[JYO] ADIZ Seminar at Leesburg

Well, we got briefed by :
- COL  Randy Morris, Director of the Air Component Coordination Element 
at the  National Capitol Region Coordination Center (NCRCC)
- Jerry  Whittaker, NATCA's Facility Representative at Potomac TRACON 
(PCT)
- Chris Sutherland, a NATCA rep and a Shenandoah sector  controller.

The NATCA guys pointed out that they were not representing  the FAA at this 
meeting, only doing public outreach.  The meeting was  coordinated by Tom 
Soderholm, chair of the Operations Committee of the  Leesburg Airport 
Commission, and was attended by over 40 people.

The  briefing by PCT was excellent. It was focused on operational issues, and 
 
specifically addressed things like why GA arrivals from the south get routed  
around on what we've affectionately dubbed 'The Grand Western Tour', why the  
downwind transition is problematic at Dulles, and how the Dulles traffic  
impacts Leesburg.

1)  The GWT - aka COATT4 arrival:  GA  traffic arriving from the south, 
landing Leesburg, can either go west or use  the downwind transition. 
Evidently PCT only has 2,000 feet to play with for  IFR traffic east of 
Dulles.  So, the usual route for slower-moving GA  planes in IFR conditions 
is to send you around to the west, and keep you  low.  If it's VMC, the 
downwind transition is much more likely.   Good news is that there's going to 
be a test sometime in the next two months  to add another 1,000 feet to the 
Dulles airspace on the east side, so they  have more room to play with. 
AND..........for those of you /G guys who have  had BARIN, TRING, HUSEL, and 
the rest of the Atlantic Coast Airlines fixes  programmed in for awhile, the 
BARIN ONE arrival is now current  (COATT.BARIN1).

2)  Airspace redesign:  Probably will come up  again between this year and 
next.  JYO leadership intends to keep in  touch with PCT and try again to get 
the Class B floor raised to 2,000 feet,  to get our traffic pattern some 
breathing room.

3)  Dulles  traffic impact at Leesburg:  The controllers wanted us to 
understand  why things happen the way they do:
- IFR departures off 17 in  IMC create a real hazard for traffic arriving 
on 12 at IAD.  That's why  the standard 'Right turn direct STILL' has now 
morphed into 'Right turn  within 1 mile of the airport, direct STILL'.  And, 
oh by the way, a  left turn off 17 will cause huge problems for traffic 
arriving  19R.
- Missed approaches off the LOC17 are now most often  amended to 'right 
turn direct STILL'.  The published MAP to HARPP puts  you in harms way for 
traffic arriving/departing 12/30 at IAD.  This  will be addressed in the next 
airspace redesign, I think.

4)   ADIZ specific issues include:
- PCT is running out of  transponder codes at times.  There are times 
they have to issue the  same code twice.  This causes serious computer 
problems.
- The ADIZ caused a 2,000 operation a day increase for PCT.  They're  
still operationing with 151 certified controllers (171 on-hand) in  a
facility that probably needs over 200 to operate properly.
- PCTs load is around 6,500 operations daily - the ADIZ volume is beyond  
their capability to handle them in an 'Enhanced Class B' concept.
- The Enhanced B concept came up again recently and is currently being  
staffed by the FAA's Eastern Region and PCT.  This is a scary thought  and we 
got the impression from the controllers that the workload would be  
astronomical, and the traffic impacts significant.
-  Controllers will occassionally ask pilots to leave the ADIZ due to  
workload.  It's not required, but confusing.  We did not get to  any sort of 
consensus other than a good suggestion from an AV-ED instructor  that 
controllers should consider asking pilots to do things that aren't  required, 
and they'll probably get a better reaction.  It's very  confusing when you're 
VFR clear of CLASS B and the controller starts  vectoring you in what sounds 
like a mandatory fashion.

COL Morris  presented the DHS viewpoint.  He reports to NORAD and represents 
DHS  interests at the NCRCC in Herndon.  He attends the weekly inter-agency  
airspace working group meetings.  He is an air-defense interceptor guy  by 
training and experience.   As would be expected, he believes  the ADIZ should 
be larger because the response time is too short.  He  gave a good briefing 
on the new visual warning system installed downtown,  which they believe is a 
good step towards reducing incursions of the ADIZ  and FRZ.  Given that it's 
non-lethal, I suppose he has a point there  !

The majority of his briefing went to things that will only start a  flame war 
here.  Leave it at this:  The Air Force has a really  tough mission that they 
are trying to get done in what they consider to be  too small a space, and 
they'd like more restrictions, more security, and a  bigger ADIZ.  Pilots 
attending the briefing obviously disagreed.   Several folks at the meeting 
started waxing eloquently about liberty and  security, and unfortunately that 
wasn't the proper forum.  It was a  good sign, though, that a DHS 
representative of the 'forces of darkness'  (Dave Wartofsky's phrase, not 
mine!) came and talked and listened and agreed  to work with the pilot 
community.  He also agreed to take a flight on a  sunny Saturday in The 
Realllllllllly Clean Cherokee (TRCC) and see what it  was really like out 
there.

There was a long discussion, some of which  occurred after the meeting, that 
VFR corridors might be an option, and might  be an exclusion to a positive 
control requirement in Enhanced Class B, if  that comes to pass.  It was 
interesting to note that the briefers &  DHS concept of a VFR corridor and 
local pilot's concept was significantly  different.  Where pilots were 
thinking of the Martin State solution of  a dedicated code and no comms, they 
were thinking of all of the same  restrictions as the current NOTAM, plus now 
not being able to fly anywhere  EXCEPT the corridor.  After much discussion, 
there was agreement to  work on something together.  Tom Soderholm and Dennis 
Boykin are taking  that action.

One last point:  There's been much discussion, and a  violation at JYO, 
because of the transponder failure rule.  The NOTAM  reads:

...................UPON BECOMING AWARE OF AN INABILITY TO COMPLY  WITH THE 
REQUIREMENT TO CONTINUOUSLY TRANSMIT THE ATC ASSIGNED  TRANSPONDER
CODE, SHALL EXIT THE DC ADIZ BY FLYING THE MOST DIRECT COURSE TO  OUTSIDE THE 
LATERAL LIMITS OF THE DC  ADIZ............................................



It's the  military's viewpoint that if your txpdr fails on departure, landing 
at the  airport you just left makes more sense than flying out.  So, the  
controllers took a message back, and maybe we can get 04/5555  revised.


Ever vigilant.........


Dennis  Boykin 
_boykin_dennis@xxxxxxxxxx (mailto:boykin_dennis@xxxxxxxxx)

Other related posts: