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The Podcast!
Subscribe to the only podcast devoted to helping people under the flight path everywhere. It’s definitely not just about noise!Most Recent: Ep #25 Highly Automated (Flight Paths Part II)
The Issues
The Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) is the blueprint for increasing flight capacity by one third in the next ten years. It will have the same community impact as the Third Runway. In fact, it is happening now. How this is possible, and what it means for us.continue...
A two minute presentation on how the Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) will increase flight operations at Sea-Tac Airport as much as a new runway. Without a new runway.continue...
Does your home have a Port Package of noise mitigation windows and insulation? Having problems with your windows? Mold? You're not alone. Help us help you.continue... -
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The SAMP SEPA EIS Public Comment Period begins May 22, 2026. Learn what is coming and what you can do to help reduce the noise, the pollution, and obtain the compensation we’ve deserved for decades.Top Story
Ep #25 Highly Automated (Flight Paths Part II)
May 19, 2026
In our last episode, The 400,000lb tube going 200mph, we talked about what everyone always wants to talk about: flight paths. Because deep down, people just want the airplanes to go somewhere else. So much so, the subject always goes to extremes: Magical thinking, We're doomed, Don't like it? Move!'
We outlined the differences between 'tower' and 'TRACON' and FAA lingo like SIDs, STARs, RNAV, glide slopes. But beneath the hundreds of thousands of lines of code that define all the flight procedures for professionals, what you care about at Sea-Tac is The Four Post Plan--eight pages. That is all you need to know about why the airplanes follow these paths. The entire premise is simple: The Greater Good Argument. Improving efficiency also reduces the number of people impacted by aviation impacts. Win. win.
This second half looks at what it means to try to change one flight path using the two techniques: the courts or consultants.
We examine the Burien 250 - a procedure known as a CATEX, or 'automation' -- one of the hundreds of routine exceptions to the main procedures that never get discussed unless someone complains. These are handled by the lawyers you can hire, typically people who move back and forth between industry and communities.
Then there are the consultants. The people you did not know you needed to hire.
Both approaches are expensive, both are ad hoc, and neither has a good track record because as any professional will tell you: seen one airport, seen one airport. It really does take years to learn the territory.
The stats that people follow, the ones concerning flight paths and noise, are designed to fail. The thresholds needed to compel the FAA to change any flight path are so high they can never be exceeded at airports like Sea-Tac. CATEX, schmatex. That is The Casino. A compelling game designed to keep you playing and never win.
We do not talk about flight paths because we need a different kind of Greater Good Argument. We need to start developing a language of mitigation, something we don't know how to do because the only thing people think about today is "making the airplanes go somewhere else." The process has shut down our ability to think of other options.
As a test, perhaps we need to start asking everyone to pay a little. Not only passengers, but people within the TRACON who want their area given special treatment. Everyone must start ponying up in order to create the proper incentives. Otherwise, there will never be equity for people who cannot move.
After finishing this episode, we left something on the cutting room floor which we also left out of an earlier episode A-Weighted. We wanted to make it clear enough just how high various thresholds for being in violation of FAA standards really are for both noise and criteria pollutants. We said that this threshold is higher than the theoretical limit of the airport, a bold statement which happens to be true. We thought it would add too much to already long episodes. We will address that in a future episode.
To learn how you can make a difference:
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Under The Flight Path
Under The Flight Path: A Community History of Sea-Tac Airport. Help us complete the first comprehensive documentary of any major US airport; the impacts on the cities and the people.continue...
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