FAA FAST Team Meeting

June 13, 2026

There were supposed to be representatives from the local towers and Santa Barbara approach but only the tower manager from Vandenberg (Rick Stall(sp)) showed up. He stated that the tower is fine with us practicing low approaches with their ILS, traffic permitting. The ILS is turned off when the tower is not in operation. Tower hours are normally 8-5 M-F but are often open at other hours if they have traffic coming in. Santa Barbara approach knows when the tower is open and which Restricted Areas are hot.
There are seven parachute drop zones in the base as well as lots of UAS operations.
They anticipate 100 rocket launches this year including the Falcon Heavy.
R2517 is always closed and there are high intensity radar operations there so it is dangerous to fly in that area. You can fly offshore above 2,000'. Contact Frontier Control on 121.4 if you want to transit that area.

If you are taking off at Lompoc on Rwy 25 be sure to turn right immediately. Vandenberg is usually using Rwy 30 so you will encounter high speed aircraft on the ILS or TACAN that drop in quickly and are hard to see.

Dylan is the tower manager for Santa Maria as well as working at San Luis. There is only one seasoned tower employee (other than Dylan), Grumpy, and one or two trainees. So be very careful about listening and reading back instructions. Also listen to the ATIS and read the NOTAMs for tower closures and maybe brush up on your non-towered operations etiquette.
The runup area has been removed so if you need an extended runup, do it before you reach the runway.

There was some other Santa Maria airport information related to rents, Board Meetings, Customs, Cargo Operators, etc. that most of us probably aren’t interested in. One board member showed up and seems interested in supporting GA at the airport.