LGCfacade

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) continues its series of web-based public meetings and workshops tonight with a presentation on the Southern California Metroplex project, which will alter how the airspace is utilized by Southland airports, including Long Beach.

Tonight’s webinar focuses on a handful of airports including John Wayne, Fullerton, Torrance, Los Alamitos and Long Beach and how updates prompted by federal legislation could alter flight paths. The project is described as an update and modernization of the air traffic control system as the FAA replaces older radar-based technology with more sophisticated satellite-based networks.

“We have a need to modernize and direction from Congress to do so,” said Glen Martin, the FAA’s western pacific regional administrator during a similar meeting held in October. “The system is based on antiquated and land-based navigational aides. We can now take advantage of advanced technologies and new satellite networks in all phases of flight and gain a lot of improved and safer procedures as well as more efficient ones.”

The changes to be discussed during tonight’s webinar are not expected to take shape until March or April according to the project’s website. The standard terminal arrival routes (STAR) discussed during the October briefing mostly tapered down existing approaches to LGB making them more uniform and providing for a less broad range of aircraft operation. The new STAR procedures announced in October could have the same effect as a road diet, eliminating street lanes and putting aircrafts on a more uniform path. 


The Metroplex project site notes that “the project may involve changes in aircraft flight paths and altitudes in certain areas, but would not result in any ground disturbance or increase the number of aircraft operations within the Southern California airspace.”

Tonight’s meeting will run from 6:00PM to 7:15PM and the access codes and links to the presentation can be found here. In addition to the webinars, three open-house style meetings regarding the changes at Long Beach Airport will be hosted on January 26, February 1 and February 8.

The January meeting will be held at the Toyota Meeting Hall at the Torrance Cultural Art Center at 3330 Civic Center Drive, the February 1 meeting will be held at the Evelyn Hart Event Center located at 801 Narcissus Avenue in Newport Beach and the February 8 meeting will be held at the Long Beach School for Adults located at 3701 East Willow Street.

All workshops are scheduled to run from 5:00PM to 8:00PM.

Jason Ruiz covers City Hall and politics for the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @JasonRuiz_LB on Twitter.