July 2024 New DCA Approach Procedures: the first 10 days
The new approach procedures at DCA have been in effect for about 10 days, so we thought this would be a good time to check in with everyone about what we are seeing so far and what to expect going forward.
First of all, as was anticipated, the FERGI-DARIC part of the route is still in use the majority of the time. It is used frequently when the airport is busy (ie. most weekdays between 7:00am and 10:00pm). As a reminder, the FERGI waypoint is near the Bethesda/Potomac line at the intersection of Persimmon Tree Road and County Club Drive. The DARIC waypoint used to be on the shore near Glen Echo, but is now over the edge of the CIA campus on the Virginia side of the river. The fact that DARIC has moved helps pull some of the noise off of some of our Montgomery County communities. It doesn't eliminate it, but it reduces it.
The other aspect of the new procedures is that when the airport is not so busy, Air Traffic Control (ATC) is being encouraged to tell some pilots to fly directly to the DARIC waypoint from other places in the airspace, thus bypassing FERGI. This results in some dispersion of the noise, which is a helpful way to reduce the impacts on the communities that otherwise receive all of it. Sometimes this will mean that flights head to the new DARIC waypoint (near the CIA) across Bethesda neighborhoods near the Cabin John Parkway; sometimes aircraft fly over MoCo south of FERGI-DARIC; sometimes aircraft fly over the Potomac River; and sometimes they fly over Virginia communities. This track variability is consistent with the goals of the DCA Community Working Group (CWG). The primary request the CWG made of the FAA was to place flight paths over noise compatible areas such as portions of the Potomac River, the CIA or the Carderock Naval Surface Warfare Center. Where that wasn't feasible, the CWG asked the FAA to limit the exposure of any one area so that any one community isn’t unfairly burdened with an entire region’s worth of overflights.
To be clear, the option to fly a path other than FERGI-DARIC is generally only available when the airspace is not so busy. These are times when there are gaps in traffic, meaning that there are not multiple aircraft arriving into the airspace in quick succession. During busy times, most aircraft are still being directed to fly FERGI-DARIC -- but again, the new DARIC on the other side of the Potomac near the CIA -- and then on into the airport.
We plan to ask our aviation consultant (Vianair) to conduct an analysis of the new procedures and how it's all working sometime in the next 3-6 months. We will then have some actual data to evaluate the new procedures and the noise impacts. We need to give it some time for ATC to get used to the new procedures and to identify trends in the data. Once we receive that analysis we will (of course!) share it with our MoCo Quiet Skies members.
In the meantime, we sincerely hope that you are noticing some reduction in the noise levels and/or the frequency of aircraft overhead when the airport is in south flow, ie., when approaches to DCA are coming over MoCo communities.
We know it can be hard to appreciate what you are NOT hearing, so we encourage you to take a look at the DCA Webtrak software to see where aircraft are flying (and where they aren’t): https://webtrak.emsbk.com/dca. There is a one-hour delay. Click the “historical” tab to see flights from earlier in the day, previous days and months, etc.
The CWG’s next virtual meeting (meetings are open to the public and are held quarterly) is this Thursday, July 25 at 6:00 PM. The new GPS procedures will be on the agenda, although there won't yet be much (if any) data to share. The agenda also includes a discussion of the CWG’s recommendation to bring a “Fly Quiet” program to DCA. You can click here to view the meeting live. Or, copy and paste the link into your browser: https://mwaa.zoom.us/j/87071928958.
Best wishes,
The MCQSC team
