As part of its ongoing process of phasing out obsolete approaches at airports with new GPS approaches, the FAA has released a new list of instrument procedures that it plans to decommission. The list includes 154 VOR and NDB approaches, including some early GPS overlay approaches, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association reported. All of the GPS approaches and most of the VOR approaches are circling procedures that do not guide planes in to a specific runway. And nearly all of the airports are served by more precise ILS or GPS approaches. Even still, AOPA wants pilots to review the list for their local airports to ensure that needed procedures aren’t being cut. As the FAA has cut old non-precision approaches over the last few years, it has created nearly 1,700 precision WAAS approaches that use GPS to provide lower minimums without having to install or maintain ground-based approach equipment at each airport. But to take advantage of those approaches, pilots must install newer and more costly GPS units in their planes.

The NTSB wants the FAA to take quick action that could prevent another mid-air collision over the Hudson River like the one earlier this month that killed nine people. Establishing mandatory altitudes for airplanes and helicopters to fly at while in the congested river corridor is one move that could help, the board said in a letter to the FAA. Requiring all aircraft to monitor and transmit on a common traffic advisory frequency could also make a difference, the letter says. The NTSB wants changes to air traffic control procedures so that controllers would be required to either tell aircraft to switch to the advisory frequency or else clear aircraft to enter the Class B airspace above the river corridor. At the time of the collision, the Piper Lance that was involved had asked for flight following and was being handed off from one controller to another, while the sightseeing helicopter was making position reports on the existing common frequency. The FAA has said it will wait to act until it sees the report from a working group of controllers and safety experts that it convened two weeks ago. That group is expected to complete its work this week, the New York Times reported.

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt told about 200 pilots at AirVenture that he’d heard their concerns about a government security directive that would mean background checks and paperwork for general aviation pilots who use busy airports. Babbitt said he would talk with the TSA’s chief once that person has been confirmed and installed in the post, AOPA reported. Safety and NextGen were also big topics in Babbitt’s address. Serious runway incursions have dropped by about 70 percent in the last year and fatal accidents are down 12 percent in that same amount of time, he said. But he emphasized the need for continued training on runway safety issues and said the FAA was looking for low-cost runway status lights that could be installed at small airports. On NextGen, Babbitt sounded an optimistic tone that cockpit devices would decrease in price in the coming years. By 2020, planes that use airspace where transponders are required will have to be equipped with ADS-B gear, he said.

The FAA is moving forward with its controversial plan to pull National Weather Service forecasters from its en route centers, but not without concerns from other government agencies. At a congressional hearing last week, officials from the FAA asserted they would only proceed with the plan if a nine-month trial run was successful, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. But the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, expressed concerns, given that the FAA and the NWS haven’t come up with specific, shared goals for the project. “Any changes to the current structure could degrade aviation operations and safety – and the agencies may not know it,” David Powner, a GAO director, was reported as saying. Currently, the FAA spends $12 million per year to have 84 forecasters stationed at en route centers nationwide for 16 hours each day. Under the proposed consolidation, the agency would instead pay to have a smaller number of forecasters on call 24 hours per day, working out of two offices that would be in contact with all centers. The FAA says not only will the move save money (it won’t say how much), but it would make nationwide forecasts more consistent. The weather service says it will back the plan as long as it can still deliver accurate and timely forecasts.

A new computer system the FAA says will eventually handle all radar, communications and flight plan information at en route facilities got its first real-world test last week. Controllers at Salt Lake Center switched to the En Route Automation Modernization system for four hours early Thursday morning, handling a total of 170 flights on the new system during that time, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. While the FAA called the test successful, it also said that engineers will spend the next few weeks addressing unspecified “problem areas.” Prior to the ERAM test, Utah’s congressional delegation wrote letters to the FAA urging the agency to delay the test until several known large bugs were resolved first, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The rollout of ERAM has been delayed for months at Salt Lake Center and Seattle Center as Lockheed Martin, which developed the program, has tried to iron out problems with the hardware and software. So far in lab tests, it has been unable to run for more than about a day without needing to be reset.

