ENID — Seeking new forms of renewable energy, such as that produced by wind turbines, is part of the comprehensive Air Force Energy Plan signed last year by the Secretary of the Air Force.

The service is working to reduce its energy consumption and is committed to enhancing the nation’s energy security. This year the Air Force plans to spend $1 million to identify and conduct feasibility studies for new renewable energy projects.

“The Air Force is very keen on developing renewable energy, alternative energy,” said Col. Glen VanHerck, vice commander of the 71st Flying Training Wing.

Thus, the potential of wind power is important to the Air Force. In fact, the service erected two wind turbines of its own last year — a two megawatt turbine at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and a 1.5 megawatt turbine at the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod.

Throughout the next five years the Air Force will invest some $2.3 billion to investigate alternative energy sources, “Wind being one of them,” VanHerck said. “And good Lord knows, it blows in Oklahoma.”

Wind turbines and Air Force flying operations, however, do not always mix.

Two Air Force bases, Travis in California and Dyess in Texas, have had trouble with phantom radar images produced by wind farms in their operation areas.

And that is not to mention the fact a 260-foot high, 93.5-ton wind turbine would be a large obstacle should it be placed in the flight path of an aircraft.

That’s why leadership at Vance Air Force Base and the base’s Air Space Management Office have been working with wind farm developers to ensure the two entities safely co-exist.

VanHerck said Vance officials have had “very few discussions with a small number of parties” concerning the development of wind farms in this area.

Communication, VanHerck said, is the key. Vance officials ask any time a developer is planning a structure 200 feet or higher within 20 miles of Vance, Air Space Management Office be contacted at 213-7864.

“Certainly there’s concerns about aircraft potentially hitting those if we don’t know where they are located,” said VanHerck. “Probably a bigger concern is being able to provide service with our radar to northwest Oklahoma and our military pilots in the surrounding area.”

Besides Vance, the base’s radar approach control services 12 civilian airports.

“Over the last few years we’ve seen significant impacts by the windmills on radar returns and reflections,” VanHerck said. “We are concerned to make sure we are a cooperating partner to ensure we can continue to provide that level of service safely, not only to military but to civilians.”

In addition to producing nearly 400 pilot training graduates each year, Vance also trains air traffic controllers.

Spinning objects like the blades of wind turbines can create troublesome radar anomalies, making it look like they are much larger than they really are, said Josh Beagley, Vance air space officer with the 71st Operations Support Squadron. Such anomalies could obscure the radar signature of aircraft.

“Windmills are especially interesting because they have parts that are moving right and parts that are moving left,” Beagley said, “so it tricks the radar into thinking there is one aircraft moving in both directions, if that’s possible.”

Travis and Dyess have dealt with wind farm radar anomalies by ad-justing their digital radar, the type of radar Vance now is installing to replace its older analogue technology.

VanHerck said wind turbines also have the potential to change Terminal Instrument Procedures (TERPS), procedures pilots use when they are flying into the base relying on their instruments.

“We need to make sure the appropriate communication is going on between us and these developers to make sure we don’t have any large obstacles pop up within any of our corridors that we’re unaware of,” VanHerck said. “Hopefully we can keep avenues of communication open to keep that from occurring.”

“A lot of this comes down to, from our perspective, until the farms are built, we won’t know the impact,” said Navy Lt. J.R. McFarland, 71st OSS air space officer. “We can theorize to a certain point what the impacts are going to be, but we won’t know for certain until they actually put them out there. For us, knowing in advance is the key.”

Private developers are not re-quired to get military approval be-fore building something like a wind farm. They must, however, contact Federal Aviation Administration be-fore building objects 200 feet or higher.

By working together, VanHerck said, the Air Force and wind farm developers can help make the nation less dependent on foreign energy sources.

“We want to ensure that we can hopefully someday become independent of foreign energy, but do that in a safe and responsible manner to ensure that the parties that have vested interests can continue to do their mission safely and effectively, whether that be military or civilian.”