Friday, August 23, 2013

Today is the day for new San Francisco Charts .... what changed?



Approximately every 180 days, new VFR charts are produced. New charts are needed because new obstructions get created, changes may occur to airport information or NAVAIDs, or there may be changes to airspace. Given that these changes don’t wait until the charts are published we also check NOTAMS. There is also another source that provides a list of some of the major changes that have occurred. The AFD, which is updated every 56 days, publishes changes since the last published chart. There is a section titled Aeronautical Chart Bulletin in the AFD that contains the major changes. For the San Francisco sectional chart there are no noted major changes as shown in the excerpt below:


However, take a look at the information listed in the AFD for the Los Angeles TAC. It shows that the El Monte airspace has changed from what is published on the chart. The charted airspace extends to 2,800 MSL whereas this notice amends that to 2,400 MSL. More importantly, the shape has slightly changed as well. The extension beyond the 4 NM radius actually shifted about 30 degrees clockwise in the amendment vs what is charted.. You would think with this change that there would be a NOTAM and FSS would know about this, but when I checked, there were no published NOTAMs and the briefer I talked to was not aware of this change. This change was only confirmed by a call to the airport manager that said in fact they had just received an email from the Tower manager confirming the change was in effect.


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