If you didn’t know I am a HUGE fan of flying and Aviation, so I will be posting on the fun of flying sharing that with people, educating them on aviation and what its really like because it seems that out of the 700,000 people who are pilots in the US (military not included) no one has a understanding of what its really like or what it can do for you or the enormous satisfaction of learning to fly or just fun of riding along to go somewhere, be it for fun or business or both. So if you want to know more about flying or aviation in general or learning to fly or anything flying we will have a lot to talk about and I will be posting about that in all its forms from Government world wide things to the personal local level.
thank you
Last week the Civil Aviation Administration of China unveiled more significant legislation to aid Chinese GA growth. The release of the General Aviation Airport Construction Standards (draft) for public commenting occurred on November 30, the first anniversary of the central government’s official announcement for airspace reform. (Click here to download the .DOC file.) These standards are the country’s first set of governing rules over the definition, planning and construction of general aviation airports.
The draft version has 30 clauses covering the areas of airport zoning, infrastructure and equipment, service, and environmental protection. Compared with existing Chinese airport regulations, these standards are less strict and offer greater flexibility, therefore allowing unprecedented room for GA infrastructure growth.
In this draft, GA airports are divided into three categories. CAT1 airports are those capable of accommodating aircraft with up to 29 seats, or over 3000 monthly takeoffs and landings. CAT2 airports serve aircraft up to 9 seats or up to 3000 takeoffs and landings per month. CAT3 limits to aircraft with 4 or fewer seats and total monthly movements of no more than 600 takeoffs and landings. Control towers and automatic weather reporting systems are optional for CAT2 and CAT3 airports.
While such flexibility is much welcomed, the categorization method is somewhat ambiguous and prompts certain questions like how will it interact with airport and airspace planning as well as traffic type and volume? What, for example, if a Cessna Caravan wants to land on a CAT3 airport, carrying six passengers or flying empty? The notes section of the draft (.DOC file) claims that these categories were formed based on “an airport’s impact on public welfare”. They are “irrelevant” to the airport’s physical scale, adopted technologies, ownership or utilization. The standards named “safety, suitability, economy and sustainable growth” as their guiding principles but did not contain any actual administrative procedures such as planning application and approval process. The 10-day public commenting period will end on December 10.
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