Japan putting $689M toward realignment of U.S. forces

The Stars & Stripes reports that the Japanese government has decided to allocate $689 million during the next fiscal year for projects related to realigning U.S. forces in Japan.

According to an announcement late Wednesday by the Ministry of Defense, about $345 million will be set aside for moving about 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam, a move expected to be complete in 2014.

That’s a sharp increase from the $4 million allocated for the project in the 2008 budget.

Also included in the budget is $93.9 million for construction of a new Marine air facility on Camp Schwab to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

The plan to relocate the present air station, in the middle of an urban area in central Okinawa, to the rural northeast coast includes building two runways that will extend from Camp Schwab on the Henoko Peninsula into reclaimed land in Oura Bay.

That’s an increase from the $48.3 million budgeted for the new airport in 2008.

U.S returns another 20% of Yokota AB airspace

I previously posted about the Yokota AB RAPCON and the citizens living around the base receiving money for noise damage. Here is an update related to both stories:

Flight routes can now be easily set for westward-bound passenger planes from Haneda Airport in Tokyo.

That is because the Yokota airspace, which expands over the west of the airport and is under the air traffic control of the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base, has now been returned in part to Japan.

The skies over the metropolitan area are now more crowded. Accordingly, it is very significant that new air routes have been secured for flights to and from Haneda.

The Japanese and U.S. governments have also agreed to consider necessary conditions by fiscal 2009 for the United States to return the Yokota airspace in its entirety. We want the two governments to push ahead with talks for specifics about the airspace’s overall reversion.

The Yokota airspace came under the Allied Powers’ control after the end of World War II. After that, its traffic control was transferred to the U.S. military. Since then, the U.S. Air Force, based on the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, has controlled the air traffic of U.S. military and Self-Defense Forces aircraft to and from the Yokota, Atsugi, and Iruma bases.

In May 2006, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed on the Yokota airspace’s partial reversion as a step in the process of realigning U.S. forces in Japan. This is the eighth time for the United States to return part of the airspace. This time, however, the United States has returned 20% of the airspace’s area and 50% of its volume.

Japan to get some airspace from Yokota AB

Some of you BT’ers may remember my posts on Tokyo Governor (and former Minister of Transportation) Shintaro Ishihara and his call for dual-use of Yokota Air Base. Ishihara has been among the most outspoken proponents of dual use of Yokota since running for his first term as governor in 1999. He wanted either Yokota AB reverted to Japanese control or the base converted to a dual-use facility. 

This most recent announcement to the basic agreement is expected to alleviate the overcrowding caused by the 470 commercial flights that must take detours around the so-called “Yokota RAPCON (Radar Approach Control)” area each day.

The Yokota RAPCON covers the airspace above Tokyo and eight prefectures — Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Niigata, Nagano and Shizuoka. The military airspace is 7,000 meters high at its northern part and 3,700 to 5,500 meters in its southern part near Tokyo.

Flights bound for western regions, such as Chugoku and Kyushu, have to ascend to avoid entering the banned airspace, while flights originating from those regions must make a detour south of Yokota, according to the transport ministry.

The agreement, however, will effectively shelve Japan’s request for the complete return of the airspace, which it has been seeking since the 1980s.

Here is the latest update courtesy of the Stars & Stripes.