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Airservices checks navigation equipment in regional centres

Airservices Flight Inspection Service to visit regional & remote areas checking navigation aids to ensure safety of Australia’s flying public

Airservices Flight Inspection Service (FIS) will visit regional and remote areas of the country this February checking navigation aids to ensure the safety of Australia's flying public.

As part of a long-term nation-wide program the functional accuracy of over 500 pieces of critical air navigation equipment is checked on a three-year rotational basis.

These routine checks of Airservices air navigation equipment are critical to aviation safety at regional and major airports, aerodromes and airstrips.

Based in Brisbane, the inspection service will carry out 26 separate routine or special flight inspections on equipment at:

NSW - Sydney, Richmond WA - Perth, Kalgoorlie, Albany, Caiguna, Gin Gin, Beermullah, Meekatharra, Paraburdoo, Norseman, Pearce SA - Moomba. Equipment being tested includes instrument landing systems (ILS), distance measuring equipment (DME), non-directional beacons (NDB) and Sydney Airport's ground based augmentation system (GBAS).

Positional and navigational information is relayed from these aids to aircraft to support pilots with air navigation and airport arrivals.

The inspections will be performed by specialist aircrew using a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air aircraft and precision equipment to collect data.

This data is then analysed by Airservices maintenance and engineering specialists to ensure each navigation aid is operating accurately.