-An internal service road that's actually accessible from the flight line. We shouldn't have to pile our flight gear in a pov/govvie and drive off base to drive back on base to fly. I fail to see how a service road to part of base is restricted. It actually makes more sense then the current setup, what with secret material and pyro transport and however deep down that rabbit hole you want to go. The long walk aspect is more a WTI particular than the layout. A service road would do the trick for the resident squadrons.
-Overhead, shielded lighting ala every USAF flight light around. White, generator lights on the perimeter pointed inboard are just awesome on NVGs and/or naked eye night vision, especially when you want to taxi around the perimeter. It's only a matter of time before someone taxis into another aircraft down there at night, probably during a WTI.
-Or just put all the choppers in the S CALA and leave the N CALA to the FW like it used to be. That way, there's more than enough room for the plopters so they won't FOD out the VAL line and Delta.
I'm sure funding is the weak link in all of that anyhow... There's got to be some way to squeeze money out of the JSF. But I guess it's got to be able to carry bombs before it needs a CALA.
/Ideas man
The road might be doable if there was funding.
Everything else, particularly the lighting, can't be done because it will create an obstruction too close to the runway.
You have goggles, a FLIR, a probe light, and three landing/taxi/aux lights at your disposal. Use them.
There is not nearly the explosive capacity in the North CALA to support fixed wing operations for WTI.
These CALAs have taken thousands of man hours and tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the specific intervention of Congress twice, to come to fruition.
Be thankful you aren't at almost any other base where launching hundreds of thousands of pounds of live ordnance in a month would be legally if not physically impossible.
