Ahead of the March 8 closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has rounded off the routine calibration of the Very High Omni directional Radio Range/Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME) and the flight commissioning of the Instrument Landing System/Distance Measuring Equipment (ILS/DME) at the Kaduna Airport.
NAMA’s director of safety electronics and engineering services, Engr. Farouk Umar said the calibration was aim at ensuring accuracy, reliability and efficiency of facilities at the airport.
Umar who led the NAMA team of engineers in the installation of the facilities at the airport described the exercise as very successful.
“Kaduna airport is on full components of navigational aids, functioning at optimal levels. We can gladly report that Kaduna airport can now safely land aircraft even in critical weather conditions as far as navigational aids are concerned,” he said.
The component parts of the facilities which include two VOR transmitters, two DMEs co-located with the VORs, two localizer transmitters, two glideslope transmitters and two DMEs co-located with the glideslope all passed the flight calibration test.
The flight calibration was handled by Omni-Blue Aviation Ltd along with their technical partners (FCSL of United Kingdom) in collaboration with NAMA engineers who carried out the installation, alignment and parameter adjustment during the exercise.
The calibration manager, Engr. Akeem Ogunmola said the flight exercise which started from Kaduna will extend to Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Bauchi.
In Bauchi, he said the calibration team would be commissioning three systems which include ILS/DME, VOR/DME and Non-directional beacon.
Also to be calibrated are facilities at the Port Harcourt and Lagos international airports.