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Declan
Maddock
453 Squadron RAAF Base East Sale Victoria
Redesign of danger area D353.
The issue
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) East Sale will release a portion of R360A airspace to the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) to facilitate Fire Fighting operations from the Heyfield Township helicopter base through the use of an annual letter of agreement. East Sale wish to simplify this process and facilitate better use of the airspace by redesigning D353 to encompass the DEECA Helicopter Base at Heyfield.
Purpose
Redesign of D353 Visual Flight Rules (VFR) Transit Lane to include the Victorian DEECA Helicopter Base at the Heyfield Township.
Proposal
East Sale has an airspace reservation with DEECA that is active for about 9 months of the year.
The airspace reservation encompasses the DEECA Helicopter Base at the town of Heyfield and allows firefighting aircraft to operate without the need to continually obtain airways clearances to leave and re-enter military airspace during firefighting operations. This reservation has been in place for over 10 years, rather than have a reservation that requires to be renewed annually, RAAF East Sale believes a more efficient and better use of this airspace would be to actually redesign D353 and have the release included as part of the Danger Lane.
Submitted by
Michael Beauglehole453 Squadron RAAF Base East Sale Victoria
michael.beauglehole1@defence.gov.au
Relevant documentation
26 February 2025
Further information on proposed airspace change [PDF 2.05 MB]