Other Flight Requests

Operations at and above 10,000 feet MSL and below the floor of Class A airspace.

Facility air traffic managers or their designated representative may approve or disapprove preflight requests for ATC authorization to deviate from transponder requirements. When coordination requirements are beyond the interphone capability of a terminal facility, the appropriate ARTCC must assume the interfacility coordination task.

Pilots/operators may be required to comply with reasonable conditions as necessary to maintain an acceptable level of safety. Such conditions may include:

Filing a flight plan.

Maintaining radio contact with ATC.

Notifying ATC prior to entering the affected airspace.

Information regarding approved VFR operations in noncompliance with Mode C transponder requirements must be forwarded to all affected facilities. Facilities must ensure that the information is available at the proper control positions.

LOA between facilities and operators or individuals may be established pending the installation of appropriate transponder equipment. Deviations should not be approved for more than 6 months but additional 6-month agreements may be established when required by unusual operational circumstances.

Facility air traffic managers must ensure that the local FSDO is provided with sufficient information to permit follow-up on operators who create an unnecessary burden on the ATC system by continually attempting such operations without reasonable effort to install the appropriate equipment.

Operations within a Mode C veil and within and above Class C airspace up to 10,000 feet MSL.

Approvals to deviate from the Mode C requirement by operators of aircraft without transponders must be issued by the facility air traffic manager or his/her designee.

Authorizations may be issued for a single event or on a continuing basis.

Single-event authorizations may be issued verbally or in a letter to the proponent.

Long term authorizations must be issued in writing by the appropriate facility air traffic manager or his/her designee. In cases involving another facility's airspace or fringe airports, the authorization should be incorporated into a LOA. Multi‐signature LOAs should be used in situations involving two or more individual operators.

The following are examples of operations for which authorizations may be issued:

Aircraft with insufficient panel space or electrical system capacity to accommodate a Mode C transponder (e.g., antique aircraft; agricultural aircraft).

Ferrying aircraft.

Operations for the purposes of installing or repairing an aircraft's transponder, or other maintenance/service.

Operations conducted in facility defined areas of nonradar coverage.

Operations conducted by aircraft based at a fringe airport must be limited to those that:

Will not adversely impact other operations receiving radar service in the area.

Are restricted to altitudes below 2,500 feet AGL.

Are not coincidental with controlled traffic flows within the terminal area.

Are conducted in the airport traffic pattern and via the most direct routing out of the Mode C veil, consistent with existing traffic and noise abatement procedures.

National defense operations or other operations in the public interest which can be accommodated safely and would not adversely impact the efficient movement of traffic.

Written authorizations must specify an effective and expiration date/time, a description of any area(s) and altitude(s) to which the authorization is limited, and any advance call up or other communications requirements deemed appropriate.

Facilities must limit each authorization to the airspace for which it is responsible by having the aircraft enter/exit the affected airspace through its delegated airspace. However, to provide expeditious responses to requests, facility managers may consider other methods for processing authorization requests and incorporate such methods in letters of agreement with those ATC facilities that control traffic within the affected airspace.

Aircraft requesting ATC authorization to deviate from the ADS-B Out equipage requirements must be transponder equipped to utilize this provision. For non‐transponder equipped aircraft, operators and facilities must follow the existing procedures contained in paragraph 5-4-1, Requests For Deviation From Transponder Requirements.

Any authorization granted under this provision that satisfies an operator's regulatory requirements under 14 CFR § 91.225(g) does not guarantee that the aircraft will receive an ATC clearance. Controllers are not responsible for approving or tracking such authorizations, and may issue or deny clearances to such aircraft as they normally would on the basis of workload, surveillance availability, other traffic, and any other factors, as appropriate.

Operators requesting preflight ATC authorization to deviate from ADS-B Out equipage requirements for single or infrequent events should be referred to the FAA's automated authorization request web portal at https://sapt.faa.gov.

A facility ATM or their designee may approve or disapprove long‐term requests for ATC authorization to deviate from ADS-B Out requirements.

Facilities must limit authorizations to the airspace for which it is responsible by having the aircraft enter/exit the affected airspace through its delegated airspace.

Pilots/operators may be required to comply with reasonable conditions as necessary to maintain an acceptable level of safety. Such conditions may include:

Filing a flight plan.

Maintaining radio contact with ATC.

Notifying ATC prior to entering the affected airspace.

The following are examples of operations for which long‐term authorizations may be issued:

Antique aircraft not otherwise excepted by the regulation.

Agricultural aircraft whose proposed areas of operations will not adversely impact other traffic in the airspace.

Operations conducted in facility-defined areas with no surveillance coverage.

Operations conducted by aircraft based at a fringe airport, provided that they:

Will not adversely impact other operations receiving ATC services in the area,

Are restricted to altitudes below 2,500 feet AGL,

Are not coincidental with controlled traffic flows within the terminal area, such as SIDs and STARs, and

Are conducted in the airport traffic pattern and via the most direct routing out of the Mode C veil, consistent with existing traffic and noise abatement procedures.

