A meeting was held last night at Pearson Field (Vancouver WA), at which FAA announced its new airspace change for VUO, effective October 1, 2012. This change will have a serious and negative impact upon efficiency, economy and safety of operations at Pearson Field.

It should be noted at the outset that this change is being made at the direction of a regional FAA bureaucrat in Renton. Our friends at PDX ATC are against it (as are the controllers' union, the airlines, AOPA, Washington Pilots Assn., the City of Vancouver, and all other stakeholders), but they are obliged to follow orders from Renton.

Here is the letter from FAA, handed out at the meeting last night: http://www.pilawt.com/FAA_letter_120930.pdf

In a nutshell: FAA has established what is known as the "Pearson Box", shown in blue on the diagram below. It extends eight miles west from PDX, surface to 2,100', and 2,500 feet either side of the PDX 10L localizer (which includes the centerline of the 10R localizer as well). Pearson Field is fully within the box. The box will not appear on any chart.

When PDX is operating on east flow (10L/R, which are the calm-wind runways and favored by winds in the fall and winter), no VUO airplane will be allowed to operate anywhere within the box whenever a PDX airplane is anywhere within the box. When PDX approaches are in progress, close enough such that they might be in the box at the time of a VUO operation, the VUO operation will be prohibited. A VUO departure will be instructed to remain on the ground, and an arrival will be instructed to remain outside the VUO Class D (yellow area on diagram below).

Delays are expected to be commonplace and lengthy; the FAA's slideshow last night indicated they are contemplating delays of 20-30 minutes for VUO operations. Controllers said they will try to create "holes" in the flow of PDX arrivals to allow VUO operations, but at high-volume times that will be impossible. VUO closed-traffic operations will frequently be prohibited, as well, effectively putting the airport's lone flight training operation out of business.

Delayed VFR arrivals will be expected to "hold" outside the VUO Class D. There are no established "holding" landmarks, altitudes or procedures. Obviously, with floor of Class C at 1,800' in that area (shaded in green below), there will be numerous light airplanes milling about in an 800' block of airspace for extended times. Good luck with that.



The FAA "party line" emanating from Renton is that this procedure is intended to avoid wake turbulence encounters. Interestingly, however, this procedure is not limited to large aircraft -- even a Caravan or King Air or Skyhawk landing at Portland will stop Pearson operations.

In the seventy years that these airports have co-existed, there has never been a mid-air collision, near-mid-air collision, or wake turbulence event involving a PDX aircraft and a VUO aircraft. Safety Risk Management Panels have rejected the "Pearson Box" concept; rather the SRMPs, along with all other stakeholders, strongly recommended re-commissioning the control tower at Pearson that worked exceptionally well during its one year of operation between April 2011 and April 2012. FAA in Renton rammed this change through without NPRM or public comment, violating FAA's own internal orders and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Here is the Fact Sheet issued by the City of Vancouver: http://www.cityofvancouver.us/upload/co ... dFINAL.pdf

If you want to get involved, send a letter to your elected state and Federal representatives. Many of them are already alerted to this issue and are on board, but constituent input is always welcome. Here is suggested language you could use in such a message: http://www.pilawt.com/Letter_of_concern.doc

Just heard about that yesterday. Too late for me to get to the meeting. Total BS.

I propose on every pilot in the area start requesting landings/departures/touch and goes at PDX, transitions, and just tying up the approach frequencies, particularly when it's busy.

And contacting representatives, of course. What a pain in the ass. This is exactly the kind of crap that makes people think the government is overbearing and needs to be cut cut cut.

Somehow I missed this meeting down at Pearson but I had made it into a meeting earlier this year, it was a short flight in my Stinson from fly for fun I think that was the last day they had to temporary tower at Pearson.
The problem at Pearson is that you have your transponder on and it causes I a proximity alarm to go off on landing traffic at PDX and that makes them do go around so it's a big expense for the airline and it's a black mark for the FAA.
Even when we have visual contact with each other they still have to do that go around.
The only simple solution I can come up with this is to have the control tower move back to Pearson and aircraft in the landing pattern at Pierson to have their transponders off until after they leave the landing pattern and that would alleviate the alarm bells. And the tower could keep an eyeball on what's going on at person.

That's the end of Pearson. It's time to move out to Goheen.

I was thinking about this some more this morning. If only one airplane is allowed "in the box" there's no reason to fly the standard route out of the airspace. One might be able to avoid Charlie but head towards the incoming traffic and set off their onboard alarms forcing a go around. Since the object is to reduce go-arounds, increasing them would deem this experiment a failure. I'm not recommending this as a course of action, of course.

