Here's an interesting one...Class E extension to Class C

flyingron

flyingron

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I was staring at the local chart and I came across something I hadn't noticed before, in fact, hadn't seen before anywhere. GSO has what appears to be a class E extension to it's class C surface area. I'd seen class E extension to class D before, but this is a new one on me. Looks to accomodate approaches to the 23 parallels.
 
Not THAT rare. Oakland has one, too.

Even more interestingly, it almost completely overlaps the Class D of a neighboring airport. And the Class D wins....

Monterey has one as well. So does Fresno. And Ontario.
 
RDU has one too, just smaller. It's probably pretty common. I think all Class C is at least surrounded by the 700' vignette. Just to account for suatioons where the Clsss C is closed or, in the case of extensions, to protect corridors.
 
And some more: Sacramento (Intl), Beale AFB, Portland (OR), Reno, March AFB, Santa Barbara. That's almost every Class C in range, except for Orange County and Burbank. It would seem to be more common than not.
 
Portland's is interesting in a number of ways. There's the Class E extension to the northeast, giving protection for the Runway 21 LOC-DME approach (usually only used in really crummy, stormy weather when we get strong winds from the south). Then there's the Class E surface area enclosing the Class C cutout around the private Evergreen N-S strip -- the little-used, last remnant of Wally Olson's legendary Evergreen Airfield.

Finally, there's a small Class E extension, below the 1800' floor of Class C, just west of the Pearson Field cutout. This is a new addition in the last few months, to provide surface area protection for Pearson's only IFR approach, an LDA with a final approach formed by the PDX 10L localizer.

For the last 20 years, Pearson has had its own Class D (surface to the floor of the Class C at 1100' MSL), despite not being a controlled airport. This was put in place so as to require Pearson arrivals and departures to contact ATC (a position in the PDX tower operating on a discrete frequency as "Pearson Advisory") to get wake turbulence advisories before operating within the Class D. Just a week or two ago, it was announced that the Class D will be changed to a Class E with special flight rules. So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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PDX is a great example of how much messier the VFR chart is, versus the PDX specific inset.

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If you looked at some old charts from before when ARSA's(now called Class C)were created, you would find that the "inner core" was pretty much just the round part of the Control Zone(now called Class D) that was there. If for some reason Class C's were done away with, the "inner cores" would become Class D and it would look just about like any other Class D surface area with its Class E extensions.
Another way to visualize it is to take a Class D airport, one that has Class E extensions and "build your own" Class C there. The blue dashed lines would become solid magenta and the Class E Surface area extensions would stay as they are.
 
luvflyin said:
If you looked at some old charts from before when ARSA's(now called Class C)were created, you would find that the "inner core" was pretty much just the round part of the Control Zone(now called Class D) that was there. If for some reason Class C's were done away with, the "inner cores" would become Class D and it would look just about like any other Class D surface area with its Class E extensions.
Another way to visualize it is to take a Class D airport, one that has Class E extensions and "build your own" Class C there. The blue dashed lines would become solid magenta and the Class E Surface area extensions would stay as they are.
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There is a standard size for the Class C "inner core", five NM radius. Class D and Class E surface areas vary in size; 3.5 NMR plus the distance from the Airport Reference Point to the end of the outermost runway, rounded up to the next tenth of a mile, with perhaps a bit more for sloping terrain.
 
roncachamp said:
There is a standard size for the Class C "inner core", five NM radius. Class D and Class E surface areas vary in size; 3.5 NMR plus the distance from the Airport Reference Point to the end of the outermost runway, rounded up to the next tenth of a mile, with perhaps a bit more for sloping terrain.
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Yeah. The "numbers" vary a little. Just illustrating the point of why those E surface areas at B's and C's are nothing all that unusual
 
luvflyin said:
Where is that announcement? Do they have the date yet that the Part 93 Rule is going to take effect?
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November 10, 2016 - except that it is for the most part identical to operating procedures today. Full rule is here: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FAA-2015-3980-0019.

Ignore the serious Bravo Sierra in section IV(B) on response to comments, including a bunch of CYA revisionist history by an FAA author who was not even a part of the work.

The article in the local fishwrapper, positive if not informative, is here: http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/sep/27/faa-oks-new-rule-for-pearson-field/#
 
Straying a little here but still on Surface Areas. Checkout KHIF. I wonder what the train of thought is on that E extension to the Southeast.
 
Pilawt said:
November 10, 2016 - except that it is for the most part identical to operating procedures today. Full rule is here: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FAA-2015-3980-0019.

Ignore the serious Bravo Sierra in section IV(B) on response to comments, including a bunch of CYA revisionist history by an FAA author who was not even a part of the work.

The article in the local fishwrapper, positive if not informative, is here: http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/sep/27/faa-oks-new-rule-for-pearson-field/#
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Hopefully the charting won't get bungled. After the SLE and UAO fiascos there should be someone a little higher up the ladder keeping an eye on this one.
 
