Diverse Vector Areas

Imagine youre departing into a low overcast, and the tower assigned you a heading. ATC has some way to keep you from hitting anything on that vector, right? Yeah…sorta.

Diverse Vector Areas (DVAs) have been established at some larger airports for a safe and standardized way to guarantee obstacle clearance for aircraft departing on radar vectors. DVAs have been surveyed and found to be clear of obstructions on a standard-or published non-standard-climb gradient. Theyve recently started to appear in the terminal procedures publication.

Key Takeaways:

• Diverse Vector Areas (DVAs) are published procedures at some airports that guarantee obstacle clearance for aircraft receiving radar vectors immediately after departure, based on rigorous surveys and TERPS analysis.
• At airports without DVAs, radar vectoring below the Minimum Vectoring Altitude (MVA) relies on controllers observing a subset of obstacles on radar and using local procedures, which lack the rigorous validation of DVAs.
• DVAs enhance departure safety by providing a standardized, validated method for obstacle clearance, requiring pilots to adhere to specific climb criteria (e.g., continuous climb, standard/published non-standard climb gradient).
• Pilots are responsible for obstacle clearance until receiving a radar vector and, at airports without a published DVA, should refer to the Obstacle Departure Procedure (ODP) for protection, especially if non-standard climb requirements exist.

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