NAMA to Install New Landing Equipment at Airports

• NAMA to Install New Landing Equipment at Airports

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency has said it will soon deploy new Instrument Landing Systems in the nation’s airports to replace obsolete facilities.

To address communication challenges between pilots and air traffic controllers due to blind spots in the airspace, NAMA said on Tuesday that it had started extending the VHF coverage mostly in the North, covering Kaduna, Jos, Enugu and Benin.

The agency, which listed some of the ILS to be installed at the airports as the Distance Measuring Equipment and Doppler VOR, said in a statement that although the project would be capital intensive, it was determined to execute it.

The agency described the DME as “a transponder-based radio navigation technology that measures slant range distance by timing the propagation delay of the VHF or UHF radio signals,” adding that it would help to enhance pilot-air traffic controller communication.

The statement quoted the Director, Safety Electronics and Engineering Services, NAMA, Umar Faruk, as saying this when the newly elected executive officers of the National Association of Air Traffic Engineers met with him in his office.

He said the deployment of the equipment would be a phased process, starting with the Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Abuja airports, which he described as the busiest in the country.

Faruk stated that 10-watt radios had been put in place with the capacity to cover 150 nautical miles on aerodrome and approach, adding that the requirement was 70 miles’ coverage.

According to him, the facilities for Lagos West and East as well as Kano West and East have the capacity to cover 241 nautical miles at 41,000 feet and beyond, depending on the line of sight.

He also said that NAMA had adopted renewable energy, with solar power installations for all airports’ navigational and communications field equipment, adding that everything should be ready by the end of 2018.