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useful to me personally, and I believe to the committee and to the country.

And I again commend you for organizing them and the leadership that you have developed in putting them together and in this whole field. Thank you very much.

Mr. EVANS. Thank you. And I appreciate very much your coming down because I know that everybody needs to be in their own district so it is a sacrifice to come. And we appreciate that so much. Thank you.

We will continue at this time with the next panel, with Rex Elder, the aviation director of Macon Municipal Airport. Come up. Mr. Murvale Belson, the lease-owner of the Herbert Smart Downtown Airport, Macon, Ga., and Mr. Glenn Allen Belson. Will you also take the witness stand?

[Mr. Elder, Mr. Murvale Belson and Mr. Glenn Belson were sworn by Mr. Evans.]

Mr. EVANS. I would like to welcome you to the hearings. I have, of course, known all of you for a long time, and I appreciate your willingness to come forward and testify on some issues that indirectly relate to the drug traffic.

If you have prepared statements, I would be happy to have you give those at this time and then be subject to any questions. We will start with Mr. Elder.

TESTIMONY OF REX ELDER, AVIATION DIRECTOR,
MACON MUNICIPAL AIRPORTS

Mr. ELDER. Congressman, I don't have a prepared statement. I made a very brief written statement that I submitted to the committee. And I would be happy to answer any questions. Would you like for me to? Mr. EVANS. I would appreciate it very much if you would give us a summary or an overview of what you think is relevant to the situation we have here, and then we can hear from the other two witnesses and proceed to questions.

Mr. ELDER. All right. The first recommendation that I made was to require mandatory filing of flight plans for all heavy aircraft.

Mr. EVANS. Would you give us the background on these recommendations as to what the present situation is and why you make such recommendations?

Mr. ELDER. All right. I also added to that if a cancellation of flight plan becomes necessary after the aircraft is airborne, it will be mandatory for another flight plan to be called in. Of course, at the present time, I guess it is a misconception because most people think after watching movies and seeing television about sophisticated navigational aids in the direction and control of aircraft that the air traffic controllers are aware of the direct pinpoint location of an aircraft at all times.

In my office, as the airport manager of the Macon Municipal Airport, we receive numerous calls every day from businesses, from private individuals, that are trying to locate an individual in an aircraft that has left some part of the country whose destination is Macon,

Ga. And they ask us where is this aircraft and what time do you think it will arrive there?

Well, unless the aircraft has filed a flight plan, we have no idea at all where it is or what time it will arrive. If you wanted to today, if you had an aircraft at an airport, all that is required is that you go out, start the aircraft up, and call the control, request permission to taxi to the taxiway, onto the runway, and request clearance to take off. And you are free to fly in the wild blue yonder to wherever you may choose.

Now, I did make that requirement for heavy aircraft because our listing of aircraft is 12,500 pounds and up. I think it would be too much of a burden to require all aircraft, although I am not so sure that sometime in the distant future, if aircraft were flying from one city to another, that it wouldn't be beneficial to file flight plans. Do I need to elaborate any more than that?

Mr. EVANS. No. I think that is fine. Do you have anything else? Mr. ELDER. The second recommendation is a recommendation that identification numbers be standardized on all aircraft. And I recommended 8 inches in height and 1 inch in width. And the reason that I did that is because sometime back, that was the case. And now, they have been cut down to the size of practically 3 inches. It would be beneficial in a lot of ways, not only in curtailing the shipment of narcotics, but it would be beneficial to the air traffic controllers. It would be beneficial to the flight service station. It would be beneficial to my staff that observes aircraft taking off and landing at airports, because we charge a landing fee.

And as you know, a lot of aircraft practice touch and go. They continuously come down. And it is most difficult, when in an airport, to identify these little 3-inch numbers. Of course, it would be, I think, a tremendous benefit to the narcotics agents.

And the third that I have is that sales of all aircraft be reported to the FAA Registration Division on day of sale.

Now, I know that we have got-and I have got a couple here—an FAA bill of sale information and also one of aircraft restoration and information. What really brought this to my attention was back some 9 or 10 months ago, we had a DC-3 aircraft to land at the Lewis B. Wilson Airport one night. This aircraft was an alleged marihuana aircraft.

