{"id":17648,"date":"2022-04-27T04:08:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T08:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=17648"},"modified":"2022-04-27T04:08:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T08:08:07","slug":"the-hot-topic-of-hot-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/the-hot-topic-of-hot-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hot Topic of Hot Spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

We aren\u2019t talking about a bad rash, or the trendiest new club in town… We\u2019re talking about those spots at airports where you\u2019re most likely to mess up and get in the way of another aircraft.<\/p>\n

Why is this a hot topic?<\/h4>\n

The FAA are standardising their symbology<\/strong> so we thought it would be worth sharing with any folk based in the US who haven\u2019t spotted it yet, and for anyone who flies into the US for that matter, just to make sure no-one misses a Hot Spot warning.<\/p>\n

What is a Hot Spot?<\/h4>\n

It is a location on an \u2018airport movement area’ which has a history of incursions, collisions and confusion.<\/strong> Or which has the potential for all the aforementioned mess. Basically, anywhere there is a risk of an aircraft going the wrong way or get in another aircraft’s way.<\/p>\n

What do these spots currently look like?<\/h4>\n

They look like a really confusing bit of taxiway, often near a runway…<\/p>\n

On the charts this might be shown with a circle, a square, an ellipse, a rectangle, an octagon, even an octopus<\/strong> if the chart maker so fancied. There is no standard shape for marking these which means if you aren\u2019t familiar with an airport (or its chart) then you might not notice the spot to watch out for.<\/p>\n

What will they look like going forward?<\/h4>\n

From May 19 2022 <\/b>they will become only a circle or an ellipse, <\/b>with the details in a little rectangle linked to it.<\/p>\n

Here is a picture of the before and after:<\/p>\n

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The chart of today (before)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
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The New of tomorrow (May)! Circles and Ellipses only<\/p><\/div>\n

These are in line with the symbology that the likes of LIDO and Jeppesen already use.<\/p>\n

But also\u2026<\/h4>\n

The FAA will be issuing Arrival Alert Notices (AAN) <\/b>at airports which have a particularly bad history of misalignment risk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is all to do with the runways and the risk of aligning the wrong one (or not one for that matter). The new symbology will show \u2018wrong surface\u2019 hotspots in ellipses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Which airports have this problem?<\/h4>\n

Here\u2019s a list of the known baddies:<\/p>\n