Legends

In places where large expanses of airspace are dedicated to military operations areas (MOAs), special provisions may be made to help pilots get into and out of airports that are located under or within the special-use airspace.

MOAs, which are delineated on VFR sectional charts by solid magenta lines with short perpendicular hash marks, also in magenta, are designed to separate military training activities from traffic flying under instrument flight rules. IFR traffic is only cleared through a MOA if controllers can ensure adequate separation between civilian and military aircraft. When this is not possible, controllers may reroute or restrict the civilian aircraft.

However, this does not prevent pilots flying under visual flight rules from traveling through MOAs. Prudent pilots will contact any flight service station within 100 miles of a MOA to find out whether or not the airspace is active before they attempt to transit the area. It's also a good idea to contact the controlling agency (either an approach control or en route center) and request advisories before entering a MOA. Better yet, it's a good idea for VFR pilots to avoid active MOAs altogether when possible unless you can be certain that the area is inactive.

Of course, avoiding MOAs isn't always possible, especially if your destination airport lies underneath one. To make it easier and safer for pilots to get into and out of such airports, the airspace of a MOA may not include the airspace directly associated with the airport. Charts show this with a solid magenta circle around the airport and a box identifying the lower limit of the MOA in that area.

In this example from the Twin Cities sectional chart, both Rolette (ND55) and Rolla (06D) airports are located under the Tiger North MOA. Boxes near the airports identify the lower limit of the MOA over the airspace contained within the magenta circle. In this case, the MOA excludes airspace below 1,500 feet in that area although it extends down to the surface in the rest of the MOA.

While the airspace surrounding these airports is not part of the MOA, pilots taking off or landing at either of these airports need to be especially vigilant about looking for traffic that may stray out of the MOA and into the airport's airspace. They also need to be particularly cautious when transiting through the MOA to reach the airports. They should contact the controlling agency for information about activities in the MOA.

To identify the controlling agency, pilots can look up the MOA by name in the frequencies section of the appropriate sectional chart. The listing will provide information about the upper and lower limits of the MOA (in this case, the Tiger North MOA extends from 300 feet above ground level up to Flight Level 180-18,000 feet msl). It also identifies the controlling agency (in this case Minneapolis Center).