Federal Aviation Administration December 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This rule establishes, amends, suspends, or revokes Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAPs) and associated Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures for operations at certain airports. These regulatory actions are needed because of the adoption of new or revised criteria, or because of changes occurring in the National Airspace System, such as the commissioning of new navigational facilities, adding new obstacles, or changing air traffic requirements. These changes are designed to provide safe and efficient use of the navigable airspace and to promote safe flight operations under instrument flight rules at the affected airports.

This notice contains a summary of a petition seeking relief from specified requirements of 14 CFR. The purpose of this notice is to improve the public's awareness of, and participation in, this aspect of FAA's regulatory activities. Neither publication of this notice nor the inclusion or omission of information in the summary is intended to affect the legal status of the petition or its final disposition.

This special condition is issued for the Bell Helicopter Model 429 helicopters. These helicopters will have novel or unusual design features associated with installing electrical and electronic systems that perform critical functions, including an Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS) and a Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC). The applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards to protect systems that perform critical control functions, or provide critical displays, from the effects of high-intensity radiated fields (HIRF). This special condition contains the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to ensure that critical functions of systems will be maintained when exposed to HIRF.

These special conditions are issued for the Boeing Model 787-8 airplane. This airplane will have novel or unusual design features when compared to the state of technology envisioned in the airworthiness standards for transport category airplanes. The architecture of the Boeing Model 787-8 computer systems and networks may allow access to external systems and networks, such as wireless airline operations and maintenance systems, satellite communications, electronic mail, the Internet, etc. On-board wired and wireless devices may also have access to parts of the airplane's digital systems that provide flight critical functions. These new connectivity capabilities may result in security vulnerabilities to the airplane's critical systems. For these design features, the applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for protection and security of airplane systems and data networks against unauthorized access. These special conditions contain the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to establish a level of safety equivalent to that established by the existing standards. Additional special conditions will be issued for other novel or unusual design features of the Boeing Model 787-8 airplanes.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is considering a proposal to change a portion of the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) from aeronautical use to non-aeronautical use and to authorize the sale of the airport property. The proposal consists of the sale of vacant, unimproved land owned by the Wayne County Airport Authority (WCAA) and Wayne County (County). The WCAA has requested from FAA a ``Release from Federal agreement obligated land covenants'' to sell one (1) parcel of property acquired by the County without Federal funding. There are no impacts to the airport by allowing the WCAA to dispose of the vacant property. Approval does not constitute a commitment by the FAA to financially assist in the disposal of the airport property nor a determination of eligibility for grant-in-aid funding from the FAA. The disposition of proceeds from the disposal of the airport property will be in accordance with FAA's Policy and Procedures Concerning the Use of Airport Revenue, published in the Federal Register on February 16, 1999. In accordance with section 47107(h) of title 49, United States Code, this notice is required to be published in the Federal Register 30 days before modifying the land-use assurance that requires the property to be used for an aeronautical purpose.

The FAA is issuing this notice to advise the public of a meeting of RTCA Special Committee 159: Global Positioning System (GPS).

This notice announces a public meeting of the FAA's Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) to discuss transport airplane and engine (TAE) issues.

