Consistent with the April rollout of Climb Via Procedures, you should be prepared to get these when departing a Houston area airport, including especially IAH and HOU; most likely in the form of an initial clearance to an intermediate altitude. Traffic conditions will determine this. If you are not yet up to speed with these procedures, now is the time, as Climb Via is here now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A major component of the Next Gen program to upgrade the National Airspace System (NAS) in the U.S. is the reordering and upgrading of the terminal airspace and procedures surrounding our major cities. This program is known by the FAA moniker O<\/strong>ptimization of A<\/span><\/strong>irspace and P<\/strong>rocedures in the M<\/strong>etroplex, or OAPM<\/strong>, (how would you pronounce it?). Following implementation in cities such as Atlanta, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Seattle, Houston is next, with an implementation date of May 29, 2014; so if you are headed to IAH, HOU, or any of the 16 surrounding satellite airports such as Sugarland, you can expect to see all new RNAV arrivals and departures.<\/p>\n The Houston Area Air Traffic System (HAATS) airspace is large and complex, consisting of the area encompassed by a 215 mile radius around the Metroplex. The Houston TRACON is responsible for controlling air traffic over roughly 16,000 square miles of airspace stretching from the Texas-Louisiana border to approximately 35 miles east of Austin and from Galveston to 30 miles north of College Station. In Fiscal Year 2013, Houston TRACON controllers directed more than 940,000 individual aircraft operations. These numbers are typical of a large (and growing) U.S. Metroplex operation.<\/p>\n The scope of the airspace rework task for a multifaceted monster like this is impressive. The typical OAPM life cycle is about three years from initial study to implementation. The initial study for Houston was completed way back in August 2011. Evaluation and implementation have been going on since then. Time and fuel savings are predicted to be significant.<\/p>\n To create some operational order out of the complexity, the big picture redesign creates four compass-oriented quadrants or sectors, with one or more core RNAV STARs assigned to each. There will be six new STARs serving the 16 satellite airports as well. Look for a total of around 10 new SIDs, mostly RNAV. As is the case with all metroplex redesigns, non-RNAV STARs and SIDs will be available for those aircraft not RNAV equipped. Procedures will still be available to handle slower moving, lower flying general aviation traffic as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[114],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-optimization-of-airspace-and-procedures-in-the-metroplexoapmnext-gennational-airspace-systemnashouston-area-air-traffic-system-haatsrnav-starssidsclimb-via"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}