I say "alleged" because it wasn't proven, there was marihuana residue all over the inside of the aircraft. And I assumed that what happened, the aircraft landed and taxied to a spot, a location there on the ramp that is not frequently used for other aircraft. And the tower became concerned and asked the airport police to look into why he was in that location.

Well, the airport police thought maybe something was wrong with the aircraft. So the airport police, when they got the call from the terminal, which takes probably 10 minutes to get up, they went up and they notified the aircraft. It was there, and it was all right.

But the next morning, we found suitcases outside of the flight service station building where my office is located that were full of electronicsurveillance-type equipment that is used in narcotics smuggling.

So we traced this aircraft down to where it was sold. And the individual that sold it down in Florida said he sold it to a Mr. Harry

Barnes with a location he gave us in Boston, Mass. Of course, when we traced that down, that information was fictitious. There was no such address, no such business, no such individual.

So the sale and purchasing of aircraft definitely needs to have the laws, I think revised.

Mr. EVANS. Do you have other recommendations?

Mr. ELDER. No; that is the three that I had, Congressman.

Mr. EVANS. OK.

Mr. ELDER. Excuse me. After Jack Peploe came to my office and talked to me about this-my job, of course, mostly is administrative of the airport, and I do very little flying. So I talked to various FAA officials, one from the Miami area that was a flight service station chief in the airport down there he would like to remain anonymous, and I won't call his name. I called him in, and he talked with Mr. Peploe. This particular individual has some 25, 30 years' service in this area. I talked to an assistant flight service chief and various other FAA people. And they also concur in these recommendations. Mr. EVANS. Thank you.

Mr. Murve Belson.

TESTIMONY OF MURVALE 0. BELSON, LEASE OWNER OF THE HERBERT SMART DOWNTOWN AIRPORT, MACON, GA.; ACCOMPANIED BY GLENN ALLEN BELSON, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

Mr. MURVALE BELSON. Thank you, Congressman Evans. It is a pleasure to be here. I don't get to see you very often. And I appreciate Mr. Peploe's guiding me through the preliminaries.

It is a pleasure to have met Mr. Starek and Mr. Carpentier.

I am not going to relate to you some of my history and personal background, but before I get started, here on my left is my No. 2 son who is experienced in, and I would consider an expert in the air traffic control business, having been an instructor in the Air Force and having worked in the coastal regions in the air traffic control business. So I would like for him to have a little something to say or perhaps answer some of the technical questions which you might have.

I have submitted to you gentlemen a copy of what I have to say here, just a brief synopsis of what is going on in the general aviation business here in the middle Georgia area. We have been the lessee of the Herbert Smart Downtown Airport, for about 7 years and we have seen some dramatic changes in the air traffic business in the itinerant aircraft. Some of those would raise your eyebrows a little bit, and this is caused by some of the queries that are made over the unicom system asking the local traffic control for nontower airports. And the type of communications we would hear from time to time would be they would call us and make some remarks up. Will you be there for fuel? Can we get fuel at 9 o'clock? Are you open for fuel now? Are the lights working? And what not. Of course, that would be the last you would hear from this particular communication and/ or aircraft.

And, of course, it appears to me after some exposure to this type of procedure that this was a signal either for that airplane to land at Herbert Smart Airport and/or some airport in the communication

radius of that particular unicom which would be at the lower altitude, 3,000 or 4,000 feet. You would probably have 30 miles at 5,000 feet. You would have 80 or 90 miles from which you could get a response. So this type of thing obviously is a signaling-type procedure that is used through our unicom network for contraband transport.

The drug traffic problem, as I see it, is no doubt a very perplexing one. Due to the great flexibility of air transport, we can move this contraband about several hundred miles within a half a day with no problem at all. We can cover vast distances.

Of course, here, we sit on the border and the coastal regions and the source of supplies, we all know, is in the South American area, Central America and what not, as far as marihuana is concerned. Some of the hard drugs are also coming via that route.

I am saying that on the basis of what I read in the paper and on the court trials and so forth that we hear about.

Now, to devise an effective traffic control procedure for aircraft is really going to tax the imagination. The filing of flight plans, I have serious doubts that this will have any good effect or any effect at all because the fellow that is going to fly illicit drugs is not necessarily going to file a flight plan. There is no particular reason why he should file one. There is no requirement for him to file one unless he crosses the ADIZ, and he is not going to file one if he is going to carry contraband.

