Amendment of Class D and E Airspace Over Hickory and Morganton, NC

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-0946; Airspace Docket No. 25-ASO-11]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Amendment of Class D and E Airspace Over Hickory and Morganton, NC</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking (SNPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action revises an earlier notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that the FAA published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 22, 2025, by replacing an incorrect reference point within the Class D and Class E2 airspace descriptions and by adding a reference to the Tawba Nondirectional Radio Beacon (NDB) to the Class E5 airspace description. This revised action continues to propose amending the Class D and Class E surface airspace at Hickory Regional Airport, Hickory NC, by increasing the radius and establishing an extension to the surface area due to standard instrument approach procedure and runway configuration changes. Additionally, this action continues to propose amending Class E airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface for Hickory Regional Airport, Hickory, NC by increasing the radius and adding an extension. Controlled airspace is necessary for the safety and management of instrument flight rules (IFR) operations in the area. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 25, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-0946 and Airspace Docket No. 25-ASO-11 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> Christopher Stocking, Operations Support Group, Eastern Service Center, Federal Aviation Administration, 1701 Columbia Avenue, College Park, GA 30337; Telephone: (404) 305-5887. </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 amend Class D and Class E airspace areas. <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 Eastern Service Center, Federal Aviation Administration, Room 210, 1701 Columbia Avenue, College Park, GA 30337. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> Class D, Class E2, and Class E5 airspace areas are published in paragraphs 5000, 6002, and 6005, respectively, 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. FAA Order JO 7400.11J, which lists Class A, B, C, D, and E airspace areas, air traffic service routes, and reporting points, is publicly available as listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On May 22, 2025 (90 FR 21874), the FAA published an NPRM for Docket No. FAA-2025-0946. Subsequent to the publication of the NPRM, the FAA identified that an incorrect reference point was used to describe the Hickory, NC, Class D and E surface areas. To correct this error, this action proposes to remove the Tawba Nondirectional Radio Beacon (NDB) from the Class D and Class E airspace description and to use Hickory Regional Airport, Hickory, NC, as the reference point. This amendment correctly places the proposed surface area extension to the southwest of the airport as intended. Additionally, it was identified after the publication of the NPRM that the Tawba NDB was omitted from the Hickory, NC, Class E airspace description. Accordingly, under this revised proposal, it will be added. Other components of the proposal from the original NPRM remain unchanged. <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Proposal</HD> This action proposes an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 to amend the Class D and E airspace at Hickory Regional Airport, Hickory, NC. Controlled airspace is necessary for the safety and management of IFR operations in the area for existing instrument approaches. This action proposes to amend the Class D and Class E airspace at Hickory Regional Airport by increasing the radius from 4.1-miles to 4.6-miles and by establishing an extension to the surface area that is within 2 miles each side of the 235° bearing from Hickory Regional Airport, extending from the 4.6-mile radius of the airport to 5.2 miles southwest of the airport. The Class D and Class E airspace area are overlays of each other, and each is effective during the specific days and times established in advance by a Notice to Airmen. The effective days and times will thereafter be continuously published in the Chart Supplement. Additionally, this action proposes to amend the Class E airspace by extending the radius from 6.6-miles to 7.1 miles and adding an extension that is within 3-miles each side of the 055° bearing from Tawba NDB, extending from the 7.1-mile radius of the Hickory Regional Airport to 5.7 miles northeast of the NDB. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Notices and Analyses</HD> The FAA has determined that this proposed regulation only involves an established body of technical regulations for which frequent and routine amendments are necessary to keep them operationally current. It, therefore: (1) is not a “significant regulatory action” under Executive Order 12866; (2) is not a “significant rule” under DOT Regulatory P ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. 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