Under this notice, the FAA announces that Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) has been designated a Level 3 Coordinated Airport for the summer 2008 scheduling season under the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Worldwide Scheduling Guidelines. This notice supercedes the September 24, 2007, notice that designated EWR a Level 2 Schedules Facilitated Airport. 72 FR 54317. Based on a recently completed capacity analysis, a review of last summer's demand, the projections for summer 2008, discussions with carriers regarding future schedule plans, and the potential for increased operations at EWR due to operating limits at JFK, the FAA has determined that a Level 3 airport declaration is warranted. The FAA's primary constraint is runway capacity, but the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Port Authority), the airport's operator, also will continue to review proposed schedules for gates, facility, customs, immigration, or similar groundside constraints. The FAA and the Port Authority recognize that separate coordination process for runway slots and gate terminal slots is a burden for carriers and, therefore, the process is under review in order to facilitate communication and reduce the administrative workload. IATA will be consulted regarding ``best practices'' in use at other coordinated airports. EWR delays over the last several years have been among the highest in the system. Despite a relatively stable number of daily air traffic operations, the airport is experiencing increased congestion and delay partly as a result of certain peak hours when demand approaches or exceeds the airport's average arrival and departure runway throughput. Comparing the period of October 2006 through September 2007 to the same period in the previous year, the average daily operations at EWR decreased by about one-half percent; the average daily arrivals with delays greater than one hour increased 18 percent; and on-time gate arrivals within 15 minutes of scheduled time decreased from 63.52 percent to 61.72 percent. On-time departures within 15 minutes of scheduled time declined from 71.95 percent to 69.33 percent. The average taxi-out delay remained 28.6 minutes. To determine the airport's throughput, the FAA engaged MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) to review two years' worth of operational data for weekdays from September 2006 through August 2007. The analysis included hourly arrival and departure counts and the hourly air traffic control (ATC) established rates for those same periods. These rates were combined to develop an ``adjusted'' capacity number to reflect the airport's operational capability. This method compensates for periods when demand during a particular hour was below the ATC acceptance rates and also accounts for actual operations above ATC rates. For the last twelve months of the study period, the average adjusted capacity was 83 operations per hour, down almost five percent from the earlier months analyzed. The FAA is continuing to review ways to improve the airport's capacity and has been engaged in numerous efforts to identify and implement changes that would improve the efficiency of the ATC system. For example, as part of the FAA's New York Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC), over 77 initiatives were identified for the New York City area. A number of these initiatives will benefit the EWR operations. A full copy of the ARC's report to the Secretary of Transpiration is available on the FAA's Web site at https://www.faa.gov. The FAA's review of air carriers' schedule submissions for summer 2008 indicated new planned operations in peak hours as well as the retiming of operations from less congested to more congested periods. About 100 new peak-day flights were requested. Proposed schedules in the afternoon and evening period, which were historically high during summer 2007, are of the greatest concern. These proposed schedules, if implemented, would result in a significant increase of operations at EWR and would exceed the airport's optimal rate for multiple, consecutive hours. Delays would increase on an exponential basis and would likely reach levels that are considered unacceptable to passengers, airlines, and other customers. Under the Level 2 designation, the FAA began discussing carriers' proposed summer 2008 schedules in November at the IATA scheduling Conference in Toronto, Canada. The FAA will grant historic status for foreign flag air carrier and domestic air carrier operations based on their summer 2007 flights if requested for summer 2008. For new requests, the agency identified certain periods that would be beyond the airport's historic throughput and scheduled levels and asked for schedule adjustments from certain carriers to retime operations to other periods of the day where capacity is available. In some cases, carriers responded by withdrawing their new requests for peak hour operations. The FAA is continuing its effort to retime proposed new operation out of peak hours because the agency cannot grant the requests without causing excessive congestion. The FAA plans to finalize summer 2008 schedules with carriers within the next few weeks. Even if the FAA were to be fully successful in reaching agreement on schedule plans under Level 2 for summer 2008, the FAA now believes that an IATA Level 3 Coordinated Airport designation is warranted to ensure there is no exceedance of the level of operations the FAA will allow for summer 2008. The Level 3 status also will set carrier expectations for future coordination needs and for the need to schedule new operations during periods when the airport has the available capacity.

The FAA is superseding an existing airworthiness directive (AD) for all Hartzell Propeller Inc. models ( )HC-( )( )Y( )-( )( )( ) compact series, constant speed or feathering propellers with Hartzell manufactured ``Y'' shank aluminum blades. That AD currently requires initial blade inspections, with no repetitive inspections; rework of all ``Y'' shank aluminum blades including cold rolling of the blade shank retention radius, blade replacement and modification of pitch change mechanisms for certain propeller models; and changing the airplane operating limitations with specific models of propellers installed. This AD requires the same actions but clarifies certain areas of the compliance, and updates a certain service bulletin (SB) reference to the most recent SB. This AD results from operators requesting clarification of certain portions of AD 2002-09-08. We are issuing this AD to prevent failure of the propeller blade from fatigue cracks in the blade shank radius, which can result in damage to the airplane and loss of airplane control.

This notice announces the availability of a revised Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis associated with the notice of proposed rulemaking entitled, ``Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS- B) Out performance requirements to support Air Traffic Control (ATC) service.''

