Narrative:

We have ARTS iie. This system has a feature that allows us to type *xyz and the system gives us a magnetic heading from the point we enter to xyz airport or navaid. Occasionally tower uses this feature to determine if a departing aircraft can climb on course and remain within our diverse vectoring area. In this case the tower did just that to get an aircraft on course expeditiously. This is not an unusual procedure; we frequently have aircraft filed direct to very small or obscure airports hundreds of miles away. So far so good; this was never a problem until.....our magnetic variation was adjusted on october 22; 2009. The headings used by the ARTS iie were not changed to reflect the magnetic variation change and are now 7 degrees off. In this case the aircraft departed runway 2L and was issued a right turn on course to akn; the akn showed 194 degrees; in fact the heading for akn was 201 degrees. The max turn allowed off runway 2L for IFR departures is 197 degrees. Fortunately the aircraft was above the MVA in a jiffy; so there was not really a hazard for this aircraft. Recommend; update the headings in the ARTS iie. There should be a checklist for facilities to use when they adjust their magnetic variations; we have had dozens of problems with this change over.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: FAI Controller voiced concern regarding local procedure utilizing ARTS IIE program that calculates magnetic headings for departure aircraft; claiming recent magnetic variation change was not modified in the ARTS program introducing potential safety issues.

Narrative: We have ARTS IIE. This system has a feature that allows us to type *XYZ and the system gives us a magnetic heading from the point we enter to XYZ airport or navaid. Occasionally Tower uses this feature to determine if a departing aircraft can climb on course and remain within our diverse vectoring area. In this case the Tower did just that to get an aircraft on course expeditiously. This is not an unusual procedure; we frequently have aircraft filed direct to very small or obscure airports hundreds of miles away. So far so good; this was never a problem until.....our magnetic variation was adjusted on October 22; 2009. The headings used by the ARTS IIE were not changed to reflect the magnetic variation change and are now 7 degrees off. In this case the aircraft departed Runway 2L and was issued a right turn on course to AKN; the AKN showed 194 degrees; in fact the heading for AKN was 201 degrees. The max turn allowed off Runway 2L for IFR departures is 197 degrees. Fortunately the aircraft was above the MVA in a jiffy; so there was not really a hazard for this aircraft. Recommend; update the headings in the ARTS IIE. There should be a checklist for facilities to use when they adjust their magnetic variations; we have had dozens of problems with this change over.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.