This should be another excellent Safety meeting hosted by the Diamond Flight Center in Hangar 49 (seem image below.)

As there has been a number of word of mouth changes to VFR Practice Approach and Practice area procedures, this will be a good chance to hear from all of the local control agencies as well as get our two cents in on what would improve safety and simplicity.

The following is from an FAA e-mail:

KEB 1.00

Dear Utah Valley Aviators,
 
The density of air training operations in the Utah Valley area has increased over the past few years.  Utah Valley University (UVU) currently has 26 aircraft in our fleet and will be implementing some new procedures in our program to help increase the safety of flight in the Utah Valley area. The new changes were made after careful consultation with the FAA, ATC, and the FCC. Below is a description of the changes UVU is making within our own program and invite all aviators to participate with us as appropriate. 
 
1.  UVU aircraft will be assigned specific practice areas to disperse our aircraft in the valley. UVU will limit each practice area to two UVU airplanes at any one time to allow space for other aircraft. UVU’s practice area map is located at: www.uvu.edu/aviation/program/resources.html .
 
2.  Since Provo Tower commenced operations, a designated CTAF no longer exists for advisories outside of Class D airspace. After consultation with the FAA and the FCC, it was determined that 122.75 was the only legal air to air frequency for traffic advisories outside the vicinity of an airport. (AIM table 4-1-3) As such, UVU will begin using 122.75 as an air to air frequency for traffic advisories in the Utah Valley Area outside of Provo Class D airspace (see map). The frequency of 123.5 will only be used as Eagle Base, UVU’s discrete frequency for company communications and not for traffic advisories. With the help of other flight schools and organizations, UVU would also like to petition the FAA for an advisory note to be placed on the Sectional Charts, indicating a high volume of flight training participating on 122.75 in Utah Valley. Hopefully, this will help to include transient aircraft in traffic advisories.
 
3.  As specified in the AIM (4-1-9 c.) an airport CTAF should be used within 10 miles of the airport for arriving and departing traffic. Accordingly, UVU aircraft operating in the vicinity of Spanish Fork Airport (U77) will use 122.9 for all traffic advisories. To help reduce frequency congestion, UVU has only designated two UVU practice areas in the vicinity of the Spanish Fork Airport, and will not allow more than two UVU aircraft per practice area. This should allow all the traffic in the vicinity of Spanish Fork Airport to communicate properly without congesting the frequency.
 
4.  In conjunction with Provo Tower, UVU aircraft performing practice IFR approaches will communicate on 122.75 outside of Class D airspace. UVU aircraft will monitor Provo Tower frequency (125.3) or Salt Lake Approach (124.3) as appropriate for other inbound traffic. Provo Tower has requested that communication be established when an aircraft on a practice IFR approach is on a 2 mile base leg prior to establishing on the final course. 
  
UVU is implementing these new procedures as of May 1, 2010 and invite all other aviators in the Utah Valley area to participate as much as possible. We hope that our efforts to disperse UVU aircraft and establish more common frequencies, improves the air safety of Utah Valley. 
 
Thank you,
 
Andrew Loeffler
Chief Instrument Flight Instructor
loefflan@uvu.edu, 801-863-5137

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From NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System

Issue 364-April 2010

Safe Operations at Non-Towered Airports

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