Amendment of Class D, Class E2, Class E4 and Class E5 Airspace Over Patuxent River, MD

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Part 71</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2025-5340; Airspace Docket No. 25-AEA-8]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AA66</RIN> <SUBJECT>Amendment of Class D, Class E2, Class E4 and Class E5 Airspace Over Patuxent River, MD</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 Class D, Class E2, Class E4, and Class E5 airspace at Patuxent River Naval Air Station (NAS) (Trapnell Field), Patuxent River, MD. The currently designated Class D, Class E2, and Class E4 airspace do not properly contain instrument flight rule (IFR) operations, which require controlled airspace. The geographic coordinates for Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field) would be updated in the airspace legal descriptions. The reference to the decommissioned Patuxent VORTAC would also be updated in the Class E2, Class E4, and Class E5 airspace legal descriptions. Last, the geographic coordinates for the Patuxent River NDB would also be updated in the Class E2 and Class E4 airspace legal descriptions. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before February 2, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by FAA Docket No. FAA-2025-5340 and Airspace Docket No. 25-AEA-8 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> 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 for 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 for Federal holidays. 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, 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> Marc Ellerbee, Operations Support Group, Eastern Service Center, Federal Aviation Administration, 1701 Columbia Avenue, College Park, GA 30337; Telephone: (404) 305-5589. </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 Class D, Class E2, Class E4, and Class E5 airspace in Patuxent River, MD. <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 edits, 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 regular business hours at the office of the Eastern Service Center, Federal Aviation Administration, Room 210, 1701 Columbia Ave., College Park, GA 30337. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Incorporation by Reference</HD> Class D, Class E2, Class E4, and Class E5 airspace designations are published in paragraphs 5000, 6002, 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 7400.11K, dated August 4, 2025, and effective September 15, 2025. These updates would be published in the next update to FAA Order JO 7400.11. FAA Order JO 7400.11K, 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> This action proposes to amend 14 CFR part 71 by modifying the Class D, Class E2, Class E4, and Class E5 airspace for Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field), Patuxent River, MD. Controlled airspace is necessary for the safety and management of IFR operations in the area for existing instrument approach procedures. This action proposes to amend the Class D airspace over Patuxent River, MD, by updating the Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field) geographic coordinates and increasing the lateral boundary of the Class D airspace to within a 4.7-mile radius of Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field) and within a .5-mile radius of Chesapeake Ranch Airpark excluding that airspace within Restricted Areas R-4005 and R-4007 when active. The superseded reference to the “Airport Facility Directory” would also be replaced with “Chart Supplement” in the airspace legal description. This action also proposes to amend the Class E2 airspace over Patuxent River, MD, by updating the geographic coordinates of Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field) and modifying the dimensions from the current configuration to that airspace extending upward from the surface within a 4.7-mile radius of Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field) and within 1.8 miles each side of the 047° bearing from Patuxent River NAS extending from the 4.7-mile radius of Patuxent River NAS to 6.5 miles northeast of the airport; and within 1.9 miles each side of the 233° bearing from Patuxent River NAS extending from the 4.7-mile radius to 6.2 miles southwest of the airport; and within 1.8 miles each side of the 137° bearing from Patuxent River NAS extending from the 4.7-mile radius to 10.8 miles southeast of the airport; and within a .5-mile radius of Chesapeake Ranch Airpark, excluding that airspace within Restricted Areas R-4005 and R-4007 when active. This reconfiguration would properly contain the currently published standard instrument approach procedures. The reference to the decommissioned Patuxent VORTAC in the Class E2 legal description would also be removed, and the geographic coordinates of the Patuxent River NDB would be updated. This action also proposes to amend the Class E4 airspace over Patuxent River, MD, by updating the geographic coordinates of Patuxent River NAS (Trapnell Field) and modifying the dimensions from the current configuration to that airspace extending upward from the surface within 1.8 miles each side of the 047° bearing from Patuxent River NAS extending from the 4.7-mile radius of Patuxent River NAS to 6.5 miles northeast of the airport; and within 1.9 miles each side of the 233° bearing from Patuxent River NAS extending from the 4.7-mile radius to 6.2 miles southwest of the airport; and within 1.8 miles each side of the 137° ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━