While we are on the subject of VASIS in general (having strayed away from the article about rain blurring of windscreens), I recall flying a 737 into Bonriki airport, Tarawa, Kiribati. The runway was crushed coral and very rough. In those days (1977) there was no VASIS even though 727,737 and turbo-props operated through there. One day one of the Air Nauru pilots returned from Tarawa saying there is a new type of VASIS in place at one end but that it brought him very low.
Later, a NOTAM was issued by the Kiribati DCA saying the VASIS was operational and we assumed it had been flight tested by a navaid calibration aircraft. Wrong, as it turned out. I flew there and used the VASIS which consisted I think of a simple two light system - red and white single point lights. Having done a lot of T-VASIS calibration testing in DCA I had the feeling this particular VASIS was dodgy.
It turned out the local DCA had been conned into buying it from somewhere and by trial and error set it up. I understand it was a very ancient and primitive light system that looked like a pillar box for letter posting. But at least the Kiribati government could boast of VASIS for jet aircraft. After more reports from Air Nauru pilots that it brought aircraft in at a very flat angle the chief pilot of Air Nauru banned its use by company pilots. A letter from the chief pilot of Air Nauru to DCA Tarawa was sent asking if the Tarawa VASIS had been officially calibrated. The reply was that it had not been officially calibrated but that Air Pacific crews had said "it looked OK."
Eventually there were enough complaints by visiting pilots to convince Kiribati authorities to can the VASIS. It was dismantled and dumped in a shed on Bonriki airport. During one trip to Tarawa I had a look at the VASIS and it looked like a red painted Dalek sitting in a dark corner of the shed with wires and big spiders hanging all around it. I felt rather sorry for the creature but not for the spiders who lived in it. .
A few months passed and I again flew into Tarawa from Nauru. One of our passengers was an American FAA official on a tour of various airport facilities in the Pacific islands. I told him about the mysterious Dalek type VASIS installation dumped in the nearby shed. He had a look at it and got quite excited saying it would make a good museum piece for the FAA. Rumour had it that he had negotiated a sum of money with the local DCA because next we knew the Dalek VASIS had mysteriously vanished from the shed. I presume it now rests in a FAA Museum somewhere.
I still have that Kiribati Notam as a souvenir of that era. And still marvel at the all so innocent statement; " that the VASIS had not been officially calibrated but that Air Pacific crews had said "it looked OK."
