Meeting Notes : Navigation Committee
Committee notes reflect the views and opinions of the committee members and not necessarily those of the Noise Compatibility Study Group, Coordinating Council, Regional Airport Authority of Louisville and Jefferson County, or the Consultant Team.
Attendees: Jim Anderson, Robert Barker, Terry Borne, Dorn Crawford, Mike Eplion, Mary Rose Evans, George Hudson, Fred Liggin, Larry Parker, Bill Simpson, John Sistarenik, Bob Slattery
The meeting began at 7 PM. The committee adopted the proposed agenda, and approved the notes of its 7 August meeting. With Study Group Meeting #7 presenting final consultant recommendations for the proposed Noise Compatibility Program, the committee’s remaining objectives for this meeting were to review outstanding study tasks, evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the proposed program, and prepare recommendations for Study Group action at meeting #7A on 7 November.
Key study tasks still needing completion were reviewed for consultants in the Study Group’s presentation at Meeting #6 in May. These were the same tasks listed in the Study Group’s "Noise Abatement Strategy" memo of 25 January. The committee judged the status of those tasks after Meeting #7 to be as follows:
• Evaluate displaced threshold on proposed alternative: no further analysis furnished since indicative committee sketches were put forward in May.
• Develop proposals for standard flight routes: nothing since most recent committee markup of flight track maps in March.
• Recommend criteria and procedures for approaches and departures: nothing since committee markup of SDF Jeppesen plates in Nov 2000.
• Establish navigational capabilities for SDF fleet: nothing since 1998 survey sample of representative aircraft types, and March 2001 assessment of dispersion standards for navigational equipment suites.
• Propose metrics for data collection/evaluation: only illustrative work done on peak-noise and time-above statistics for UofL campus.
• Plan package of management measures: only six of the 18 Study Group measures were listed in the Meeting #7 presentation, without further elaboration.
• Document emerging abatement measures/new technology: several collateral projects are under way (ADS-B, CDA, WAAS, etc) that are not yet accounted for in this study.
The committee concluded that a great deal remains to be done in the course of compiling the final study report. By the same token, a number of program assessments delineated in the scope of work have unfinished elements:
• Airfield capacity & delay: inaccurate runway use, fleet mix issues cloud analysis and application of results (see below).
• Air traffic control issues: not addressed yet.
• Aircraft operational and economic issues: only suggested coincident with capacity and delay analysis.
• Cost analysis: rough costs estimated in dollars for operations and mitigation package; benefits given in population and homes for abatement package. So, no basis for net assessment.
• Financial feasibility assessment: task transferred to RAA staff in last scope revision; no results as yet.
The Master Plan simulation consultant had recently submitted a revised airfield capacity and delay analysis, as noted above, and the chair reported on an extensive dialogue on this work involving Study Group principals, consultants, staff, and UPS analysts. The committee examined the attached discussion paper laying out the concerns exchanged. The chair reported that detailed post-analysis over the past month by committee members and their associates at UPS, and follow-on discussions with the consultant, had fallen short of resolving the concerns noted. The analysis could therefore be given little weight in evaluating the proposed program, until and unless corrective work could be undertaken – a doubtful proposition with remaining time and resources.
With an eye to insuring completion of other essential tasks in the course of finalizing the program and the study report, the committee turned to an accounting of the noise abatement package itself. As on previous occasions, members noted that the measures consultants presented at Meeting #7 had been recategorized, reordered and rephrased from those adopted by the Study Group. Extensive crosswalk and interpretation were required to determine whether the same essential substance still remained. The committee identified several cases deserving continued scrutiny to insure the altered material would still meet the aims of the Study Group, particularly since no explanation for the revisions was furnished.
Of the 30 abatement measures set out in the Study Group’s final recommendations memorandum of 17 June, about 25 could be discerned in the Meeting #7 presentation, though many, as noted above, still require substantial definition and development. After crosswalking categories of measures, it appeared that most of the measures not identifiable at all fell in the management and evaluation categories. In an ensuing teleconference, consultants said their intent was to subsume many specific measures adopted by the Study Group under a smaller, more general management program. The chair resolved to pursue restoration of the Study Group’s measures as adopted.
As a vehicle to monitor final steps needed to complete the program, the chair introduced a ‘punch list,’ commonly used in engineering projects. The sixteen items cover the gamut of unfinished analysis, measure development, documentation updates, and final study products. The committee agreed that its recommendations to the Study Group should include the complete original abatement package and crosswalk, and these punch list items, as a reminder of the work still ahead.
The meeting adjourned at 9:15 PM.