All long‐term authorizations must be incorporated into an LOA, which must be reviewed annually. Multi‐signature LOAs should be used in situations involving two or more individual operators or multiple facilities. New, revised, or canceled LOAs must be emailed to AFS-400 at 9-awa-equip.2020@faa.gov with “ADS-B LOA” in the subject line for aircraft compliance purposes, and must include the following information:

PIC or other requesting person's contact information:

First and last name;

Phone number;

Email address;

Aircraft Make(s) and Model(s);

Aircraft registration number(s);

Aircraft base airport or destination airport;

Reason for deviation request (e.g., agricultural aircraft, exhibition aircraft, fringe airport operations, etc.);

Any necessary restrictions on operations (e.g., time of day or geographical area limitations, altitude limits, notification or recall requirements, flight plan and communication requirements); and

Authorizing ATC facility & person.

If the pilot is unable to contact the tower where the authorization is needed via local telephone, he/she may relay the request through the nearest FSS or the tower if there is no collocated FSS. The request must include:

The aircraft identification.

The aircraft type.

The pilot's name.

The departure point.

The destination airport.

The proposed date and the time of arrival.

The facility relaying the request must:

Inform the pilot that approval will be invalid if the aircraft does not arrive within 30 minutes before or after the proposed arrival time.

Inform the destination airport tower via Service B or Service F circuit. On Service B, the text must begin “NORDO CROP DUSTER LNDG AUZN REQ.”

The destination tower must transmit an approval or a disapproval to the originating facility for delivery to the pilot. This approval/disapproval must include consideration of local airport management rules, anticipated traffic, and other influencing factors. As appropriate, it must include special instructions, reason for disapproval, or a suggested alternative arrival time.

Departure Point: Before takeoff, a representative of the airline must submit the NAA Certificate of Start form to the tower specialist and make arrangements with him/her to give and time the signal to the pilot to start the takeoff roll.

Arrival Point: A representative of the airline must notify the tower controller at the terminating airport as far in advance as possible that a record attempt is to be made so that he/she will be alerted to time the moment of touchdown. The airline representative must also submit the Certificate of Finish form to the tower controller for certification of the time of touchdown. The participating airline is responsible for collecting and forwarding all NAA forms certified by FAA tower specialists.

Except for rare instances, photogrammetric missions must be conducted on “clear days,” in VFR flight conditions, and usually when the sun angle is high. Accordingly, infrequent IFR flight plan filing can be anticipated.

Most missions will involve a series of overlapping photographic exposures, although some missions may involve only a single exposure. In any case, the aircraft must necessarily move precisely along a predetermined course/s at a predetermined altitude. This part of the mission is called the flight line.

Facility management personnel must be guided by the following when handling photogrammetric flights.

Facilities are expected to make every reasonable effort to accommodate photogrammetric missions, but judgment must be exercised to minimize overall system impact.

When contacted by the pilot in advance, the controlling facility is required to secure a complete understanding of the operation to be conducted. In this regard, it must be anticipated that the operation may be delayed due to weather (this possibility should be covered in the preflight planning). Since the flight could be delayed not only for hours but in some cases for days, facility personnel must be adequately briefed to cope with such situations on a spontaneous basis.

When the pilot commences a flight line (the actual photographic run), every reasonable effort should be made to permit the flight to continue uninterrupted; i.e., without change in course or altitude. Should it become necessary to break the aircraft off the flight line, it should be vectored or cleared back into position for another run as soon as possible.

The operations are conducted in accordance with a waiver issued by the appropriate FSDO to the aircraft operator for all applicable Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

The operation must not adversely affect the safety of the air traffic operation or result in a reduction of service to other users.

The facility manager must evaluate the impact on air traffic controller workload and the service requirements of the airspace where the operation will be conducted before authorizing these operations.

A facility directive must be prepared describing the procedures for managing these operations. The directive must contain, as a minimum, the controller and aircraft operator responsibilities, and a diagram that depicts the geographical area in which the activity will take place.

ATMs should notify any controllers whose area of jurisdiction may be impacted by known authorized ADS-B Out OFF operations.

Direct any U.S. government requestors to contact FAA System Operations Security via email (9-ATOR-HQ-IFOS@faa.gov) for ADS-B Out OFF authorization. Inform non‐U.S. government requestors that they do not qualify for ADS-B Out OFF authorization.

Inform operators checking on the status of sensitive U.S. government ADS-B Out OFF authorizations tied to a national security event to review the content of the 14 CFR 99.7 Special Security Instructions NOTAM associated with that national security event.

ATO System Operations Security assigns and authorizes U.S. special call signs and beacon codes for flights used by federal (non‐DoD), state, local, tribal, and territorial government agencies for the specific purpose of conducting sensitive operations in the NAS, such as law enforcement and surveillance missions. These call signs and beacon codes are not published for security reasons.

ATC may contact the Domestic Events Network (DEN) Air Traffic Security Coordinator (ATSC) for immediate issues regarding a particular U.S. special call sign or beacon code used by an aircraft for a sensitive mission.

Non‐urgent issues regarding the use of U.S. special call signs can be addressed to ATO System Operations Security via email at 9-ATOR-HQ-IFOS@faa.gov.