Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
I would classify all the most restrictive airspace as Class F.
Redesigning airspace/IFR flying from scratch
- Thread starter MountainDude
- Start date
If airspace were redesigned enmass, class D, C, and B airports would look less like circles and wedding cakes and more like blocks with corridors to class A airspace. If we cleansheeted the whole thing, I don’t think we’d create a system where a non-participating VFR 1200 target would result in a controller needing to vector an arrival or departure around it.
VHF AM radios are due for a mass redesign. The new communications system will be a combination of audio and text based. With instructions integrated on the ATC side with traffic flow management tools, and integration on the aircraft side with the FMS or GA equivalent. The ATC computer can recommend to the controller that N182V turn left and descend to 3000, the controller, agrees, flashes the instruction that pops up on my Garmin 950xiF navigator, I accept the instruction and my autopilot makes the change. Altimeter settings and radio sector handoffs are automatic. For the most part, the frequency would be quiet except for the most critical instructions and pilot requests, or comms with low tech birds without the digital instruction integration.
On the VFR side, a pretty simple box alerts us and nudges us out of airspace we have not been cleared into. Otherwise not a huge enhancement over what exists today.
You can’t completely redesign the system without rebaselining what equipment needs to be installed and what skills and knowledge pilots need to have. That’s why systematic changes are always incremental because it’s next to impossible to implement a new system on January 1 that’s completely different from what was happening on December 31. Thus, any changes you make need to be incremental and backwards compatible.
VHF AM radios are due for a mass redesign. The new communications system will be a combination of audio and text based. With instructions integrated on the ATC side with traffic flow management tools, and integration on the aircraft side with the FMS or GA equivalent. The ATC computer can recommend to the controller that N182V turn left and descend to 3000, the controller, agrees, flashes the instruction that pops up on my Garmin 950xiF navigator, I accept the instruction and my autopilot makes the change. Altimeter settings and radio sector handoffs are automatic. For the most part, the frequency would be quiet except for the most critical instructions and pilot requests, or comms with low tech birds without the digital instruction integration.
On the VFR side, a pretty simple box alerts us and nudges us out of airspace we have not been cleared into. Otherwise not a huge enhancement over what exists today.
You can’t completely redesign the system without rebaselining what equipment needs to be installed and what skills and knowledge pilots need to have. That’s why systematic changes are always incremental because it’s next to impossible to implement a new system on January 1 that’s completely different from what was happening on December 31. Thus, any changes you make need to be incremental and backwards compatible.
So you're shooting an approach into a great little non-towered Apt and you break out at 500ft and there's a C150 doing 60kts turning final in front of you.
Hey, he's clear of the clouds JUST under the overcast and at 500' there is 1 mile visibility. And if you don't fly IFR... You're the plane that just turned final with a twin that is about to set his gear down on top of your wings.
Speaking from VFR pilot-only perspective...
Transition areas make VFR sectionals look pretty, but the logic of the horizontal extent of transition areas escapes me. I would re-design, or customize, them.
I would also come up with a new term, or two, to distinguish between airspace where different weather minima apply, and airspace where two-way communication with ATC is required (or not).
As someone who participated in redesigning some airspace and procedures that impacted largely airliners you have to first take into account the inertia of the commercial aviation fleet. Be prepared to hear, "70% of our aircraft cannot do ______ because they don't have the equipment and that required equipment will never be retrofitted."
You mean what is often referred to as the "keyhole part" of it? The rectangular part that is stuck on the side of the circle?
Take a look and you'll notice those are 99% of the time lined up with the runway extended center line. That is where the IFR planes will arrive from when flying the Instrument Approach. Now days with a lot of GPS/RNAV Approaches you'll arrive with what is called "Vertical Guidance" so you'll stay relatively high and fly a nice constant descent to the runway. Similar to what you might do if you were up high 5 miles from the runway and you were doing a Straight In to the runway. However, a number of the older approaches and a number of older planes that may not have all the new avionics will do what is referred to as a "dive and drive" Approach. This is an Approach with step-down fixes along the final approach course. So I'm flying along and I get to a Waypoint that is 5 miles from the airport and I can go from say 1500ft AGL down to 1000ft AGL, so I reduce my power, dive down to that altitude and then add power to maintain that altitude and the speed I want. Then I get 2-3 miles out and I can go down to maybe 800ft AGL, so I repeat the process and quickly drop down to 800ft AGL.
The reason you drop so quickly is that A) you don't want to be down to that altitude before you get to the next drop down (and some are close together), or B) you break out below the ceiling and you can see the Apt a lot further out. But the bottom line is that when those transition zones were created, it was not uncommon for planes to be doing rapid descents and suddenly pop out of the clouds anywhere from near the Rwy threshold to quite a few miles out (pending the Approach). So that's why I was commenting on why it wouldn't be a good idea to not have Wx minimums around Airport, at least ones that have instrument approaches.