I appreciate the sentiment, but seriously, we don't want to do anything that could sway public opinion away from GA in general and the airport in particular, more than it already is. I am grateful that the press is reporting our response as "heated but civil" (http://www.oregonlive.com/business/inde ... er_default).

Best course of action is to cooperate with ATC in a professional manner (and be nice to our friends at PDX -- they really are on our side), and send the letters!!

This just in:

FAA delays rule limiting Pearson Field flights
http://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/index.ssf/2012/09/faa_delays_rule_limiting_pears.html

FAA to delay controversial airspace restrictions
http://www.columbian.com/news/2012/sep/26/faa-delay-controversial-airspace-restrictions/

There is still far to go, but we are very grateful that the City and elected officials in Washington, Oregon and elsewhere have gone to bat for the airport. Thanks also to the many groups and individuals who are supporting this cause.

What's the status on the delays? Does it seem likely to be on of those government ideas that the people reject and never go away, but never get implemented (think SOPA)? My first 9 hours of dual were at VUO. It was a quirky place to learn, that's for sure.

I hope it gets resolved in a way that allow Pearson to thrive. I'll miss it if it's gone, just like Evergreen R.I.P.

"The Federal Aviation Administration has dropped a controversial airspace restriction over Vancouver’s Pearson Field, handing a victory to the city and others who lobbied against it."

http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/feb/ ... n-dropped/

Many thanks to all who wrote and worked to achieve this result.

Pilawt wrote:"The Federal Aviation Administration has dropped a controversial airspace restriction over Vancouver’s Pearson Field, handing a victory to the city and others who lobbied against it."

http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/feb/ ... n-dropped/

Many thanks to all who wrote and worked to achieve this result.

Good news. Thanks for reporting back.

This is excellent!

With this and everything that has been happening with the museum, I feel like I need to find my way up to VUO before it's gone! I haven't flown there in about 16 years(!), what are the approach procedures these days. I seem to remember something about contacting PDX approach and telling them you want to go to pearson, then they'd have you remain clear of class C, fly over the lake and enter the pattern from the north. Is that more or less right?

Some times the system works.

I just got this from an FAASafety email:

https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices ... _13-01.pdf

Pearson Field (VUO) Airspace Procedures
Notice Number: NOTC4608

Procedures for aircraft operating in Pearson Field (VUO) Class "D" Airspace.

PDX Letter to Airmen 13-01, effective March 1, 2013, describes the VFR Advisory Area procedures at Pearson Field (VUO). Pilots should exercise caution when arriving and departing VUO due to the proximity of Portland International Airport (PDX). When operating over the VUO runway, or the extended runway centerline, pilots should maintain at or below 700' MSL due to overflying traffic to and from PDX.

VUO has a 24-hour Class "D" surface area but there is no Airport Traffic Control Tower at the airport. Pilots should contact "Pearson Advisory" on VUO Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) 119.0 MHz prior to entering the Class "D" surface area. "Pearson Advisory" provides VUO pilots with traffic and wake turbulence advisories about PDX traffic on this frequency.

After initial contact with "Pearson Advisory", pilots should resume broadcasting their positions and intentions on CTAF (119.0) as they would at any uncontrolled airport. Pilots should not be using VUO Unicom (123.0) to make these position reports.

NOTE: "Pearson Advisory" does not control VFR aircraft in the VUO Class "D" surface area.

hpux735 wrote:.........After initial contact with "Pearson Advisory", pilots should resume broadcasting their positions and intentions on CTAF (119.0) as they would at any uncontrolled airport. Pilots should not be using VUO Unicom (123.0) to make these position reports.
NOTE: "Pearson Advisory" does not control VFR aircraft in the VUO Class "D" surface area.

Has this always been the case? I haven't been into Pearson in a few years, only about 3 r 4 times total in fact, but I kinda remember calling PDX on 119.0, then when they said "go for it", switching to another freq for postion reports.

Yah, that's what I remember too, but it seems now that you stay on 119.0 rather than changing frequencies.

Don't have a current one at home, but does or will the sectional reflect that 119.0 is used for both call-up and CTAF? I don't generally do a lot of homework before a flight, I just jump in and go. So if it ain't on the sectional, or an AWOS, I'm generally blissfully unaware.

I went in yesterday for the first time. Departure. Get the wx then call "Pearson advisory" with intentions. Arrival call 5 miles out. The PDF link earlier in this thread covers it.

G'Day

Got it. I'm just curious as to what the current sectional depicts regarding freq's & procedure for pearson.