Area 51 Gets a Handle

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is reporting that the previously anonymous Area 51 now has a name and airport identifier. It’s now known as ‘Homey Airport.’

The airport identifier and location of Nevada’s Groom Lake—you know, where they keep the space aliens at Area 51—has been appearing in flight-planning software and on handheld GPS receivers for most of the past year as KXTA.

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The Jeppesen FliteStar flight-planning program and AOPA’s Real-Time Flight Planner even identify it as Homey Airport and add, “Private, VFR, No Fee, Customs Info Unavailable.” Well, there’s a fee. The airport is deep within heavily restricted airspace, guarded by fighter jets. First come the legal fees, the probable confiscation of your aircraft, and a personal fee in the form of jail time.

AOPA editors found KXTA clearly marked on a handheld GPS map drawn from an outdated August 2007 database. Runways are described as Runway 12-30, 5,420 feet by 120 feet, and Runway 14-32, 12,000 feet by 200 feet. That’s not quite true. One end of 14-32 continues across a dry lakebed for another 11,000 feet, but that portion is closed and partially covered with blowing sand. And there are four additional runways marked in the sand of the dry lakebed.