March 24, 2012

ORH Navigation Improvements

I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about here. Can someone help em?

  1. What needs to be done at ORH?
  2. How much will it cost?

ACCIDENTALLY DELETED SOME COMMENTS SORRY

10 comments:

jose said...

Its ok...if you go back in time to your october 17 2011 blog, when jetblue was considering flights out of either providence or worcester, jetblue prefered providence cause it had a access road and something about their navigation, sorry I'm not home so I can't repost that blog.

Jahn said...

And again, to all you God dam city councilors who are like the pot calling the kettle black or who pass city nuisance and snow shoveling ordinces that exempt the city from them

You are taking DA to task for not properly escrowing advance travel payments, yet all you Publicty whores are doing the exact same thing when it comes to city retireee futures costs for pension and medical insurance.

The difference, instead of being $2M like it is with DA, it's more $900M in unpaid moneys necessary to fund city employee retirements.

Please get off your hypocritical soapboxes. Can a soapbox be hypocritical? :).

jose said...

what i would like to know and im sure everyone else too, is will massport actually upgrade the navigation system? its been almost 5 months now since jet blue sad no due to this issue. massport knows what needs to be done. maybe someone from the boston herald can go to massport and see what they are planning to do about the airport instead of stopping by the airport shocked to find out its empty. or the telegram and gazette

Anonymous said...

from the massport website:

Conveniently located in the heart of Central Massachusetts and operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority, Worcester Regional Airport's amenities include a $15.7 million passenger terminal and over $12 million worth of airside improvements such as lighting systems, navigational aids and a new control tower.

The airport has commercial service provided by Direct Air and extensive general aviation services & amenities including a fixed-base operator.

so then why have a hard time bringing airlines to serve from there?

Jahn said...

"Conveniently located..."? Surely they jest? I mean come on a convenient location is the biggest hindrance to Worc Airports success. This statement is such hogwash.

And dare I ask, what airport doesnt have a passenger terminal, lighting systems, navigational aids, and a control tower? Sterling airport maybe? No wait maybe they do have all of these. Must be Lancaster Airport that doesnt have these so called amenities.

From Websters: 1964
amenities (a men'i ties) n pl. coutesies and civilities of social life.

If I was general manager of an airport and this is the best my advertising/sales/promotional team could do I would fire em all and bring in a couple of Marketing 101 students from Worc State Univ. MY good God!

Nick said...

But what does JetBlue mean by upgraded nav aides? What specifically needs to be upgraded, the ILS, approach lighting?

jose said...

What I don't get is on their website they state over 12 million in airside approvements including navigational aid. So what is jetblue talking about when they say orh needs to improve the navigational system?????? Is it massport or the airliners? Considering this is massachusetts I don't think we will get the truth.

Steve Foley said...

Bill, I believe that's all detailed in the IMG report from 2008. The link to that report no longer works on the City of Worcester Website.

There are three categories of Instrument Landing Systems, known as (brilliantly) Category I, Category II and Category III.

Category I, which I'm pretty sure ORH has, will guide a plane down to 200 feet above the ground. From there, the pilot must be able to see the runway, or must break off the approach.

Category II will guide the plane down to 100 feet above the runway.

Category III will guide a plane equipped with an autoland system all the way to the ground.

I don't know how many carriers (if any) typically equip their aircraft with autoland systems.

The big issue is that clouds are generally the same height above sea level (not above ground level). That means that when clouds are at 1000 feet above sea level, they are 980 feet above Boston, 945 feet above Providence, 827 feet above Bradley, 734 feet above Providence, and 9 feet BELOW Worcester.

You've also got the Catch-22 situation with regards to installing and maintaining a Category II ILS: It doesn't make financial sense to install a multi-million dollar system, that also costs millions to maintain on an ongoing basis, when nobody is using it.

On the other hand, not having the Cat II is likely a detriment to attracting new carriers based on the geography of Worcester, and the higher probability of unsuitable landing conditions when compared to the other airports in the region.

Jahn said...

TY., steve. Very informative

Nick said...

I find it strange that they say the new control tower, the control tower is still behind the times b/c of lack of radar. They can't even track planes coming into their own airport. They need binoculars to see the aircraft. So on a cloudy or foggy day they're screwed.