Flight School Newsletter - March 2018
The Class-E Mystery
The Standish Vanish
There is a piece of class E airspace that extends down to 700' AGL in Michigan for no apparent reason that has had us curious for quite some time. For why this is unusual, lets review what Class E airspace is, and what it is defined for.
What is Class E?
Per AIM-3-2-6: Class E airspace is a controlled airspace, designed for terminal or en-route purposes. It is a controlled airspace for flight in IFR on published instrument approaches, and arrival and departure procedures. It can also go to the surface in airports that meet certain requirements (such as Findlay, Ohio) or a towered airport with a closed tower.
Victor Airways are Class-E airspace, the floor of which is 1200'AGL, extending up to but not including 18,000 MSL at which point all airspace becomes class A.
Airports with published instrument procedures have class E airspace down to 700' AGL for the final segments of an instrument approach.
The mystery
The mystery of the sectional image above, is that there is a depiction of class E airspace extending down to 700'AGL (that magenta circle). This would indicate the airport there has at least 1 published instrument approach procedure. There however doesn't appear to be an airport there on the map.
You can see the remnants of an airport in Standish on google's aerial photos.
This is the former Standish Airport, Y75. It had runway 9-27, at about 2500' long.
We were unable to find any old published instrument approaches for Standish. But based on nearby VOR's we suspect it was a VOR-A.
As for why the airspace still exists? Your guess is as good as our.
Student Achievements
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Pat Kaser passed both his private pilot written and at the start of this month, his private pilot practical test.
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