An investigation by News 9 TV in Oklahoma City recently showed the impact the wind farm industry is having on Air Force training bases.
As reporter Alex Cameron learned during a flight in a T-38 fighter jet out of Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas just across the Red River, pilots have to be constantly aware of wind farm turbines in western Oklahoma.
“Now it’s just completely covered with obstructions, so it really makes what we’re doing hard,” said one officer. “just because we can’t fly as low as we normally want to get the students more comfortable with that environment.”
It’s not a simple matter of simply flying high. The pilots being trained at Sheppard and those at Vance Air Base in Enid have to learn low-level flying for combat purposes. Western Oklahoma was picked for the military training routes because of the lack of obstructions—that is, until wind farms started developing.
Now it has become such an issue that the legislature recently passed a bill and the governor signed it into law, to require government approval of future wind farms.
Click here to view Alex Cameron’s report.