Feedback on the New Datums

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Feedback on the New Datums
Federal Aviation Administration George P. Sempeles
2015 Geospatial Summit April 13 to 14, 2015
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Preparation

• Major products/services potentially affected
• US Instrument Flight Procedures as of 3/5/2015
  pub cycle
• 14,305 RNAV (Satellite based)
• 16,959 IAP (All types inclusive)
  
• 1,741 SID/STAR (Departure/Approach)
• 1,220 Airways (All types inclusive)
• Millions of NGS/3rd party surveyed obstacles
• 325,600 constructed obstacles in the DOF
  (public use)
• 340,000 obstacles and vegetation in ORS (FAA
  use)
• Tens of thousands of surveyed airport safety
  critical points (runway ends, displaced
  thresholds)
• Thousands of NAVAIDS
• Thousands of FIXs and Waypoints

Total 34,225!
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Preparation
No preparations to date. We will need to
prepare an implementation plan with the roll out
of the new datums to prevent a shutdown of
instrument flight procedures NAS wide
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Advantages / Challenges

• We are excited because...We will finally have a
  national geocentric reference frame that is more
  coincident with WGS 84
• Our concern is dependent upon the magnitude of
  the shiftIf small
• You cant draw the difference on a chart
• A pilot cant fly the difference
• Automated navigation systems cant fly the
  difference
• If large
• We may be faced with a recalculating all geodetic
  data used to support generating all aeronautical
  navigation products used in the US NAS
• Butuntil the magnitude of the shift is known
• Difficult to prepare for in terms of resources
• Impact will not be known until periodic flight
  inspection of procedures

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Transition Tools / Outreach Needs

• The tools, products, or services we need most
  (from NGS or others) are
• Advanced notice/estimate of the shift magnitude
• Updated vertical and horizontal calculators
• CONUS
• Alaska
• US Territories
• The outreach we need most (from NGS or others)
• NGS continue to host bi-annual summits and
  monthly updates
• Possibly increase the frequency of summits
  (quarterly) the closer the new realization
  becomes reality