Perhaps you’re right, only time will tell…

I’ve been an enroute controller for 19 years, in heavily congested airspace. Our sectors are small. Our requirements to provide intrail spacing to 5-10 airports simultaneously; our requirements (read Letters of Agreements) with other ATC facilities on routings, altitudes, etc – have a huge impact on workload.

The bulk of this traffic is between FL290-FL370. Even if I could get you up above it, at some point, you gotta come down. And with all of the above mentioned obstacles, getting you down through a Beltway of traffic, isn’t always easy. For instance, if you takeoff from FL and land at a IAD satellite, current procedures dictate that you will be either intrail, or underneath IAD traffic. So if you do make it up to FL390, today anyway, you can expect a hefty crossing restriction to get you down around FL 250 somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 miles from IAD.

My concern about that is mainly fuel: if these VLJ’s are remotely anything like a lot of these RJ’s (eg.), then fuel is a huge consideration. If I have to start you down 200 miles out, from FL390, will you have enough fuel???

We will make it work; we always do. But the other poster is right: ask about this stuff now, not in 5 years.

And going back to look at my earlier post, I guess that comment about who gets what airspace does look a little silly if you read it as is.

What I was trying to say was that some less-experienced pilots might not have a complete understanding of how they need to fit into the traffic flow.

If ATC says sure you can have FL330 but we need to take someone off the airway to make this work because everyone else at FL330 is doing 460 kts and you’re at 370, some folks may not understand that.

And as to Bob’s comments, I agree about talking to people about our concerns. In a small way, that’s what we’re trying to do here at Jetwhine.

I’d encourage people to pass on this post to others for their input.

And when Bob gives me the link to the new survey, I’ll be able to add in the link to the preliminary results from the first survey as well.

Jeff Martin

Unfortunately, when something in aviation can’t be solved either for technical or political reasons, our fall-back generally tends to be “handle it with training.” Although training for operation in the NAS is essential, it does not provide the complete solution.

This is an important issue and the time to encourage problem solving is now rather than in a few years when the issue could very well become intolerable if the VLJ marketing people are correct in their projections.

My suggestion is to get involved and voice your concerns. If they aren’t being heard, find a way to make them heard.

For example, the Royal Aeronautical Society is sponsoring a conference next month in London about “Introducing Very Light Jets Into Europe.” Alex Hendriks, Deputy Director ATM Strategies at Eurocontrol, will be speaking on “The VLJ Impact on Air Traffic Management.” A few weeks later at an IIR Conference in Munich, Joe Sultana, Programme Manager for Eurocontrol, will be speaking on “VLJ operations in the European airspace network—an ATM perspective. Obviously, there is high level European interest regarding this subject.

Perhaps readers know of other public discussions that may be going on about this important subject. Can we hear from you?

For one thing, we won’t see 2000 of them entering the airspace system all at once. They’re going to enter the fleet rather slowly. Also, they will tend to make shorter flights than the big airliners, meaning they’ll fit into those lower flight level altitudes just fine.

But the main reason I don’t think they’ll be a problem is because the enroute structure isn’t the bottleneck, it’s the runways. And the whole theory behind the VLJ advantage says that they end up going to the small satellite airports, not the big hubs.

With the economy where it is, I think the forecasts for VLJs are a bit optomistic anyway.

Not being a high-altitude jet guy, I was curious about the statement “they might simply think they have as much right to the airspace as everyone else”. Don’t they?

I’m not saying ATC won’t have a tough time in the years to come, but from where I sit they were going to have it rough whether the VLJs came along or not. There are a lot of problems facing controllers which have nothing to do with light jets.

My guess is that many of these pilots, new to the high-altitude spectrum, might simply think they have as much right to the airspace as everyone else. Sounds silly I think.

Down low, if I’m zipping along in a Bonanza at 150 kts., ATC won’t toss and MD-80 behind me at 10,000 feet. They make one of us move.

So I think you’re right that ATC is pretty much going to foot the bill to make this all work. The question is whether they have the time with everything else they need to do right now.

What is the projections on IFR vs. VFR flying?

Are operators even aware that if they’re flying East of the Mississippi, there’s a good chance they won’t be above FL230? (my opinion).

You can’t mix a Mustang going Mach .62, with an MD-80 going .78, and not expect to have problems. And, since it’s capable of flying at FL410, it REALLY won’t be kosher with 757/767 traffic!

If the VLJ’s saturate the skies like the FAA is predicting, they’d better come up with a new way of handling them, or the VLJ drivers better be real good at flying off-set routes.

Just my .05