and an A-10 squadron (& some T-38s and a few helos) and the controllers liked to have some extra traffic to work. You could fly an approach short of actually touching the runway. I'm sure it was pretty entertaining for them to work a raggedy old C-150 and watch me try to figure out how close was close with their 200 ft wide runway. But I gave them fair warning with "Solo student" initial contact calls. They had a pretty big MOA and would do quasi flight following, too. Good times.
 
I looked at flying to Ft. Benning a few years ago when my bro-in-law was graduating from Airborne School. Basically decided that it would take (almost literally) an act of congress for me to be able to do it. Lots of hoops to jump through as a civie trying to go in there.

If you have 'official' business there, it might be easier, but there will still be some hoops to jump through.
 
Biggest impediment is the requirement for hard times -- you fill out all the paperwork, get it approved, and a CB slowly rolls over your departure field.

:dunno:
 
I flew into Fort Leavenworth (KFLV) a few years back. I was floored at how easy it was. There was, pretty much literally, nobody else on the airfield. It was on a Sunday afternoon and the strip was completely deserted. We called a cab, who came to get us. When we went back onto the base so that he could drop us off, we had to get out of the cab so that they could search the car (including under the hood, the undercarriage and in the trunk). It was so hard to understand, since I had entered the base through the air about 5 hours before that without so much as seeing another soul.
 
If all else fails you may not be aware that there's another Fort Knox, very historic.
http://fortknox.maineguide.com/
You'll have to fly into KBGR Bangor, Maine; or(better) KBHB Bar Harbor, Maine and rent a car from either landing site. Dave Taylor(Letsgoflying) and Janet were once in the area. I think they visited the new bridge; don't know if they went to Fort Knox. The Fort is moderately equi-distant from either Bangor or Bar Harbor, being about in the middle.

HR
(and Dr. Bruce might have something to say)
 
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If the military is still the operator, and it's not "dual use," then you're going to have to do the paperwork and get the approvals. There are three forms you need:
  1. Hold harmless agreement signed by you.
  2. Insurance certification signed by your insurer (and the minimum used to be $1.4M liability).
  3. Military approval signed by base ops there and the monitoring office at the Pentagon.
Base ops there should have the forms to send you along with instructions on how to do it all. Typically takes 2-4 weeks to get all in order. Good news is that if your company is doing business with Army offices on post, then you meet the Official Business criterion. You'll put that information on the approval form per the intructions.

And don't arrive with less fuel than you need to get somewhere else -- the military normally doesn't sell fuel to civilians, and almost certainly won't have avgas unless there's a military flying club on the field.
 
I flew into Patrick AFB a few weeks ago for the Shuttle Launch, it was simple phone call, but I had a 2 star making the arrangements for me....
 
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