Opening our skies to the Air National Guard also means the same area can be used by other military aircraft fliers, including personnel training from foreign countries. Military aircraft have used this area for some time in flying to and from training areas, and the pilots have messed in their nests with frequency. When complaints are made concerning planes out of their training routes, flying too low or creating extreme noise, excuses are made that those in charge can't control every military aircraft that might fly by. Proponents of the initiative have promised to avoid our towns and keep a safe altitude. But the military can't, or won't, keep the pilots leashed.
Ranchers tell of planes flying so low that live-stock panic.
My friend Ginny, who ranches in northern New Mexico, often gathers cattle with other women friends. Imagine what a jet 300 feet above the ground does to a saddle horse. While the Guard will deny any deviation from the rules, a rancher here in Huerfano County who built his house on a bluff has faced many a window-shattering moment as pilots use his home for a little fun and games before heading back to the base. Just this morning at the bakery, newcomer Carol said that while she was out walking on a ridge near her homesite close to Devil's Stairstep, a plane came in so low that she lost her head and dropped to her knees, convinced in sheer terror, no matter how irrational, that she was being bombed. So there was little surprise when is was reported that a military jet on a training flight in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy allegedly hot-dogged a ski area, snapped a cable on a ski lift and caused the deaths of 20 people.