No more Foggles!
Systems Upgrade Should Beat Airport Fog
Thw West Australian, 21 June 2014
Geoffrey Thomas, Aviation Editor
Perth Airport will significantly upgrade its aircraft instrument landing system over the next 12 months, which should almost eliminate delays caused by fog. Yesterday, the airport confirmed to The Weekend West that talks with airlines and Airservices Australia were at an advanced stage. The announcement came after a day of chaos at the airport, with the travel plans of thousands disrupted when fog blanketed Perth Airport for more than six hours.
About 45 flights were delayed or diverted, some as far as Adelaide, because of customs and immigration requirements, setting in motion knock-on delays of at least 24 hours for many passengers.
The fog started rolling in at 9.30pm on Thursday and lifted about 5.20am yesterday.
Perth Airport has a CAT 1 instrument landing system. Under CAT 1, pilots must be able to see the runway from a height of 61m with forward visibility of 800m. The CAT 3b system to be installed reduces that visibility height to just 15m and forward visibility to only 75m, almost eliminating diversions.
Most international and many domestic aircraft are capable of CAT3b operations, if the airport is equipped.