welcome to the free pilot training channel on today's lesson we're going to be talking about an important subject special use airspace if you're new to this channel and you're looking for free private pilot ground study material consider starting with lesson one i'll throw a link right here to that playlist if you want to check it out let's get started in the simplest terms special use airspace is airspace that can contain hazardous activities because of this we need to know the rules and the limits of this airspace and how to identify it there are six types of special use airspace prohibited areas restricted areas warning areas moas alert areas and cfas prohibited areas are strictly prohibited to aircraft that's because of security or national welfare these areas are labeled with a p followed by a number and that's how you can look up the details in the federal register or the aeronautical charts let's take a look at a prohibited area near amarillo the first thing you should notice here is this blue hatched area that's going to let you know that there's some special used airspace here now take a look here at the label p47 if you want to find out some more information about this prohibited area flip over to the back of your vfr sectional by the way you can get free digital copies of all the latest vfr sectionals from the faa's website i'll put a link in the description if you want to download some of those okay so now that we've flipped it over to the back take a look here at this line labeled p47 as you can see it starts at the surface and goes up to 4800 then here in the time of use it's continuous that means there's never a time you can fly through it now if you'll notice there's no controlling agency or frequency to contact someone on and that's because there's never going to be a time when you're allowed to go in there if there were a controlling agency or a frequency on there there's a tiny chance you could get permission to go through that airspace now let's talk about restricted areas for just a minute these areas aren't necessarily prohibited but they can be very hazardous to aircraft that are not participating in the activities happening in that airspace these can often be unusual and even invisible to pilots these can include artillery firing aerial gunnery guided missiles or much more the most important thing for you to remember today about restricted areas is that you're not allowed to enter these unless you're cleared to enter or the area is not active let's take a look and see how we can tell if the area is active or not take a look at this restricted area if you'll notice it's marked a lot like the prohibited areas we saw earlier now if you look a little bit closer you'll notice that there's actually quite a few of these in this one spot here but today we're going to focus on restricted area 5601 alpha okay so let's flip back over to the back of our vfr sectional the first thing i notice when i find alpha on this chart here is that alpha bravo and charlie are operated together and you can see that all three of these areas start at the surface and go up to four zero thousand msl it looks like all these areas are constantly active too but check this out 5601 juliet is only active from sunrise to 2200 local on monday through friday then check out this little cross right here that means it's activated by nodum too so as long as we're outside of these times and the nodems don't show it activated we can fly through 5601 juliet and we don't even have to ask permission but if we do want to try to go in there while these areas are activated we need to contact the controlling agencies listed here in this case it's fort worth center and you can see that we contact them on 128.4 or 133.5 just ignore these frequencies that are larger than 224 these are military uhf frequencies okay so just to be clear because you might see this on the test for restricted areas you can enter them as long as you either have permission or the area is not active just keep that in mind warning areas are really similar to restricted areas and that there's a lot of hazardous activities going on in these areas as well but the us government doesn't have sole jurisdiction in these areas so they can't keep you from entering check out these warning areas in the gulf just west of miami typically you'll find that warning areas start at three nautical miles or more from the coast and extend out towards domestic or international waters because of this the faa doesn't have jurisdiction in these areas and you can fly your 152 in there anytime you want but do you really think that's a good idea with all the craziness going on in these areas but if you do want to fly safely into warning areas check the back of your bfr sectional just like we did in the restricted areas then if they are active contact the appropriate controlling agency to make sure it's safe to go in there next let's take a look at something called military operations areas or moas you can identify these by these hatched magenta lines like you see here in these areas there can be a lot of military activities that's not quite as hazardous as what you'd see in a warning area or in a restricted area but these areas can still be really dangerous because military pilots can be performing some really high speed maneuvers in these areas in fact the military allows their pilots to fly faster in these areas than is typically allowed below 10 000 feet because of this atc typically routes ifr traffic around active moas in fact mows were designed to keep ifr traffic separated from these guys that being said vfr pilots can fly through these areas even when they're active without permission if you do this though i would be very careful and keep your eyes outside the whole time when it comes to moas sometimes you'll find information about them inside or around their airspace you can find the rest of the information on the back of the vfr sectional just like on the restricted areas the warning areas and the prohibited areas now while you're legally not required to do so if you're going to fly through a moa i really recommend checking to make sure that the mode is not active first and if it is active i really recommend contacting the controlling agency before entering those guys are not always watching for your piper cub when they're playing war alert areas are really similar to moe's because in these areas you'll find a high volume of pilot training or an unusual type of aerial activity check out this airspace surrounding vance air force base as you can see we have the same hashed magenta lines now we can see that it's an alert area by the a preceding the number now we can look here to see that this alert area is because of high density student training just like moas you can fly through these areas even when they're active without permission but do you really think that's a good idea with brand new air force pilots flying high performance aircraft through this airspace personally i would either go around or contact vance approach before entering last thing we'll talk about today is controlled firing areas or cfas these areas contain activities that if not conducted in a controlled environment could be hazardous to non-participating aircraft but these areas are not charted and the hazardous activities should stop if your aircraft gets too close when these areas are active typically they'll have some kind of ground spotters spotting aircraft or some kind of radar to keep track of airplanes coming into the area and just like a pedestrian at a crosswalk they have to stop firing for you but it's good to be aware that areas like this exist hey i hope you enjoyed today's training before you leave here please be sure to drop down and hit that like button for me and if you haven't already be sure to check out the other great training i have available i promise you it's going to help you on your written test and your check ride i'll see you in the next episode