Teterboro Airport

Copy of letter to the Editor from Mayor McPherson

The FAA scoping meeting held on March 13, 2001 at the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton provided an opportunity for the public to comment on plans to address air traffic in our area. The airspace redesign project, scheduled to be concluded by 2004, will consider three separate scenarios in rerouting planes.

According to the FAA, the purpose of the scoping process is to educate the public about the need for redesign, to inform them about the particular design concepts that are under consideration, and to provide a formal opportunity to express their views about the project. The FAA listed their reasons for undertaking the project in this order: safety, to respond to increasing growth, and to mitigate delays.

First, in spite of the fact that safety is said to be the number one priority in undertaking the redesign project, there was no evidence that any consideration had been given to what was available on the ground to respond to an air disaster. In spite of the abundance of professionals from the FAA present to answer questions and a vivid display of the different concepts, no statistics were presented about the number of hospitals, the resources of emergency service personnel, etc. I am certain that the FAA is loath to contemplate the possibility of such disasters, but clearly they do occur. The impact of such disasters in heavily populated areas and those capabilities to respond or lack thereof must inform any decision made on any scenario implemented.

Second, if the focus of the FAA is to respond to increasing growth and mitigate delays they hold the cards so to speak. They should respond to increasing growth by taking into consideration the need to reduce air traffic and thus noise and pollution over our homes. Of all three scenarios, ocean routing seems to be the best overall strategy. Ocean routing will allow Newark traffic to climb to operating altitudes over the ocean, rather than over inhabited population centers. It will have an immediate positive effect in the state and in our area. Live testing of the concept should be done and a year long study implemented immediately.

Third, all scenarios should be analyzed with respect to the noise impact of each using several noise metrics in addition to its established yearly day-night average noise level metric.

I am urging our residents to make their views known. They can do so by submitting comments to the following address: Litton PRC, Mail Stop 6S3, 1500 PRC Drive, McLean, Va. 22102, c/o Jackie Brown or by e-mail at brown_jacqueline@prc.com. For more information on the scoping meetings the following number is available: 1 866-347-5463. It is crucial that the public know and understand what the FAA is proposing

Mayor Bernadette P. McPherson

FAA Scoping Meeting

The FAA scoping meeting held on March 13, 2001 at the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton provided an opportunity for the public to comment on plans to address air traffic in our area. Three scenarios were presented.

The purpose of the scoping process is to involve the community in the proposed airspace redesign project. That community involvement is intended to achieve a dual purpose. The first is to educate the public about the need for redesign and to inform them about the particular design concepts for redesign that are under consideration. The second is to provide members of the public a formal opportunity to express their views about the project. During the scoping meetings, FAA representatives will describe in some detail the following three working design concepts or alternatives:

Concept for Modifications of Existing Routing: The design team is developing new or altered aircraft routing into and out of the new York Metropolitan area. The area covers the current controlled airspace of the New York Terminal Radar Control Facility (TRACON), which is roughly a 50-mile radius around the TRACON facility and varies in altitude from the surface to 18,000 feet. The number of routes into and out of the TRACON is limited today based on current radar technology. This design concept adds additional routes into and out of the TRACON area by allowing the airlines to implement advanced onboard navigation systems, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Loran, Flight Management System (FMS) and 3-D navigation, as well as by designing additional routes that can be spaced closer together due to the increased navigational accuracy provided by such systems. This concept will increase allowable throughput, while reducing delays and reducing mileage required exiting and entering the TRACON area. In addition, this concept will provide a more dispersed traffic flow that, in turn, means that aircraft will be spread out in the sky over the metro area and will reduce the traffic traversing the same routes.

Four Corner Concept: This concept begins with a blank slate and allows the design team to build up a system of arrival and departure routes and procedures that is completely new to the metro area. The idea starts with “placing a square” over the TRACON airspaces as the basic structure. Arriving aircraft enter the TRACON airspace at any of the 4 corners of the square. Depending on the current air traffic, arriving aircraft are allowed to enter at any corner. Once an aircraft overflies the corner, it can either proceed to another corner or go directly to the airport to land. A third option is for approaching aircraft to enter into a large overhead circular pattern to await final sequencing into their ultimate destination airport. Aircraft in the holding pattern will be stacked at different altitudes to accommodate large quantities of aircraft in the metro area. Departing aircraft will exit the box on any of the sides. This concept allows controllers to utilize Terminal Control Procedures to a far greater extent. These procedures maximize the use of all available airspace in the metro area and will reduce current ׅbottle necks”.

Ocean Routing Concept: This approach utilizes extended climb paths for turbojets operating at low altitudes bringing the aircraft to higher altitudes prior to overflying urbanized areas. Revised departure procedures for this concept are focused on EWR but affect JFK and LGA flight procedures as well Newark departures from the south runways (22L/R) would be placed over the waterways of the Arthur Kill and Raritan Bay and then turned east toward the Atlantic Ocean. Once over the Atlantic Ocean, eastbound traffic would turn left and proceed over Long Island, while south and west bound traffic would continue down the coast. Westbound traffic would turn right and cross land in central New Jersey, while southbound would continue on course. All traffic would be in a continuous climb and would cross land at altitudes of no less than 16,000 ft. or higher. Newark departures from the north runways (4L/R) would start a loop to the west after takeoff. North, northwest, and northeast bound traffic would proceed on course after partially looping to the west, while southbound traffic would continue the loop to the south crossing back over Newark Airport and pick up the procedures utilized for runway 22L/R departures. Requirements to accomplish this concept include (1) moving JFK arrival and departure operations to the east; (2) requiring a 400 foot/nm climb gradient for EWR runway 4L/R departures transitioning to a desired ocean route segment via Raritan Bay and the Industrial Waterway; and (3) providing course guidance in the Standard Instrument Departure procedures to tighten the dispersion of flight tracks.