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the products listed above. This proposed AD results from mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI) originated by an aviation authority of another country to identify and correct an unsafe condition on an aviation product. The MCAI describes the unsafe condition as:

The FAA is publishing notice of proposed release of 16.10 acres of land at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport, Beckley, West Virginia to the Raleigh County Airport Authority and the Raleigh County Commission for the development of an industrial park. There are no impacts to the Airport and the land is not needed for airport development as shown on the Airport Layout Plan. Fair Market Value of the land will be paid to the Raleigh County Airport and the Raleigh County Commission, and used for Airport purposes.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announces its findings on the noise compatibility program submitted by the City of Austin under the provisions of 49 U.S.C. (the Aviation Safety and Noise Abatement Act, hereinafter referred to as ``the Act'') and 14 CFR Part 150. These findings are made in recognition of the description of Federal and nonfederal responsibilities in Senate Report No. 96-52 (1980). On February 15, 2007, the FAA determined that the noise exposure maps submitted by the City of Austin under Part 150 were in compliance with applicable requirements. On December 7, 2007, the FAA approved the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport noise compatibility program. All of the recommendations of the program were approved. No program elements relating to new or revised flight procedures for noise abatement were proposed by the airport operator.

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the products listed above. This proposed AD results from mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI) originated by an aviation authority of another country to identify and correct an unsafe condition on an aviation product. The MCAI describes the unsafe condition as:

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for the products listed above. This proposed AD results from mandatory continuing airworthiness information (MCAI) originated by an aviation authority of another country to identify and correct an unsafe condition on an aviation product. The MCAI describes the unsafe condition as:

This action revises Class E airspace at Soldotna, AK to provide adequate controlled airspace to contain aircraft executing Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAPs). Two SIAPs are being developed for the Soldotna Airport. This action revises existing Class E airspace upward from 700 feet (ft.) and 1,200 ft. above the surface at the Soldotna Airport, Soldotna, AK.

This action revises Class E airspace at Buckland, AK to provide adequate controlled airspace to contain aircraft executing Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAPs). Two SIAPs and a textual departure procedure (DP) are being amended for the Buckland Airport. Additionally, two SIAPs are being developed. This action revises existing Class E airspace upward from 700 feet (ft.) and 1,200 ft. above the surface at the Buckland Airport, Buckland, AK.

This action revises Class E airspace at Chevak, AK to provide adequate controlled airspace to contain aircraft executing Standard Instrument Approach Procedures (SIAPs). Two SIAPs are being developed for the Chevak Airport. This action revises existing Class E airspace upward from 700 feet (ft.) and 1,200 ft. above the surface at the Chevak Airport, Chevak, AK.

This action establishes Class E Airspace at Skowhegan, ME. The existing controlled airspace from nearby Central Maine Airport does not adequately support a new Area Navigation (RNAV) Global Positioning System (GPS) Special Instrument Approach Procedure (IAP) that has been developed for medical flight operations. This action enhances the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) operations by providing the required controlled airspace to protect for this approach around the Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan.

This action establishes Class E Airspace at Oil City, PA to provide adequate airspace for a new Area Navigation (RNAV) Global Positioning System (GPS) Special Instrument Approach Procedure (IAP) that has been developed to serve the Northwest Medical Center (PS42). This action will enhance the safety and management of Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) operations at Oil City, PA.

This action proposes to establish Class D airspace at Sherman/ Denison, Grayson County Airport, TX. The establishment of an air trffic control tower has made this action necessary for the safe control of aircraft within this airspace.

The FAA proposes to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Boeing Model 757-200, -200PF, and -200CB series airplanes. This proposed AD would require doing an ultrasound inspection for disbonded tear straps not mechanically fastened to the skin, and related investigative and corrective actions, if necessary. This proposed AD results from reports indicating that bonded skin panels may not have been correctly anodized in phosphoric acid before the tear strap doubler was bonded to the skin. We are proposing this AD to detect and correct a weak bond between the skin and tear strap. Such disbonding could reduce the ability of the skin to resist cracks and could adversely affect the structural integrity of the airplane.

The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for certain Boeing Model 747-200C and -200F series airplanes. This AD requires, among other actions, installing mounting brackets, support angles, and moisture curtains in the main equipment center. This AD results from reports of water contamination in the electrical/ electronic units in the main equipment center. We are issuing this AD to prevent water contamination of the electrical/electronic units, which could cause the electrical/electronic units to malfunction, and as a consequence, could adversely affect the airplane's continued safe flight.