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Calibration aircraft: A stitch in time

Common sense seems to have prevailed with the acquisition of multi-million dollars calibration aircraft. WOLE SHADARE writes that Nigeria is saving so much for in-house navaids calibration and possible commercialisation
Intervention
Safety is the number one priority for air transportation industry, which is the second largest industry sector in the world with regard to revenue after oil and gas. Globally, governments and airport managers spend billions on safety, including on safety beacons (called navigational aids) that help pilots land safely. These systems are calibrated periodically from the air to ensure they work and comply with international regulations.
For many years, Nigeria through the agency responsible for airspace management contracted the calibration of its navigational aids to Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (L’Agence pour la Sécurité de la Navigation aérienne en Afrique et à Madagascar, otherwise known as ASECNA.
However, Nigeria a few months ago, decided to acquire state of the art calibration aircraft of her own.
Not a few believed that the Beechcraft aircraft was acquired at the cost of $8.5 million. The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, disclosed that the agony of contracting it to South Africa at about $500,000 every six months was over.
He said, “Our airspace is safer. Thanks to Mr. President, we started and finished during your regime.”
Explaining the usefulness of the aircraft, Sirika said: “The purpose of this aircraft is to calibrate our equipment and aids in the country for the purpose of flight operations. We used to have one in Nigeria but for the last two decades, we never had one.”
He added that the procurement of the aircraft was based on the fact that when the Abuja airport runway was being constructed, there was the need recalibrate all the landing aids at the time.
According to him, “this is to ensure they are working in perfect order. The country has a lot to gain from the investment.”
ICAO requirement
Every contracting state to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is required in terms of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, commonly known as the Chicago Convention, and its Annexes, to ensure the safety of navigational aids at international airports.
Consequently, each contracting state is obliged to provide in its territory airports, radio services, meteorological services and other air navigation facilities to facilitate international air navigation, in accordance with the standards and recommended practices (SARPs) established from time to time pursuant to the convention.
The most relevant in this regard are Annexes 10 (Aeronautical Telecommunications) and Annex 14 (Aerodromes). Standard 2.7 of Annex 10, Volume 1 requires that radio navigational aids of the types covered by the specifications in Chapter 3 of the Annex, example like instrument landing systems (ILS) and very high frequency omnidirectional range (VOR) and available for use by aircraft engaged in international air navigation shall be the subject of periodic ground and flight tests to ensure that they meet certain required specified standards. Annex 14 specifies requirements to be met by visual aids to navigation.
The realisation of the goal of safe, efficient and effective air navigation is highly reliant on the precision of the navigational aids in use. The function of flight calibration is essential to the safety of air navigation.
Capital flight
The newly acquired calibration aircraft has been estimated to save Nigeria at least N400 million yearly.
The aircraft, a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 (B350) for the calibration of navigational aids at airports nationwide, ends the era of hiring such plane every six months at the cost of about $500,000.
Instrument Landing System (ILS) that is calibrated twice a year-February and November. Instrument Landing System (ILS) must be calibrated every six months because of the level of accuracy required. The Very High Frequency (VHF) Omni-Directional Range (VOR) is calibrated once in a year, and the radar system is once every three years. If there is repair work on any of the navigational equipment, or total replacement, it has to be calibrated.
A source at the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) said the demand for calibration exercise was huge in Africa and Nigeria has just made an inroad into the supply end of the market.
“More so, that this is the first calibration aircraft owned by government of a West African country. There are other countries to calibrate for in Africa, with the marketing done properly. The aircraft cannot be lying fallow because of the commercial viability in the continent. The market extends to the rest of Africa because of the need,” the source said.
Expert’s view
Describing the essence of calibration, the Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, told New Telegraph that they installed navigational aids that are supposed to guide pilots on airplanes to the centre of the runways in a manner they can land safely.
His words: “If the guidance is incorrect, it becomes unsafe and the requirements by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have laid down for us on a global scale how often we should calibrate, measure against standards.
“ILS are supposed to be calibrated every six months, VORs every twelve months What we have been doing in recent past, is that we have been contracting either to ASECNA or other companies out of the country either in South Africa and paying them to provide the services.”
He explained that two ways to look at it is capital flight, lamenting that they are paying people to provide services for the country for what they can do themselves.
“On the other hand, we need to benefit from the technology by having our people becoming flight inspectors. We will also benefit by virtue of the fact that it is next door. So, if somebody complains that Lagos ILS is not functioning properly, we say no problem. With our ground engineers we call them to do a round check.
“After that, you can call the flight department to come and calibrate it. You can’t do that with ASECNA because their airplanes might outside doing other jobs. It is not that our airplanes cannot be doing other jobs, it will but at least within our beck and call. So, to that extent, we start to benefit from it tremendously and would save a lot of money,” he added.
Last line
The newly acquired aircraft If not commercialised, might be underutilised. There is plenty of work that could be done around here with it. In the whole of West Africa, Nigeria has a very robust aviation industry. It has almost 30 airports and each one of them has at least an aid.
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