Get it right

Dear Editor,

I have followed with interest your stories about the ILS to be installed at the McCook airport.

I am glad that is coming. However, through the many years of flying that I have done I have noticed the many inaccuracies and faulty reporting about aviation in many newspapers around the country.

Your article in the editorial Saturday, Jan. 23, is no exception. For some reason, newspapers just cannot seem to get the truth written about airplanes.

Two statements you made in that editorial stand out as false. One, your statement of what VOR stands for is inaccurate. There is nothing "vertical" in the system, and "reading" was never part of the system.

VOR stands for Very high frequency Omni-directional Range. The radio signals emitted from the VOR are in the VHF part of the radio spectrum. Omni-directional means that the signal is in every direction laterally from the transmitter.

Range means that the aircraft receiving the signal can determine where it is with respect to the transmitter on a directional basis, with north being 0 degrees.

Secondly, the ILS system proposed for McCook will NOT offer landings in zero visibility. This is a category 1 ILS which offers approaches down to typically 200 feet off the ground and in 1/2 mile visibility.

The only zero visibility systems that I am aware of are for the military. Some large commercial operations have category IIIB approaches that offer landings in visibilities down to 600 feet of runway visual range.

This won't happen at McCook. The present minimums for McCook are a little over 400 feet ceiling and 1 mile visibility. The ILS will be a great improvement but there still will be times that aircraft will be unable to land even with the more accurate approach. Part of the public distrust of aviation is caused by the inaccurate reporting given to the aviation industry by the news media.

It would be great if you could correct the reporting you gave in your editorial.

Dan Baker

ATP 1972037

34 years a pilot

Cambridge