You should subscribe to the Federal Register.
If someone in the greater Salem, Ore.-area had been subscribed to the Federal Register, they might have seen a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) titled, “Proposed Amendment of Class D and Class E Airspace, Revocation of Class E Airspace; Salem, OR” scroll across their email inbox on May 1, 2015, or thereabouts.
Upon investigating the NPRM, they would’ve learned the FAA was planning to expand the Class D and E airspace around Salem’s McNary Field (KSLE).
From the NPRM: “Class D airspace and Class E surface area airspace would extend upward from the surface to and including 2,700 feet within a 4-mile radius northeast of McNary Field, extending to 6.2 miles to the southeast, and 8.1 miles from the southeast to the northwest, excluding that airspace within 1.2 NM of Independence State Airport, OR. Class E airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface would be modified to within a 6.5-mile radius northeast of McNary Field, extending to 8.2 miles to the southeast, and 9.1 miles from the southeast to the northwest, excluding that airspace within 1.2 NM of Independence State Airport, OR.”
Here’s what that looks like:
Noticing the proposed changes, someone could’ve commented — this NPRM had a 45-day comment period — that there is a fairly tall hill about half way between the Salem and Independence airports and that it is possible to be in the Class D airspace with no radio or visual contact with the KSLE tower. I’m not an airspace engineer, but that seems like a bad thing.
The Oregon Pilots Association (OPA) sent an email to its membership on Sept. 3 that says, “The FAA, without any opportunity for public comment or any notice to the pilot community or the SLE tower personnel, expanded the Class Delta airspace to include the east side of the Independence (7S5) airspace.”
As I’ve already mentioned, the FAA did notify the community as it is required, via the Federal Register. The OPA email includes thoughts that would’ve been good to post in the public record. Sadly, they weren’t because they didn’t know.
Seeing those comments, and others, perhaps the FAA would’ve rethought the airspace design. At least, that’s what I hope they would’ve done. Maybe someone from the FAA would’ve called the people most directly impacted by the proposed change — upon seeing their concerns — to learn the nuances of the airspace and terrain.
It’s also possible the FAA would’ve just pushed forward with its proposal, but at least the comments would have been part of the public record.
As it stands, no comments were made, so the FAA made the airspace changes final as of Aug. 20. The changes will be charted on the “10 December 2015” sectional according to Allen Kenitzer, the FAA’s public affairs contact for the Northwest Mountain Region. Until then, the “changes are posted in the Airport Facility Directory (AF/D), in this case, on page 299.”
When I asked Kenitzer about other ways to communicate proposed changes, he said, “there is no other ‘official’ means for notifying the public that a change is imminent other than the Federal Register.”
In a more perfect world, I think it would be nice if the FAA, in addition to posting such notices to the Federal Register, would reach out to the Department of Aviation in the state most directly impacted by the proposed rule changes. That state agency could then reach out to the airport(s) and area pilots directly impacted for their thoughts. Then a group of people could work together to form a measured and proper set of comments.
While the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) does a great job helping to protect our freedom to fly… it can’t — and shouldn’t — be expected to see everything. We all need to step up.
Like I said, you should subscribe to the Federal Register.
To subscribe, go to FederalRegister.gov, then under Browse in the navigation bar, select Agencies and type FAA in the search bar. Once on the FAA page within the Federal Register, click the Subscribe button.
Ben, I appreciate and agree with your encouragement that “we all step up” as it relates to user awareness of proposed changes in the NAS. This is the regulatory equivalent of “situational awareness” that we all practice in the cockpit.
That said, even a casual review of what is taking place at Salem provides an unambiguous picture of a regional office operating without adequate process control or consideration of the impact of their decisions beyond the four walls of the conference room where this D change was born. The statement “There is no other ‘official’ means for notifying the public that a change is imminent other than the Federal Register” comes across as management denial and rationalization. I know from first-hand involvement in airspace review work in this region that if there had been a desire to engage local users in this process there were any number of ways to do so if they had chosen to. The FAA protects a vital national interest ensuring safe and efficient operation of the NAS; the attitude reflected in their comment if properly quoted disrespects both the FAA mission as well as the work of thousands of dedicated FAA employees that we depend on as pilots, and that the public expects.
More sunlight on this issue might be created by investigating and reporting on questions such as:
1. “Where did the belief come from that doubling the radius of the D airspace at SLE was required to improve safety when the SLE tower was slated for closure as recently as 2013, and continues to fall below the FAA’s own annual operations guidelines for having a tower to begin with?”
2. “Given that a review of the AIDS, ASRS, NMACS, and NTSB databases reveals no examples of accidents or incidents that this expansion would resolve, what data was actually used to come up with this proposal?”
3. “Given that prior removal of two navaids (ARTTY fan maker and Turno NDB) has been described as the justification for this airspace change, was there not an SRMP conducted as part of their removal?”
4. “How was it possible to conduct a valid SRMP process on this most current change with apparently no local subject matter experts involved, no obvious data (point 2) supporting risk assessment, and which clearly decreased safety of airspace around Independence State airport (7S5)?” Moving risk from one part of the NAS to another part of the NAS without review is not consistent with the intent of the SRM process. Also, “were there any qualified pilots involved in the process whether FAA employees or not?”
