The future of the instrument landing system (ILS) at the Warsaw Municipal Airport is under discussion.
During Tuesday’s Warsaw Board of Aviation Commissioners meeting, Vice President John Yingling asked, in regards to the maintenance of the ILS, where were they at in regards to trying to get the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take it over.
The ILS is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather, according to information online.
Airport Manager Nick King responded that he and CHA Consulting have had a lot of discussion with the FAA.
“As you well know, the FAA has several columns of business, lines of business as they say. Finding the right person in the right line of business to even have the discussion took about four to five months anyway, just to find the person to talk to,” King said. “They are not - they being the FAA - are not necessarily opposed to it, but there’s a lot more red tape than we originally thought.”
He said he’s been speaking to some of the Warsaw Airport’s main corporate users about their opinion on the matter, and they asked why replace it?
“The ILS are not being replaced in smaller airports because the GPS approach that we have has the same accuracy as the ILS does. So we have two approaches at Warsaw that are as accurate with GPS that are GPS-based instead of land navigation-based like ILS is,” King said.
He and CHA have been having discussions - which they were going to bring up to the board in a month or two - about “is it a smart investment on the airport board’s part to put in $1 million into an ILS, into technology that will most likely not be supported in 20 to 25 years, if GPS does the exact same thing as ILS does?”
Ten years ago, he said they wouldn’t even be having the conversation but would be moving forward with ILS because no one had GPS because it was too expensive.
“Like everything else in the last five years, it is so much cheaper now. People are removing the instruments needed to land with ILS, to get rid of vacuum systems in their aircraft. They can still run the ILS via GPS, but why do we have to pay the $19,000 a year plus the $1 million to install it? And so, we’re having a very hard look at, is it fiscally responsible to replace the ILS?” King said.
He said they should still maintain the ILS for a few more years, but they’re going to have to have a conversation about if it is intelligent to put a $1 million into it.
Board President Jay Rigdon suggested King put a plan together for the board to review.
“Two of us were on the board when we got the ILS, and to think that we have now outlived the ILS system, it gets you a little bit,” Rigdon said.
Robert LaFayette, with CHA, offered, “We’re going through a pretty robust RSA and runway program for 9-27 where the ILS is located now. No matter what, during that discussion - the design and the planning and the programming for that runway - this is going to be a part of that discussion. So, if anything, I would offer not to table the discussion, but that discussion is going to take place regardless. It may just be a difference of timing, and so when Nick is talking about let’s maintain it for a few more years, a few more years might get you to where we may be potentially relocating that. And, given the new fleet mix and direction of some of the corporate stakeholders at the airport, it may be the right decision for FAA to take over and relocate the ILS later down the road.”
He advised the maintenance of the ILS until they get a little further along the runway programming might be the fiscally responsible thing to do.
King said if they have to shift the runway, it’s going to be $250,000 to $300,000 to move the ILS. “So that is the appropriate time to either replace it or remove it,” he said, to which LaFayette agreed.
LaFayette said if they shift the runway, “We’re going to have to do work on the localizer and the approaches anyway, and so at that time when we’re evaluating what’s the most appropriate approach for the 27 end of the runway, or the 9 for that matter, depending on how the programming shakes out, we’re going to have a really solid plan in that programming that I think the board’s really going to be happy with.”
Rigdon said he would like to have a plan for that if they’re getting to the end of the useful life for a technology.
King also reminded the board that he went to the Indiana Statehouse in mid-December to testify before the budget committee for the state grant.
“That was successful, and so we’ve been awarded a $2 million grant to replace taxi lane E-1 as we discussed in the last meeting,” he said. “And (Indiana Department of Transportation) emailed me today that they just received those funds, and so they sent the grant application and all that paperwork to my email and CHA (Consulting) and I are working on filling those out. As soon as the state gets that - they’re guessing about two weeks - it will be available to us so we can start reimbursing ourselves for eligible funds from that grant. So that will be great.”
Going through the December claims, King was asked about a claim from Michiana Contracting for $4,650. He said it was for the replacement of the beacon.
“So, I don’t know if you’ve driven by the airport and seen the new beacon up there. It’s a lot brighter,” King said, adding that they’ve received a lot of compliments about it and the pilots love it.
“The beacon that we replaced was supposed to have 1,000 watts of bulb power, and Michiana was estimating we had between 250 and 300 watts of actual power,” King stated, noting it was almost 60 years old and at the point where it needed replaced. “So we’re very glad to have that up.”
The new beacon is all LED and has the equivalency of a 10,000-watt light bulb. The entire LED is smaller than King’s iPad, he told the board.
The claims were approved.
In other business, the BOAC:
• Approved for Jay Rigdon to continue serving as president and John Yingling as vice president for 2024.
• Approved for the hours for weekend fuel sales to be reduced from “8 a.m. to 6 p.m.” to “8 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” as requested by King. He said that will give the airport additional hours of teamwork during the week.
• Agreed for Yingling to review the emergency plan for the airport with King.
• Agreed to reduce Bishop Farms’ lease on farming the airport’s property outside the fence from $24,421.50 in 2023 to $23,838.30 for 2024.
Bishop Farms was unable to farm a portion of the field on the east side of CR 100E in 2023 because of the sewer installation for the Tippecanoe-Chapman Sewer District. Bishop Farms had already put down a product down on the portion of farmground that didn’t end up getting used. Instead of the airport paying Bishop Farms damages, they will just pay slightly less for 2024.
This will be the second year for Bishop Farms to lease the ground.
• Announced the next meeting will be at 5:15 p.m. Feb. 13 in the City Hall Council Chambers.