Exhibit No. 3E was entitled...
LOS ANGELES AIR ROUTE TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER SECTOR 15 - COMMENTARY
Page 2 of this exhibit talks about Radar Coverage...
Radar Coverage - Coverage is quite good at or above the MEA except southeast of SBA VORTAC at the lower altitudes; i.e., 100 or below. The radar sites are located at Black Mountain, near PRB, San Pedro (SPJ) and a third backup at Boron. Terrain is the coverage problem southeast of SBA from PRB and SPJ and suffers from inversion and/or reflections from the water in that area. The third system, Boron, suffers from high terrain in the GMN area. Coverage below FL180 in Sector 15's airspace is marginal at best using Boron.
SBJ stands for San Pedro Hill, which is the location of QLA (Los Angeles) Air Route Surveillance Radar. SBA (Santa Barbara), where low-altitude coverage is poor below 10,000 ft, is 85 miles from QLA radar, and 63 miles from PRB radar. GMN is Gorman, California, which lies approximately 90 miles east of San Luis Obispo, and the QSR radar site is located another 60 miles east of there.
[Note: I can't help but find it interesting that low-altitude coverage suffers in the SBA area, yet inversion and/or reflection from the water in that area is the cause of that problem.]
[Back to "Reasonable Doubt" Home]
This page created Feb 25, 2000
© 2000 by Lusch's Midair Collision Investigations. All rights reserved.