Military Operations Analysis

ATAC employs its extensive expertise in military and civil aviation operations to conduct studies assisting the military services in analyzing operational alternatives for meeting complex aviation operations and training requirements. These studies assess airfields, auxiliary training sites, military airspace, ranges, and other resources for capacity, throughput and sustainability, and also examine interactions between military operational units or military and civil aviation operations in a mixed environment.

ATAC utilizes a unique combination of raw radar data from multiple sources, combined with advanced modeling and simulation to articulate the potential impacts to the military mission or surrounding communities, examining multiple operational scenario changes. This rare combination of unique capabilities gives ATAC a “secret sauce” that no other company provides to assist the military in making informed decisions with defensible data to support challenges to the military mission (encroachment) or support alternative selection criteria in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) decisions supporting the warfighter.

To meet the requirement for detailed, defensible evaluation results for proposed alternatives, we employ our proprietary tool – the NASMOD computer model. NASMOD provides the capability to simulate military operations of concern, using an entire years’ worth of operational data and compute detailed results for alternative scenarios in terms of mission execution, airfield/airspace resources utilized (such as vertical take-off/landing pads, hot-pit refueling, aerial refueling tracks etc..), training objectives achieved, and other operational statistics. NASMOD is an advanced derivative of the FAA-validated SIMMOD™ airport/airspace simulation model and retains SIMMOD’s civil aviation simulation functionality.

ATAC has in-depth knowledge of military aviation operations, training requirements, and management/utilization of special use airspace and training ranges. Numerous studies have been conducted (>100 across CONUS and OCONUS) at military operating sites including:

• Every CONUS Navy and Marine Corps air facility
• MCAS Iwakuni, Japan
• Eglin AFB region including Tyndall AFB, Duke, Hurlburt, and Choctaw airfields, and the Destin-Ft Walton Beach and Bay County civil airfields
• NAWC China Lake and R-2508 Complex
• Ft Huachuca: U.S. Army Unmanned Aerial System Center of Excellence
• Air Force AETC F-35 pilot training alternative basing sites: Luke AFB, Davis-Monthan AFB, Holloman AFB, Tucson ANGB, Boise ANGB
• U.S. Navy private development encroachment on pilot training infrastructure at NAS Kingsville

The studies performed by ATAC have addressed such issues as:

• Military air/sea/land range and facility encroachment impact analysis
• Changes in special use airspace, such as establishing new military operations areas (MOAs) or Restricted Areas
• Capacity and operational constraints due to base closings and realignments
• Detailed interactions between civilian and military air traffic
• Introduction of new aircraft types, quantity, and/or tempo
• Changes in training and resource requirements

In many of these studies, ATAC’s results have provided the required operations information used as input to subsequent analysis of noise and other environmental impacts required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).