Amendment of VOR Federal Airways V-55, V-100, and V-277 in the Vicinity of Keeler, MI

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0141; Airspace Docket No. 24-AGL-23]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Amendment of VOR Federal Airways V-55, V-100, and V-277 in the Vicinity of Keeler, MI</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action proposes to amend Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR) Federal Airways V-55, V-100, and V-277. The FAA is proposing this action due to the planned decommissioning of the VOR portion of the Keeler, MI (ELX), VOR/Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME) navigational aid (NAVAID). The Keeler VOR is being decommissioned in support of the FAA's VOR Minimum Operational Network (MON) program. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before April 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-0141 and Airspace Docket No. 24-AGL-23 using any of the following methods: * <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for sending your comments electronically. * <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30; U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. * <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Take comments to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. * <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to Docket Operations at (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Docket:</E> Background documents or comments received may be read at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> at any time. Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket or go to the Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. FAA Order JO 7400.11J, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, and subsequent amendments can be viewed online at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/</E> . You may also contact the Rules and Regulations Group, Policy Directorate, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20597; telephone: (202) 267-8783. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Colby Abbott, Rules and Regulations Group, Policy Directorate, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20597; telephone: (202) 267-8783. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Authority for This Rulemaking</HD> The FAA's authority to issue rules regarding aviation safety is found in Title 49 of the United States Code. Subtitle I, Section 106 describes the authority of the FAA Administrator. Subtitle VII, Aviation Programs, describes in more detail the scope of the agency's authority. This rulemaking is promulgated under the authority described in Subtitle VII, Part A, Subpart I, Section 40103. Under that section, the FAA is charged with prescribing regulations to assign the use of the airspace necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft and the efficient use of airspace. This regulation is within the scope of that authority as it would modify the National Airspace System as necessary to preserve the safe and efficient flow of air traffic. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments Invited</HD> The FAA invites interested persons to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written comments, data, or views. Comments are specifically invited on the overall regulatory, aeronautical, economic, environmental, and energy-related aspects of the proposal. The most helpful comments reference a specific portion of the proposal, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include supporting data. To ensure the docket does not contain duplicate comments, commenters should submit only one time if comments are filed electronically, or commenters should send only one copy of written comments if comments are filed in writing. The FAA will file in the docket all comments it receives, as well as a report summarizing each substantive public contact with FAA personnel concerning this proposed rulemaking. Before acting on this proposal, the FAA will consider all comments it receives on or before the closing date for comments. The FAA will consider comments filed after the comment period has closed if it is possible to do so without incurring expense or delay. The FAA may change this proposal in light of the comments it receives. <E T="03">Privacy:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">www.dot.gov/privacy</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Availability of Rulemaking Documents</HD> An electronic copy of this document may be downloaded through the internet at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> . Recently published rulemaking documents can also be accessed through the FAA's web page at <E T="03">www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/airspace_amendments/</E> . You may review the public docket containing the proposal, any comments received and any final disposition in person in the Dockets Operations office (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section for address, phone number, and hours of operations). An informal docket may also be examined during normal business hours at the office of the Operations Support Group, Central Service Center, Federal Aviation Administration, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Fort Worth, TX 76177. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> VOR Federal Airways are published in paragraph 6010(a) of FAA Order JO 7400.11, Airspace Designations and Reporting Points, which is incorporated by reference in 14 CFR 71.1 on an annual basis. This document proposes to amend the current version of that order, FAA Order JO 7400.11J, dated July 31, 2024, and effective September 15, 2024. These updates would be published in the next update to FAA Order JO 7400.11. That order is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. FAA Order JO 7400.11J lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The FAA is planning to decommission the VOR portion of the Keeler, MI, VOR/DME in November 2025. The Keeler VOR is one of the candidate VORs identified for discontinuance by the FAA's VOR MON program and listed in the final policy statement notice, “Provision of Navigation Services for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Transition to Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) (Plan for Establishing a VOR Minimum Operational Network),” published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on July 26, 2016 (81 FR 48694), Docket No. FAA-2011-1082. Although the VOR portion of the Keeler VOR/DME is planned for decommissioning, the co-located DME portion of the NAVAID is being retained to support current and future NextGen PBN flight procedure requirements. The VOR Federal Airways affected by the planned decommissioning of the Keeler VOR are V-55, V-100, and V-277. With the planned decommissioning of the Keeler VOR, the remaining ground-based NAVAID coverage in the area is insufficient to enable the continuity of the affected airways. As such, proposed modifications to V-55 would result in one of the two airway segments being shortened and an existing gap in the airway being expanded; to V-100 would result in one of three existing airway segments being removed; and to V-277 would result in the airway being shortened. To address the proposed amendments to the affected airways, instrument flight rules (IFR) traffic could use VOR Federal Airways V-7, V-30, V-84, and V-274 to navigate around the area affected by the planned decommissioning of the Keeler VOR. Additionally, IFR pilots with Area Navigation (RNAV)-equipped aircraft could navigate using RNAV Routes T-215, T-217, and T-265, or point-to-point using the existing Fixes and waypoints that will remain in place to support continued operations though the affected area. Visual flight rules pilots who elect to navigate via the affected airways could also take advantage of the adjacent airways listed above, as well as the listed RNAV routes and point-to-point navigation, if properly equipped. Lastly, all aircraft have the option to request and receive radar vectors from air traffic control to transit the affected area as well. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 by amending VOR Federal Airways V-55, V-100, and V-277 due to the planned decommissioning of the VOR portion of the Keeler, MI, VOR/DME NAVAID. The proposed airway actions are described below. <E T="03">V-55:</E> V-55 currently extends between the Dayton, OH, VOR/DME and the Pullman, MI, VOR/DME; and between the Grand Forks, ND, VOR/DME and the Bismarck, ND, VOR/DME. The FAA proposes to remove the airway segment between the Gipper, MI, VOR/Tactical Air Navigation (VORTAC) and the Pullman VOR/DME. As amended, the airway would be changed to extend between the Dayton VOR/DME and the Gipper VORTAC and between the Grand Forks VOR/DME and the Bismarck VOR/DME. <E T="03">V-100:</E> V-100 currently extends between the Medicine Bow ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━