I still think the strangest one is the Class D extensions to the LAX Bravo.
 
arnoha said:
I still think the strangest one is the Class D extensions to the LAX Bravo.
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Oh no. The old KVUO was quite a lot weirder.

It was one of the mythical nontowered Class D airports. I watched a guy in a nice RV taxi up to the hold short line, contact Pearson Advisory (at KPDX) like the chart said, and then sit there and wait for a takeoff clearance. Advisory is not a tower, so it never comes. All they want to do is tell you "caution, wake turbulence" and to stay out of Class C.

The Class D extensions just mean you can't be buzzing around at (very) low altitude close to LAX without talking to LAX Tower, but you can go into those parts without clearance.
 
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MAKG1 said:
Oh no. The old KVUO was quite a lot weirder.

It was one of the mythical nontowered Class D airports. I watched a guy in a nice RV taxi up to the hold short line, contact Pearson Advisory (at KPDX) like the chart said, and then sit there and wait for a takeoff clearance. Advisory is not a tower, so it never comes. All they want to do is tell you "caution, wake turbulence" and to stay out of Class C.

The Class D extensions just mean you can't be buzzing around at (very) low altitude close to LAX without talking to LAX Tower, but you can go into those parts without clearance.
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OK, I'll buy that. I guess I just meant weird in the sense of unusual. Don't know of any other Class D chained to a Bravo.
 
Pilawt said:
November 10, 2016 - except that it is for the most part identical to operating procedures today. Full rule is here: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FAA-2015-3980-0019.

Ignore the serious Bravo Sierra in section IV(B) on response to comments, including a bunch of CYA revisionist history by an FAA author who was not even a part of the work.

The article in the local fishwrapper, positive if not informative, is here: http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/sep/27/faa-oks-new-rule-for-pearson-field/#
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Dang. Those two airports are certainly right on top of one another...just a bit over two miles end of runway to end of runway. I can easily see why the safety concerns.

Seems like a possible solution would be to have both airports controlled by the same tower.
 
timwinters said:
Dang. Those two airports are certainly right on top of one another...just a bit over two miles end of runway to end of runway. I can easily see why the safety concerns.

Seems like a possible solution would be to have both airports controlled by the same tower.
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In kind of a left handed way they are. "Pearson Advisory" is done by Portland Tower. The controller there monitors the frequency and in between all the Pearson Traffic CTAF calls, when they hear "Pearson Advisory" they key that transmitter and respond. They of course don't give landing and take off clearances or actually sequence traffic but are usually pretty good about giving good traffic information. It works really well. There was a Tower there a couple of years ago when PDX was going through major runway construction and was operating with one runway. It was staffed by controllers from PDX and HIO who would just show up there at the beginning of their day when it was their turn. There was talk about making it permanent.
 
timwinters said:
Dang. Those two airports are certainly right on top of one another...just a bit over two miles end of runway to end of runway. I can easily see why the safety concerns.
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It does work well. We stay inside our little cutout below 1,100' MSL (pattern altitude is 1,026'), and the airliners stay above.

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luvflyin said:
There was a Tower there a couple of years ago when PDX was going through major runway construction and was operating with one runway. It was staffed by controllers from PDX and HIO who would just show up there at the beginning of their day when it was their turn. There was talk about making it permanent.
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The local pilots liked the temporary tower at Pearson. The controllers who worked there loved it (many of them live on this side of the river and didn't have to pay Oregon income tax when they worked VUO). But it made too much sense, so FAA closed it.
 
Pilawt said:
It does work well. We stay inside our little cutout below 1,100' MSL (pattern altitude is 1,026'), and the airliners stay above.

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The local pilots liked the temporary tower at Pearson. The controllers who worked there loved it (many of them live on this side of the river and didn't have to pay Oregon income tax when they worked VUO). But it made too much sense, so FAA closed it.
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Lol. Not only did the Washington residents beat the Oregon Source Income Tax, all of them were getting busy airport wages for the time they were working at a tower that didn't come even close to meeting the traffic count to establish a Tower. I suppose the City of Vancouver could fund a Non Federal Tower. Yeah, right, lol. I doubt if the FAA would even consider a Contract Tower unless the Local government funded all of it.
 
Pilawt said:
It does work well. We stay inside our little cutout below 1,100' MSL (pattern altitude is 1,026'), and the airliners stay above.
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Yeah, if you fly a tight 1/2 mile or less pattern like I typically do, I can see that it'd be just fine. But then there are the low time pilots...and/or those who are simply tools...who fly the B52 patterns of 2.5 to 3 miles.

At least 26 is RP. That definitely helps. I could just see low time 172 flyers turning downwind to base over the PDX 10R threshhold if it was LP. That could certainly get interesting! ;)
 
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