Civil-Military Airspace Coordination Training Course

The Civil-Military Airspace Coordination Training Course equips air navigation service provider professionals, civil and military airspace managers, civil aviation authority staff, and defense aviation coordinators with the knowledge and practical tools needed to coordinate the shared use of airspace between civil and military users safely, efficiently, and flexibly. Airspace is a finite national resource used by commercial aviation, general aviation, state and military aircraft, and increasingly by unmanned aircraft. Rigid segregation of airspace wastes capacity and creates delays and inefficiency, while uncoordinated operations create serious safety risks. Flexible and collaborative civil-military coordination allows airspace to be shared dynamically, protecting both national security and defense training needs and the safety, capacity, and efficiency of civil aviation. The course covers civil-military airspace coordination from governance to tactical operations. Participants learn the principles of airspace as a shared national resource, the international framework and recognized concepts for flexible use of airspace, the roles and responsibilities of civil and military stakeholders, and national airspace governance and policy structures. The program then addresses airspace organization and reservation, including danger, restricted, and prohibited areas, temporary segregated and reserved areas, and conditional routes, the three levels of flexible use of airspace covering strategic policy, pre-tactical allocation, and tactical real-time coordination, and airspace management cells and coordination procedures. Participants also examine real-time civil-military coordination, including cross-border and regional coordination, letters of agreement and coordination procedures, data sharing and interoperability between civil and military systems, management of military exercises and contingencies, safety management and risk assessment of shared airspace, and the integration of unmanned aircraft and emerging operations, along with performance measurement and continuous improvement of civil-military coordination. The course is delivered through airspace coordination case studies, flexible use of airspace exercises, airspace reservation and release simulations, letter of agreement development, and coordination scenarios. Participants leave with a flexible use of airspace framework guide, an airspace reservation and release procedure template, a civil-military letter of agreement template, a coordination and data-sharing checklist, and a civil-military coordination improvement plan template. This course addresses coordination and management and does not disclose or address classified operational or tactical military information.