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JULY 5 - JULY 11, 2018
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Navy proposal revs up operations at Outlying Field By Kathy Reed Whidbey Weekly
perfect, ideal length for us to accomplish this mission.”
The skies over Coupeville could get a lot busier if the U.S. Navy chooses a “preferred alternative” for flight operations at Outlying Field.
And then there’s just the sheer amount of air traffic at Ault Field to consider. “We have other aircraft in squadrons working up and deploying, trying to get out to their training areas,” Moore said. “When we do routine, repetitive, field carrier landing practice here, that prevents aircraft from taking off and arriving.”
Under the proposal, which will be included in the final Environmental Impact Statement assessing EA-18G Growler operations at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and OLF, the number of Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) maneuvers at the Coupeville landing strip will more than double. But this alternate plan, while a huge increase, is less than originally proposed, said Navy officials. “It’s a total of about 12,000 FCLP passes annually and this is much less than what was predicted for this alternative when we were doing the draft Environmental Impact Statement,” Ted Brown, public affairs officer for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, said at a media event last week on NAS Whidbey Island. Should the Secretary of the Navy accept what is called the “Scenario A” proposal in his record of decision, NAS Whidbey would get an additional 36 Growler aircraft, which would bring the total number of Growlers to 118. But because of a reduction in the number of pilots and new technology (Precision Landing Mode, formerly known as Magic Carpet), the overall number of flight operations can be reduced by at least 20-percent. “This would be a reduction from about 42,000 total FCLP operations to 29,000,” said Brown. “It’s a pretty significant reduction in the number of FCLPs that would be required between the two fields.” Of the total 29,000 projected FCLP operations, just over 24,000 of them would occur at OLF. Landings and takeoffs are considered two different operations; one FCLP maneuver includes a landing and a takeoff, or a touchand-go, so there would be about 12,000 total passes, as compared to 5,804 passes in 2017. “Under same scenario in the draft EIS, that number was going to be 36,000 just at OLF,” said Capt. Geoff Moore, commanding officer, NAS Whidbey Island. “With PLM, we’ve reduced that number to 24,000. This shows the Navy’s commitment to listening to the community, trying to find technolog-
Photo Courtesy of Joe A. Kunzler, Avgeek Joe Productions An EA-18G Growler performs a Field Carrier Landing Practice maneuver at NAS Whidbey Island’s Outlying Field near Coupeville recently. Under a new proposal, the number of FCLPs will increase significantly, although not as much as originally anticipated, if the Secretary of the Navy makes the alternative plan the decision of record in the final Environment Impact Statement to be released later this summer.
ical advances that will reduce impact to the community but also the impact and wear and tear on our aircraft, which is a win-win for everybody.” Not everyone is pleased with the proposed alternative, including U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Dist. 2), who is demanding answers regarding the increase in the number of possible FCLPs at OLF. “I am concerned by the magnitude of change this action would represent for Whidbey Island communities,” said Larsen. “The Navy must answer questions about its decision-making process and impact on the local community. I expect open communication, transparency and a willingness to collaborate on measures to mitigate these impacts going forward.” “This whole study has been a four-and-a-half year process of engaging the community, finding out what the different needs of the community are and the different perspectives,” said Moore. “We have supporters and, no surprise, not everybody agrees with the project. However, we have listened to the community, we continue to engage with the elected leaders both at the local level and all the way to the national level.” “We understand whatever alternative we picked would not please everyone,” said Brown. “I think the community here is largely supportive of the Navy, of the Growler and appreciative of the Growler mission. Obvi-
ously FCLP operations are impactful to the community with respect to noise. Everyone is not going to be satisfied with even any of those FCLP operations, but our role here is to try to explain why it’s important to do them at the outlying landing field as opposed to doing them at main base here at Ault Field.” The simple fact of the matter is, Outlying Field offers aviators unparalleled training, said Navy officials. “Primarily, there are very legitimate operational reasons why OLF provides a much better quality of training for our aviators than Ault Field and there are a number of reasons for that,” said Brown. “One is just the geography of the field. It sits on a ridge which actually closely replicates the flying conditions at the aircraft carrier. There’s much less ambient lighting, they can fly in a truer pattern. All of these are very important for our aviators in order to develop the muscle memory they need to conduct what is probably the most challenging thing to do in aviation, which is landing an aircraft on the flight deck of a carrier at night.” “OLF may be the premiere and ideal place to duplicate landings at shore before we go do them more dangerously at sea on a moving target,” agreed Moore. “It replicates the ideal pattern – we can fly the same altitude that we fly around the carrier. The lighting around there during nighttime replicates the darkness of the sea, and the runway is the
