Mildura Airport ILS - Wrong Way?
 

Is the Mildura ILS being built at the 'wrong' end..?

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/austr...?ocid=msedgdhp

Cheers (?)

How very Australian.

Real question is why are they bothering with ILS. Should be GLS in both directions.

Hahahahaha. Typical. Geez this country and all the politicians in it are useless. What a waste of $2 million plus. Morons.

If its going in as a training aid it needs to accomodate the highest use runway direction. If it's going in as a Cat 1 that is actually useful it needs about $3 million worth of additional lights. It appears to be neither. Would it have helped back when Qantas and Virgin were running on fumes? If so, goodo and may save someones skin in the future.

If one of the main beneficiaries is a local flying school, can your average bug smasher even fly a GLS approach?

Cockpit presentation is exactly the same as ILS. Easy as . All you need is a multi mode receiver. ILS will be a back up navaid in 10 years time.

No that's why it has to be a ILS.

And how much does that cost and how much weight will it add??

The other issue with the ILS being at the other end will be opposite direction traffic problems. ie aircraft landing into wind with people doing practice ILS's on the other end with the tailwind.

Typical of Australian aviation to spend millions on an installation just as it is becoming obsolete.
GBAS , GLS and RNP are the future. Training new pilots to fly an ILS only is as useful as an NDB approach.
But , of course , this is Australia. Sigh............

What is wrong with pprune? In one thread you all bash the decommissioning of ground based aids then in the next you scoff at an ILS being put in.

?

Not me.

Have flown hundreds of GLS and RNP approaches. They are the best thing since sliced bread , especially in remote areas outside conventional navaid coverage. Spending millions on an ILS is idiotic.

I 100% agree. But the cost of that technology is greater than the purchase price of your average small aircraft. F100's/EMB 120's/SAAB 340 don't do RNP/GLS approaches either and they are a significant number of aircraft on the Australian Register flying to remote areas.

Have to agree with George there, RNP approaches are the way to go for the future. I've flown a handful albeit in VMC and it was nice to watch a curved approach between terrain down close to an ILS cat 1 minima. As for GLS, aren't QF the only operator approved to fly a GLS approach at the moment?

Mildura Airport management has decided to install the ILS on what it calls the "Adelaide end" of its main runway, even though weather conditions suggest the equipment would be more useful at the opposite end.

So what do they call the other end of the runway, "The Canberra end". So if you win the toss, which end are you going to kick.
Just imagine if Dick kept writing "Two Years in the Aviation Hall of Doom" what number edition would be up too.

Which runway to install an ILS on can be influenced by a number of factors such as average wind, noise sensitive area and protection of the signal out to the specified angles and distances. The missed approach procedure may be a factor as well, At some airports, such as Phuket, the localiser can't be lined up with the runway because it ends in the sea and is situated at the side of the runway before the end instead. A slightly offset approach with a higher minima is required, 1.4' offset with a D/H 458 feet agl for CAT C aircraft rather than a typical 200 feet agl D/H.

In Cairns, the ILS often goes out during a cyclone due to it going underwater.

Like most things in aviation, it's a compromise.

Which is why we invented RNP.........
The original QF RNP charts had curved approaches down to 200’ . Everywhere. Then the geniuses at AirServices decided that it was no good having QF only doing these special approaches. Generic, all type , all operator approaches were the solution! Minima shot up to around 700’.
Useless. The technology is way ahead of the regulators. Cat 3 GLS has been demonstrated . ILS installations will soon be stranded assets.

Which is great in theory in your jet but still useless to the predominate users of the airfield, Saab’s, Dashes and GA.

Operators comply with the regulations that they have to comply with. Nothing more , nothing less . And they hate spending money . And regulators hate change. But fact is that price of Multimode Receivers is plummeting as they become common everywhere else in the world but Australia. They will be standard in the not too distant future. Spending millions on an ILS is idiotic. Australia leading from behind , as usual.

'History' repeating itself......... It reminds me of 'de good ole days' when the FSU that USED to be there was built......

Apparently, during construction, the foreman or whoever, got his N mixed up with his S, or L with R, or whatever, and the pad for the building was installed - the wrong way around.

So they simply finished the construction, including the internal fit- out, and the MET had had the nice look out over the RWYS, whilst the FSO viewed the carpark and the lawn where the 'Stevenson Screen' was.!

(Yeah, I am acutely aware that 'we' were not supposed to look out of the window anyway - but in locations where 'we' could, it certainly assisted in the occasional emergency... e.g. Dubbo (Upstairs) Derby (Upstairs), KAL - ground floor but BIG window installed especially....)

Cheeerrrrssss (?):eek:

I say dust off DME [A] and be all Australian. We know best in all things aviation. Just read PPRUNE..