5. “Assuming that there were inadvertent and legitimate TERPS issues created for the SALEM THREE Radar Departure by the past removal of ARTTY and Turno, what other options were considered in the latest SRMP and what were their relative risk scores?” As an example, why not simply require departing IFR traffic to remain on runway heading until reaching 2,700 before turning them on course?
6. “What assumptions drove the apparent view that there would be no economic or environmental impact with this NPRM?” In fact there is significant impact on local agricultural operations. Also, the change would arguably increase traffic around the edges of the proposed airspace over several communities that I am confident are not regularly checking the Federal Register.
7. Once called out on the impropriety of the airspace expansion the FAA has appropriately stepped back from the original proposal. That said, “what logic has driven the creation of a smaller airspace expansion in a second NPRM rather than simply withdrawing the proposal completely?”
As for the notification process – the point of your piece – to believe that weaknesses in the NPRM system caused this issue one must also believe that during the likely month’s long planning process and 45 day comment period the SLE tower also remained unaware. If this is true, the internal communication failure is not very flattering to the FAA. If this is not true, one has to further conclude that for whatever reason somewhere in the FAA a decision was made to simply hope that this one slid through without notice.
As a pilot I support the important work of the FAA and also believe we have an obligation to thoughtfully hold them accountable for upholding the standards of excellence that the work demands. Someone knew or should have known that this change was significant, unprecedented, and based on weak logic. To not attempt outreach beyond that minimally required by law and to then implement the change in text form outside of the charting cycle, including notices on ATIS (to aircraft in flight) advising to check the Federal Register looks like malpractice, not a communication issue. As I am writing this letter, Salem airspace is depicted one way on the latest sectional, another way depending on what GPS or EFB you subscribe to, another way in text in the back of the current AFD, another way on a letter of agreement from the FAA that is being disseminated by AOPA and OPA – all while there is no notam or LTA on federal notam system giving a clue to any of this. The Agency is capable of much, much better. Pilots, keep your ASRS forms handy for airspace busts.
I fly out of the Salem airport. The people in the tower didn’t know about the changed until the day it took affect. It should have also been scheduled to take affect when the sectionals were updated, instead of some random day. To me this is just another example of how incompetent the FAA is.
Curious how many pilots read and understand everything on page 299 of the afd? Is the FAA trying to justify their job by making changes that make no sense?
There is a “subscribe via email” option, where you can select the qualifier: “Filed on Public Inspection.” I’m thinking that might be a great way to see things as they develop in a quasi-real-time way — flagging things which require attention. I certainly hope so.
I keep the FAA’s Federal Register on a bookmark
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/federal-aviation-administration
I check it at my leisure about once or twice a month.
The link to the A/FD page 299 suggests FAA pulled the same trick at Pasco/Tri-Cities (PSC). Salem 2014 ops are down 68% from their peak in 2007, at just 45 takeoffs per day; Pasco 2014 ops are down 57% from their peak in 2002, at just 60 takeoffs per day. How about we go back to FAA and get a clear and valid explanation: what’s the need for the airspace grab at these two airports? Is this technology driven, does it serve to enable new IFR procedures, or is just a way to stay busy pushing paper?
A few years ago, AOPA did an excellent job resisting an airspace change in the PHX area. FAA drove through their plan and within a couple years, a Turbo Commander slammed into the cliffs near the top of the Superstition Mountains, on a VMC (but dark night) departure from Falcon Field to Safford. A dad and his young kids died on a flight that was intended to start a happy Thanksgiving vacation. Bad airspace design (and FAA’s propensity for taking more space than is needed) was a contributing factor.
Interested advertisers can BUY aviator’s information from the FAA by zip coded area. Why, then, couldn’t the FAA send out an email OR other electronic message to affected aviators and aircraft owners with certain zip codes … in THIS case, at Independence?
The FAA is SO out of touch with reality !!! It’s THEiR way or the HIGHWAY . Using the Federal Register is tantamount to putting a tiny advertisement in the back of a local newspaper. How convenient.
Larry… I don’t disagree. The FAA, being a federally-controlled organization, must play by the notification rules set up… who knows how long ago. It is time to update the notification process. Something we should all work toward seeing happen. Until then however, we owe it to ourselves to be aware of the current rules in place and make sure we stay informed.
The FAA is completely inept. I was informed several months after changes regarding checkrides; as a flight instructor don’t you think that would be nice to know?
Ben,
The Federal Register is indespensible, but it is also darn near unusable for any busy person. Aviators with the luxury of time may find browsing the Federal Register for an hour or so each day a pleasant way to pass time, but for busy executives and other persons with daily duties – or just other interests – there is a better way. Federal Aviation Summary reviews Federal documents daily and summarizes them in a consistent format. Our summaries provide busy aviation managers, executives, and enthusiasts with all the info they need to decide whether a news item affects them. Every summary provides a link to the source document, so the primary source is only a click away. If you want never to be blindsided you again, you can spend 1 minute a day scanning Federal Aviation Summary, or an hour a day pouring over the Federal Register. Your call.
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