The FAA is asking all U.S. airlines to take new measures to check out prospective hires and to provide better training. The first round of recommendations emerged after a meeting of government officials, airlines and union representatives last week, the FAA said in a news release. While the FAA wants all airlines to sign on to the changes, for now they’ll be voluntary. The changes would include doing more thorough background checks of new hires to determine not just their performance at other airlines, but any checkride failures or other training problems. And airlines will start looking for ways to bolster their training programs, though it’s too soon to say what specific changes might be made. The meeting last week was spurred in part by the crash of a Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 last winter that killed 50 people in Buffalo, N.Y. The pilots of that plane were fatigued and may not have had enough training in it, an NTSB hearing revealed. The captain had previously failed a checkride that Colgan did not know about, either. In addition to the newly announced voluntary efforts, the FAA has said it will revise mandatory flight time and duty time limits for flight crews.

The FAA needs to work more closely with airlines and manufacturers so that it can speed up implementing ADS-B and other NextGen technologies, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said last week. The number of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast ground stations is growing, with 350 expected to be active by the end of 2010, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. But the agency needs to work more closely with industry officials to make full implementation a reality. And Babbitt wants to see that happen faster than the current timeline, which calls for the system to be fully active by 2025. While Babbitt called for the need to “collectively design” the system as he spoke at a conference of officials from the airlines, unions, suppliers and advocacy groups — including AOPA – his speech didn’t directly address how general aviation would fit into the NextGen landscape, since the required cockpit equipment remains expensive. Babbitt also didn’t set a new timeline for NextGen, though he pointed to the need for more small changes such as the continuous descents being used at Louisville and the new Required Navigation Procedure approach at Chicago Midway.

The ranks of air traffic controllers are swelling quickly as the FAA has kept hiring new controllers at a brisk pace, and as older controllers are putting off retirement in hopes of getting a better labor contract soon. The FAA has hired 5,500 new controllers in the last three years, creating a burden at some facilities where as many as 40 percent of the controllers are uncertified trainees who must work alongside certified controllers, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. In the previous fiscal year, which ended in September 2008, the FAA hired 2,196 new controllers. The agency now counts 15,400 controllers in its workforce and says it will continue to hire about 1,500 controllers per year for the next few years, though it does not expect air traffic operations to surge upward anytime soon. The FAA found itself in a staffing crunch in late 2006 and 2007 after it imposed work rules that controllers opposed. That prompted some controllers who had been hired after the 1981 PATCO strike to start retiring early, leaving the remaining controllers at many facilities to work mandatory overtime. Because it can take three or more years for new controllers to become fully certified, it may still be a while before staff evens out at some facilities.

House approves new FAA funding bill; Babbitt confirmed as FAA administrator

The FAA is one step closer to having its funding outlook secured for the next three years now that the U.S. House has passed a funding bill for the agency. While fuel taxes and airline ticket taxes may go up, assuming the Senate passes the same bill, general aviation pilots won’t have to worry about user fees, Government Executive reported. The bill includes $70 billion in infrastructure funding between now and 2012, money that would be split up for airport improvements and air traffic control system upgrades. And in an effort to prevent another impasse situation like that in 2006 that led to hostile relations between the FAA and air traffic controllers, the new funding bill includes requirements that both sides go to neutral mediators if contract talks break down. In related news last week, the Senate confirmed Randy Babbitt as the FAA’s new administrator. Babbitt was once a pilot for Eastern Airlines and was the president of the Air Line Pilots Association for eight years, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. While the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers has given Babbitt a supportive but cool reception so far, Babbitt says one of his top priorities will be mending labor relations within the FAA.

A regional airline that flies to airports in Florida and the Bahamas could face $1.3 million in fines from the FAA for crew schedules that forced pilots to exceed their daily and weekly duty limits. The FAA is also charging the airline and flight school with installing uncertified air conditioning compressors and other parts in some planes, the Wall Street Journal reported. The airline replaced those parts with certified equipment when the FAA pointed out the problems. The FAA and U.S. House investigators have been looking into scheduling issues at Gulfstream for about a year. Some pilots there said the airline deliberately falsified its records to make it look like pilots were flying within allowable duty hour limits, when it fact they were forced to fly more. But in announcing the potential fine last week, the FAA said the discrepancies apparently emerged when paper flight logs were entered into an electronic database. Gulfstream has 30 days to respond to the FAA’s proposed fine and said it has evidence refuting the FAA’s charges.