By Rich Pollack
Change may soon be coming to the processes many pilots use as they arrive and depart the airspace surrounding the Boca Raton Airport, but chances are they’ll hardly be noticeable to most residents.
For months, the Federal Aviation Administration has worked on a project to implement satellite-based processes to modernize air routes across the county, and it has created the South and Central Florida Metroplex as part of that project.
When the FAA begins implementing the plan early next year, pilots flying in or out of the Boca Raton Airport using instrument navigation will find new arrival and departure procedures designed to improve safety and efficiency.
Because the procedures closely mirror the ones currently in use, according to the FAA, there is expected to be little change to flight paths used by planes as they prepare to make their final approaches to the airport or as they depart.
Scott Kohut, deputy director of the Boca Raton Airport, says that satellite navigational technology will replace ground-based technology as arriving planes get closer to the airport and as departing planes get closer to their flight paths.
“Before, to get from point A to point D you had to go through points B and C,” he said. “Now you can go directly from point A to point D and skip B and C.”
In the past, Kohut said, planes were assigned routes to get them into or out of the airport’s airspace and those routes were often changing.
Now, he said, pilots will be assigned one of the standardized routes every time they approach Boca Raton airspace or leave it.
He said that the FAA has told airport representatives that no changes will occur below 3,000 feet, so any noise impact would be minimal.
Using standardized procedures based on satellite technology adds a level of precision to departures and arrivals and can reduce the interaction needed between pilots and air traffic controllers, according to the FAA.
“The technology provides a smoother and more efficient way to manage aircraft and reduces both the controller and pilot workload by minimizing the complexity of air traffic procedures,” an FAA spokesperson said in an email.
Although the South and Central Florida Metroplex project has been controversial in some parts of South Florida, specifically Miami-Dade County where residents feared additional noise, few if any concerns have been voiced about changes that will occur surrounding the Boca Raton Airport.
Kohut believes that could be because no major changes are coming to this area and because large commercial planes do not fly into the local general aviation airport. Ú
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