He is going to fly out under the ADIZ. That is air defense identification zone. It lies along our coast line. I believe it is 12 miles in width. So he is just not going to file one when he comes and goes. He is not going to fly 1,000 feet or 3,000 feet or 5,000 feet; he is going to fly 10 feet above the water, a nice smooth level surface out there. And that is where he is going to stay because he is underneath the radar screen when he is there. And he is not going to be bothered.

When he gets into land, he is going to continue to fly at some greater altitude than that, and it is going to be something less than the MEA which is a term for the minimum enroute altitude. And this varies, depending upon the communication's ability of the installed apparatus of the FAA or flight service stations and/or radar apparatus.

Our present rules call for controlled airspace from either 700 or 1,200 feet above the surface. The 700 feet is generally established in the control zone areas airports and/or approach areas. The 1,200 feet is elsewhere.

All right, so now we can fly an airplane down across the country at 1,200 feet or 700 feet or 500 feet above the surface. And we can fly whether it is raining or whether the fog is there or whatever restriction there is to visibility. And we can do it quite safely, providing we know where the great, tall towers are.

And if we have sophisticated radar on our little airplane, we can point out those towers with our own apparatus. So we can, therefore, fly low level from here to San Francisco, and nobody is going to know it except us or unless we scare some guy on the ground just exactly like our high-performance military aircraft do daily.

Now, the effective low-level radar along the coast or at least in our ADIZ area may help control this problem. Our NASA system has

very, very sophisticated apparatus. That equipment could be used, I would suppose, by some arrangement. I am sure this would require some legal manipulations to get the use of some of that apparatus. But certainly, it is highly sophisticated and is capable of identifying the low-level flights either from the horizontal or from the vertical. Our first priority, of course, is to locate and identify these aircraft. There are a couple of ways to go about this.

One is to know what aircraft are carrying the contraband. And the other is a shotgun approach to identify all of them that come within the purview or the view of the observer.

Now, we have a lot of military people that are accused of not having anything to do, that are accused of being users of great quantities of marihuana. If this be the case, then, as I read it in the newspapers, that same soldier can be put to use. He can be perhaps given over to the special duty transfer or whatever mechanics are involved legally to get him to assist the customs people, Border Patrol, and/or the Coast Guard.

The transportation corps has all kinds of inland waterway apparatus to run up and down the coastal areas, and the inland waterways. The Army has all kinds of observation aircraft. They can fly up and down the ADIZ. The Navy has all kinds of apparatus. They too can fly up and down the ADIZ. The Air Force has all kinds of radar apparatus that can be used on the surface. And it is a matter of coordination between these facilities and people.

Of course, this requires some very, very close coordination and perhaps some action by Congress to authorize this type of function for the use of or the assignment of or the transfer to the agencies that have the responsibility for carrying on this surveillance.

Now, I have covered a lot of territory here, but I am going to ask Glenn or I will be open for questions, but to ask him to give us some of the technical verbiage that goes along with this radar business. Mr. EVANS. OK, Mr. Glenn Belson.

Mr. GLENN BELSON. Thank you, sir.

Gentlemen, I was involved over Southeast Asia and had an opportunity to work with what is called A.C. & W.-GCI sights which is an aircraft control warning or ground control intercept. The Air Force has a program where they have additional outfits called BUICK sights. I don't know exactly what the BUICK stands for, but they are the guys that maintain a radar watch of coastal areas, aircraft control, and warning.

Their job is to run them together, and ATC's job is to keep them apart. The BUICK sight, I visited some of the facilities when I was stationed in Panama City, Tyndall Air Force Base. And if you look at their scope, you will see maybe 1,000, 1,500 airplanes between New Orleans and Miami. It would be extremely difficult for that one radar controller or a dozen radar controllers to track each and every individual aircraft, each blip, they see on there. They identify some of them. some of them they don't have any idea who they are. They come and go off the scope.

The Navy has some aircraft that they are using for submarine detection of P-3. They also have a training requirement. If you can incorporate these aircraft into your surveillance system, put them out

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