"Well, as you can see, we're planning to build a tremendous Class Bravo airspace that completely covers San Luis Obispo," joked FAA air traffic manager Charles "Chick" Foley during an airspace briefing at the San Luis Obispo Veteran's Hall in May. The audience groaned and rolled their eyes, as Foley expected they would.
FAA air traffic controllers Foley, Gordon Thompson, Phil Thornton, and Jeff Sweet had come to town to tell Central Coast pilots about the future of air traffic control in their area. The plan sounds good — and pilots can help.
With the exception of the Santa Barbara and Point Mugu approach control facilities, the Central Coast, located halfway between the population centers of the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles, has no terminal radar services. IFR pilots in this region are served by air traffic control (ATC) long-range en route radar. This means they often have to be patient when they want to enter the radar-controlled world of IFR flying.
The Central Coast is located at the northern edge of Los Angeles Center's airspace and the southern edge of Oakland Center's airspace. This location, and the centers' workload can result in less-than-ideal handling of IFR traffic. Workload problems also can result in VFR fliers being denied requests for flight following. The problem is poor radar and, often, communications coverage.
The NAR
The National Airspace Redesign (NAR) is the result of a process that started in 1982 when the FAA conducted a National Airspace Review. The mechanism to increase the efficiency and capacity of the ATC system on the Central Coast will be a new terminal radar approach control (tracon) site in Santa Barbara. This Central California tracon (CCT) is one part of a bigger project that falls under the "Bay-to-Basin" (B2B) airspace redesign.
Where?
Santa Maria Public/Allan Hancock Field (SMX) and San Luis County Regional Airport (SBP) will get new equipment to help eliminate gaps in radar coverage at the new CCT. For more information about these airports or others affected by the B2B plan, visit AOPA's Airport Directory Online ( www.aopa.org/members/airports/).
This B2B plan will change the way air traffic is handled in the airspace between the San Francisco Bay area and the Mexican border. This goal will be achieved by reassigning some of the responsibilities of the Los Angeles and Oakland air route traffic control centers (ARTCC) to Central California tracon, and the Northern and Southern California tracons. The CCT has positions for nine controllers who will control traffic up to 17,999 feet msl between the Bay area and LAX. This will complete terminal radar from Northern California to the Mexican border.
"We plan on providing terminal radar services from Santa Barbara with remoted sites," said Foley.
No real plan
Jeff Sweet, a 20-year veteran air traffic controller and the NAR representative from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) in this area, explained the need for a redesign when he said, "The airspace system we have now just evolved and as the traffic increased we just figured out how to make it work."
All airplane travel is projected to increase and the system needs an overhaul. Any weather or mechanical disruption creates upsets that ripple throughout the system. In spite of almost superhuman efforts by everyone involved, traffic delays are daily occurrences. The system is ready for a redesign.
The improvements should enhance Central Coast flying for IFR pilots because a remoted radar site (the tentative site is on the Santa Maria airport) will permit the CCT to fill gaps in the arrival and departure stream into and out of area airports. In addition to terminal radar displays at CCT, digital bright radar indicator tower equipment (DBRITE) will be installed in Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo towers. This equipment will eliminate gaps in CCT's radar coverage and greatly enhance traffic handling.
Tower en route control (TEC) routes will be created for common IFR flight paths, and flight following service for VFR pilots will also improve. These changes are part of the regional redesign that will eventually integrate advanced navigation (GPS) and "free flight" technologies. For more information on free flight, visit AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/members/files/topics/freeflt.html).
Central coast woes
The airports of the Central Coast — Camarillo, Oxnard, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Maria — are hampered since they are located in an area of the state that doesn't have good low-level ATC radar coverage.
Mountainous terrain causes the current en route radar coverage to become spotty below 3,000 feet in the Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo/Paso Robles area. Radar blank spots occur below 5,000 feet in the Camarillo/Oxnard area when Point Mugu Approach Control is closed (operating hours are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time). These blind spots dictate a one-in-one-out traffic flow for instrument flights. One-in-one-out means that only one airplane on an IFR flight plan is allowed to operate into or out of one of these airports at a time since the controllers can't see them on radar. When the airports are close together, as is the case with San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria, and Oxnard and Camarillo, IFR traffic at the adjacent airports can be affected.
These factors, a heavy en route workload, and the fact that many ARTCC controllers aren't proficient in terminal procedures often combine to slow down arrivals since landing IFR pilots aren't vectored to a final approach fix (FAF) on an instrument approach. In areas served by tracons this shortcut is normal procedure. When the vectoring shortcut is not available, pilots must fly the complete published approach to get to the FAF, which takes a lot of time.
When the CCT terminal and tower radars are in place the enhanced ability to monitor traffic will result in quicker flows of IFR traffic into local airports. In addition, students requesting multiple practice IFR approaches will be handled more efficiently, resulting in lower training costs. As it stands now, en route radar must provide a five-mile bubble around IFR 6raffic, while approach radar services can lessen the bubble to three miles.
Three-step plan
The first phase of the three-step plan is for CCT to assume responsibility for sector 2 of the Los Angeles Center traffic below 8,000 feet. This is the airspace in the Santa Maria, Vandenberg, and San Luis Obispo areas south to Santa Barbara. This phase is scheduled to be completed by April 2004.
The second phase increases the responsibility over the airspace of the first phase up to 17,999 feet, and will also extend the area encompassed in the first phase south to include the Point Mugu/Camarillo/Oxnard airspace up to 17,999 feet msl. This phase is scheduled to be completed by January 2005.
The third phase, which is scheduled to be completed six to nine months later, adds the northern segment of the airspace that includes the Paso Robles airport and stretches north to Big Sur. This airspace will go up to 17,999 feet msl.
Sweet said, "We plan to offer better service through continuous terminal radar separation standards. These upgrades will result in an increase of services and a reduction in delays and radar handoffs."
That's the plan. All the controllers said they want to hear from Central Coast users on any subject, but especially on the airspace redesign. Contact the CCT through the Web site ( www.faa.gov/ats/atct/sba/fy.htm). Click on the welcome flag for contact information. Or call Chick Foley, who's the air traffic manager, at 805/681-0666. Sweet, who is the CCT NAR representative and a controller, can be contacted at 805/681-0534.
It shouldn't take a blazing flash of the obvious (BFO) to realize that this is the best time for pilots to talk to the FAA about the redesign of the airspace they'll be living with in the future.
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