Amendment of Class D and Class E Airspace, Establishment of Class E Airspace, and Revocation of Class E; Wichita, KS

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-2232; Airspace Docket No. 25-ACE-3]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Amendment of Class D and Class E Airspace, Establishment of Class E Airspace, and Revocation of Class E; Wichita, KS</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 the Class D and Class E airspace, establish Class E airspace, and revoke Class E airspace at Wichita, KS. The name of Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, Wichita, KS; the geographic coordinates of Augusta Municipal Airport, Augusta, KS; and the name and geographic coordinates of the McConnell AFB, Wichita, KS, and the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower Intl: RWY 01R-LOC would also be updated to coincide with the FAA's aeronautical database. The FAA is proposing these actions to accommodate a U.S. Air Force request to change the McConnell AFB Class D airspace from full-time to part-time and establish part-time Class E surface airspace and the associated airspace reviews conducted to accommodate this request. This action will bring the airspace into compliance with FAA orders and support instrument flight rule (IFR) procedures and operations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 25, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-2232 and Airspace Docket No. 25-ACE-3 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 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, Office of Policy, Federal Aviation Administration, 600 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20597; telephone: (202) 267-8783. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeffrey Claypool, Federal Aviation Administration, Operations Support Group, Central Service Center, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Fort Worth, TX 76177; telephone (817) 222-5711. </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 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, establish, or remove Class D and E airspace to support IFR operations at the affected airports. <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 received 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-14FDMS), 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 the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section for the address, phone number, and hours of operations). An informal docket may also be examined during normal business hours at the Federal Aviation Administration, Air Traffic Organization, Central Service Center, Operations Support Group, 10101 Hillwood Parkway, Fort Worth, TX 76177. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> Class D and E airspace is published in paragraphs 5000, 6002, 6003, 6004, and 6005 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 subsequently 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">The Proposal</HD> The FAA is proposing an amendment to 14 CFR part 71 that would make several modifications to the Class D and E airspace in the Wichita, Kansas area as the result of a U.S. Air Force request to change the McConnell AFB, Wichita, KS, Class D airspace from full-time to part-time and to establish part-time Class E surface airspace and the associated airspace reviews affected by the request. For the Beech Factory Airport, Wichita, KS, Class D airspace, the proposal would: (1) expand the radius from 4.2 miles to 4.4 miles; (2) remove the name of the airport from the airspace legal description header to comply with changes to FAA Order JO 7400.2R, Procedures for Handling Airspace Matters; (3) remove the city associated with the airport in the airspace legal description to comply with changes to FAA Order JO 7400.2R; (4) add an exclusion for the McConnell AFB, Wichita, KS, Class E surface area; and (5) change the coordinates of the boundary line from “lat. 37°43′07″ N, long. 97°17′51″ W, to lat. 37°43′47″ N, long. 97°08′21″ W” to “lat 37°43′22″ N, long 097°18′26″ W, to lat 37°43′23″ N, long 097°07′49″ W” to account for the expansion of the Class D airspace and Class E surface airspace at Beech Factory Airport and Colonel James Jabara Airport, Wichita, KS. For the McConnell AFB Class D airspace, the proposal would: (1) expand the radius from 4.5 miles to 4.6 miles; (2) remove the name of the airport from the airspace legal description header to comply with changes to FAA Order JO 7400.2R; (3) remove the city associated with the airport from the airspace legal description to comply with changes to FAA Order JO 7400.2R; (4) add an exclusion area within a 1-mile radius of the Beech Factory Airport; (5) update the name of the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, KS, Class C area to Wichita, KS, Class C area to coincide with a change to the airspace legal description; and (6) add part-time language to the airspace legal description. For the Beech Factory Airport Class E surface airspace, the proposal would: (1) increase the radius from 4.2 miles to 4.4 miles; (2) remove the name of the airport from the airspace legal description header to comply with changes to FAA Order JO 7400.2R; (3) remove the city associated with the airport in the airspace legal description to comply with changes to FAA Order JO 7400.2R; (4) add an exclusion for the McConnell AFB Class E surface area; and (5) change the coordinates of the boundary line from “lat. 37°43′07″ N, long. 97°17′51″ W, to lat. 3 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━