The November/December 2023 issue of
FAA Safety Briefing magazine contained an article titled
The Winds of Change: Wind Turbines and Their Effects on the National Airspace System.
While Wind Turbines/Farms are commonplace in many parts of the country, the article highlighted the increasing height of newly built turbines. Older models averaged a height of 344 ft, but wind turbines are being built around the country with heights exceeding 499 feet AGL, with the tallest turbines exceeding 800 feet AGL.
Wind farm projects file requests for aeronautical studies to FAA’s Flight Standards Service through the Obstruction Evaluation/Airports Airspace Analysis (OE/AAA) public portal to determine whether proposed structures constitute a hazard to air navigation and what type of marking/lighting is required. The FAA circulates some of these aeronautical studies to give the public an opportunity to review and comment. You can subscribe to notifications, view, search, and comment via the
public portal.
Critically, the article discusses the safety impact of wind turbines for low-altitude flight. They can generate turbulence up to several miles downwind and are frequently co-located with meteorological towers (METs) which are very difficult to acquire visually and are not always marked or lighted.
