Private Pilots Learn to Cope With Stricter Airspace Rules

Despite their intense complaints about new airspace restrictions in the Los Angeles area, most private pilots appear to have figured out how to cope, interviews with pilots, air traffic controllers and Federal Aviation Administration officials indicate.

Over the weekend--the first heavy flying period since the FAA imposed emergency restrictions in an attempt to better protect jetliners--there was a substantial increase in the number of pilots who requested and received permission to fly through the newly enlarged terminal control area around Los Angeles International Airport.

In addition, larger numbers of pilots were spotted flying around the terminal control area’s eastern perimeter, 25 miles away from the airport. And although the ceiling of the TCA was raised 5,500 feet to 12,500 feet--above the capability of most private planes--some climbed above the new ceiling.

The changes went into effect with less than a week’s notice, making an already complicated system more difficult to fathom, but private pilots appeared to be flying carefully and traffic proceeded without incident, said Karl Grundmann, an air traffic controller who worked Friday and Saturday at an FAA facility that handles traffic in the area.

But Grundmann and many members of the aviation community--from airline pilots to local airport managers to private pilots--continued to insist that the new regulations are unsafe.

“I talked my tail end off Saturday just trying to call out traffic (positions inside the TCA to other planes),” Grundmann said. “That was 60% to 70% of my job,” a higher proportion than usual. “It’s difficult.”

John Baker, president of the 260,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn., told a Los Angeles news conference Tuesday that his group is embarking on a campaign to persuade President Reagan to fire Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, whose department is responsible for the FAA.

Complaining that private pilots are being victimized by “sledge hammer regulation by amateurs,” Baker said Dole and new FAA Chief T. Allan McArtor are promoting cosmetic changes instead of long-term measures to promote air safety.

McArtor ordered the ceiling of the Los Angeles TCA raised, effective Aug. 19, after a near-collision between an airliner and a private plane over Santa Monica. In addition, McArtor closed a visual-flight corridor that had allowed private pilots to fly over the field without permission of air traffic controllers. The FAA contends that the corridor had to be closed because once the TCA ceiling was raised, too many private pilots who once flew over the restricted airspace would try to cram into the corridor.

Baker and other critics of the FAA say much of the traffic that used to go through the visual-flight corridor, a popular north-south link, is now crowding into the area just outside the eastern boundary of the TCA and mixing dangerously with other private planes or jets that are on approach to Los Angeles at an altitude of 7,000 to 8,000 feet.

At a meeting last week, nearly two dozen managers of Southern California airports recommended that the FAA set aside another swath of airspace as a visual corridor to replace the one that was closed. In addition, the managers said more controllers should have been hired before any changes were made in the airspace.

The FAA said Tuesday that between Friday and Sunday, 358 pilots--about twice as many as usual--radioed the L.A. Terminal Radar Approach Control facility for permission to enter the TCA, a step that was not previously required if a pilot was using the visual-flight corridor.

“Only during 10 hours (of that period) were controllers unable to accommodate these requests,” an FAA spokeswoman said. Pilots turned away had to fly under, over or around the controlled airspace.

The FAA’s high-altitude traffic control center in Palmdale, which is responsible for much of the airspace above 7,000 feet, is being far more severe with pilots. Because that center has not often had to guide pilots through the TCA, it is turning down virtually all requests by visual-flight pilots to enter controlled airspace until all controllers at the Palmdale center receive further training.

Asked whether the apparent ease of adjustment among private pilots suggested that his organization’s concern about the new restrictions is overstated, Baker said, “Probably most people were staying on the ground.”

Paul Moritz, manager of Santa Catalina Island Airport in the Sky, said visits to his facility declined 15% to 25% over the weekend. However, managers at Torrance Airport and Orange County’s John Wayne Airport said they noticed no decreases.

Clearly, however, there is confusion among many pilots on how to make their way through the Los Angeles Basin.

At Van Nuys Airport, actor Dennis Quaid decided to shelve plans to fly to Catalina--normally reached by using the visual-flight corridor--and settled instead on a shorter trip.

“I know what I’m doing,” Quaid said, “but I don’t know about those other guys up there.”

Said Catalina’s Moritz, “I’ve heard pilots say everything from these changes having no effect to one who said he spent an hour and 25 minutes trying to get here from Van Nuys, which should have taken 35 minutes.”