Home » Army VIP gold-top helicopter flights are common in busy DC air corridor

Army VIP gold-top helicopter flights are common in busy DC air corridor

Army Black Hawk helicopters known as “gold-tops” operating out of Davison Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir, Va., are regularly used to ferry senior military officials to different installations and often make flights to and from the Pentagon, a former senior Army official told Blaze News.

Casey Wardynski, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs, said gold-top VIP flights operated by the Army 12th Aviation Battalion are a normal part of traffic in the busy but highly controlled air corridor surrounding Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport near Washington, D.C.

“These are going to be some of the most experienced and senior pilots in the Army,” Wardynski said, “because they’re flying secretary of defense, secretary of the Army, chief of staff of the Army, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, these kind of folks around to various locations in the vicinity of Washington helicopter range. And they’re going to be doing it day and night.”

The air corridor is ‘very highly controlled.’