The number of people on Whidbey Island who have actively fought and protested against FCLP at OLF represents less than two percent of the island’s total population. In fact, there are some people who visit the island because of the unique opportunity OLF offers to see military aircraft in action, up close. “For aviation enthusiasts and travelers interested in heritage and historical travel experiences, the Island’s military heritage and future is of great interest. In fact, the Los Angeles Times recently featured Camp Casey and our military heritage in its ‘SundayTravel’ section,” said Sherrye Wyatt, executive director of Whidbey and Camano Island Tourism. “We serve as a resource for visitors, so we always strive to supply travelers access to information about our islands,” Wyatt continued. “We recently added more content to our website (whidbeycamanoislands.com) to better educate visitors about flying schedules, so we can help to set expectations and they can plan accordingly.” In preparing the final EIS, which is expected to be released in late August or early September, the Navy collected more than 4,300 public comments. The Secretary of the Navy is expected to make a final decision 30 to 60 days after the EIS is released. “The Secretary can pick a different alternative, but with respect to the folks in Coupeville, I have to emphasize just how much better the realism, the quality of training that we do at OLF is, to what we would be doing here at Ault Field,” said Brown. “I understand some are not going to be pleased with the increase in the amount of FCLP, but the vast majority of the time it is going to be quiet, even with 12,000 passes per year, the vast majority of the time it is going to be quiet.”
Founder of Miss Oak Harbor pageant says goodbye By Kathy Reed Whidbey Weekly After just four years and despite steady growth and incredible success, the reign of the Miss Oak Harbor Scholarship Pageant is ending. The board of directors for PageantWyse, the nonprofit organization that runs Miss Oak Harbor and Miss Pioneer Way, voted unanimously to end the program because its founder, Jes Walker-Wyse, is relocating to Oregon with her family. “My husband, Jon, retired [from the Navy] and we had a plan, and that plan did not work,” said Walker-Wyse, who is also leaving her position as real estate loan officer of People’s Bank in Oak Harbor. “Our intent was to stay here in Oak Harbor and he was going to work on base, like many of the guys do, and we had a little snafu with the job he had been looking at, and it just was a huge setback.”
Walker-Wyse said her family – the couple has three boys, ages 11, 7 and 4 – has never lived near family in the 17 years they have been together, and a visit to Jon’s family in Oregon got them thinking about a new plan. “Jon has always been really interested in being an electrician and the state of Oregon has a really great program and he was accepted into the electrician apprenticeship program,” she explained. “So he’s going to pursue his second career. I’m so proud of him; to be able to find something he’s passionate about and be able to pursue it. I want him to be happy and fulfilled, so I said, ‘I’ll go.’” But the nervous excitement that comes with a new adventure has been tempered by a great deal of sorrow over what to do with the scholarship pageant Walker-Wyse had so successfully developed. After lots of tears and conversation, the board of PageantWyse voted unanimously to disband and disperse all remaining funds through a scholarship. Since starting the Miss Oak Harbor Scholarship Pageant four years ago, the event has exceeded all Walker-Wyse’s expectations. Participation has increased each year and the organization has given away a total of $41,000 in scholarships to its participants. “We’re trying to focus on the wonderful things that we’ve done in four years,” she said. “It’s pretty amazing to build a program with the momentum and success that we’ve had in four years.” From the beginning, Walker-Wyse wanted Miss Oak Harbor to strike a different note, to break the stereotype long associated with pageants.
Kathy Reed/File Photo Over its four-year run, the Miss Oak Harbor Scholarship Pageant has had 62 contestants and given away more than $40,000 in scholarships.
“I wanted to create a pageant I could go and win as a teen,” she said. “I worked a fulltime job in high school. I wanted to look at girls who were working or volunteering, or maybe they played a sport one season but not all four seasons, so
Kathy Reed/Whidbey Weekly Jes Walker-Wyse, the founder of the Miss Oak Harbor Scholarship Pageant, is moving away, bringing an end to the four-year-old program.
I started thinking about this comprehensive pageant that would score them on all these different personality traits, versus how they look on stage.” As Walker-Wyse was mulling all this over, she met River Powers, whose background in sports helped create a wellrounded program with a unique scoring system aimed at giving young women a different option for earning a scholarship. “What I loved is that six-week one-on-one with these girls,” said Walker-Wyse. “We can teach them interviewing, we can
See PAGEANT continued on page 10
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