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

<RULE> 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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action amends the Class D and Class E airspace, establishes Class E airspace, and revokes 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 NTL: RWY 01R-LOC are also being updated to coincide with the FAA's aeronautical database. These actions accommodate a U.S. Air Force request to change the McConnell AFB Class D airspace from full-time to part-time and to establish part-time Class E surface airspace, and the associated airspace reviews conducted to accommodate this request. It also brings the airspace into compliance with FAA orders and supports instrument flight rule (IFR) procedures and operations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective 0901 UTC, March 19, 2026. The Director of the Federal Register approves this incorporation by reference action under 1 CFR part 51, subject to the annual revision of FAA Order JO 7400.11 and publication of conforming amendments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A copy of the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), all comments received, this final rule, and all background material may be viewed online at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> using the FAA Docket number. Electronic retrieval help and guidelines are available on the website. It is available 24 hours each day, 365 days each year. An electronic copy of this document may also be downloaded from <E T="03">www.federalregister.gov.</E> FAA Order JO 7400.11K, 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, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; 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 amends, establishes, or removes Class D and Class E airspace at the affected airport to support IFR operations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">History</HD> The FAA published an NPRM for Docket No. FAA-2025-2232 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 38615; August 11, 2025) proposing to amend the Class D and Class E airspace, establish Class E airspace, and revoke Class E airspace at Wichita, KS. Interested parties were invited to participate in this rulemaking effort by submitting written comments on the proposal to the FAA. Three (3) comments were received. The three commenters agreed with each other. The commenters supported the proposed amendment to the northern boundary of the Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace. However, one commenter, with the two other commenters in concurrence, suggested changes to the Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace and McConnell AFB Class D airspace. Specifically, the commenter suggested changes to the proposed eastern, western, and southern boundaries of the Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace. The commenter also recommended removing the one-mile exclusion zone and instead using his proposed boundaries for Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace as the exclusion zone. In addition, the commenter suggested reducing the radius to 4.4 miles for McConnell AFB Class D airspace so that a medical center and elementary school would be outside of the airspace. The commenter believed these facilities should be outside the airspace due to a high number of medevac helicopter flights and a popular hot air balloon launch site located in the vicinity. Lastly, the commenter proposed that the McConnell AFB Class D airspace not include his suggested Beech Class D airspace. The following responses are provided. The Class D airspace proposed by Mr. Condon—and concurred with by Mr. Rogers and Mr. Pitt—for Beech Factory Airport, Wichita, KS, is not feasible as it does not comply with the airspace requirements for Class D airspace outlined in FAA Order JO 7400.2R, Procedures for Handling Airspace Matters. While Beech Factory Airport air traffic control may not be utilizing the western portion of the current airspace, FAA Order JO 7400.2R requires that airspace to allow for diverse departures. This is the same reason that the proposed western boundary is not feasible. And the proposed southern boundary exceeds that necessary for operations out of Beech Factory Airport. Additionally, the proposed 1-mile cutout increases the operational area around Beech Factory Airport beyond the current airspace allocation. The current airspace orientation was agreed upon by Beech Factory Airport and Colonel James Jabara Airport when the Beech Factory Airport Class D and E airspace were established in 2019. The Beech Factory Airport air traffic manager and Colonel James Jabara Airport management were given an opportunity to review the proposed airspace. Neither provided any feedback nor requested any changes to the current airspace or the airspace as proposed. As for the commenters' concerns regarding hot air balloon operations at Andover Central Park and Tanglewood, hot air balloon operations are regulated by 14 CFR part 101, which includes operating in Class D airspace. Those operations are assumed to be currently complying with part 101 without issue so there do not appear to be any issues with current hot air balloon operations, and the airspace changes do not change the part 101 requirements. As for the commenters' recommendation that the McConnell AFB, Wichita, KS, Class D airspace radius not be increased to 4.6 miles but instead be decreased to 4.4 miles, this increase is required to protect diverse departures and instrument procedures as required by FAA Order JO 7400.2R, so the recommendation cannot be accommodated. Regarding the commenters' concern that the proposed airspace would infringe on operations from Wesley Medical Center Heliport, Wichita, KS, the heliport is already within the Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace. These changes will not change the operating procedures for the heliport, and would only possibly change which facility is communicated with. Operations can be further accommodated by a letter of agreement between Wesley Medical Center Heliport, Beech Factory Airport air traffic control, and McConnell AFB in accordance with FAA Order JO 7210.3EE, Facility Operation and Administration, if needed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Differences From the NPRM</HD> This NPRM had a typographic error in the Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace legal description, “. . . but excluding 2,700 feet . . .” should have been “. . . and including 2,700 feet . . .” Additionally, the “Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower International Airport” should be the “Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport” and the “Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower Intl: RWY 01R-LOC” should be the “Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower NTL: RWY 01R-LOC” in the Wichita, KS, Class E airspace extending upward from 700 feet above the surface. As these typographic errors do not change the boundaries of the airspace as they currently exist or as proposed or impose any additional requirements on users of the airspace, the FAA has determined that good cause exists for not recirculating this action for public comment, and the errors are being corrected in this action. The NPRM described the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport Class E airspace extension as “That airspace extending upward from the surface within 7.2 miles each side of the 126° bearing from the Wichita VORTAC extending from the airport to 7.8 miles northwest of the airport.” A clearer legal description has been determined to be, “That airspace extending upward from the surface within 7.2 miles each side of the 126° bearing from the Wichita VORTAC extending from the Wichita VORTAC 126° bearing at 1.3 miles southeast to the Wichita VORTAC 126° bearing at 9.2 miles.” This modification of the airspace legal description does not change the airspace as proposed but provides a clearer, less confusing description of the airspace. As this change does not change the boundaries of the proposed airspace or impose any additional requirements on users of the airspace, the FAA has determined that good cause exists for not recirculating this action for public comment, and the change is being corrected in this action. The NPRM listed the line separating the Beech Factory Airport Class D airspace and Class E surface airspace and t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━