On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:44:30 GMT, Sydney Hoeltzli
wrote:

Paul Tomblin wrote:

There are 5026 public airports

Thanks Paul!

Any way to tell how many of 'em already have ILS?

In theory, I suppose the $886 million which could have
put ILS at another 10% of the public airports, will
enable nice low approach minimums at many more.

But I'm wondering how many of those other airports just
won't meet the TERPS criteria for a lower approach,
and won't gain much from WAAS.

Maybe I'm being too negative here, I dunno.

Cheers,
Sydney

I have a flying buddy who has reason to be informed about big vacuum
tubes. The other day, we were talking about LORAN and he told me the
feds had already stopped ordering new tubes and were working through
their spares. We didn't talk about VHF, so I don't know if anything
similar is true for VOR/ILS, but I imagine the same philosophy holds.

It makes sense. I was talking to another buddy who sells obsolete
MIL-SPEC ICs for old but still-in-use military systems. He reckons
the current premium on these parts is around a thousand percent, and
will only go higher until the systems are replaced with newer ones
that use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts or the stock of old ICs
is exhausted.

So using the WAAS money for new ILSs would probably have been a
short-sighted economy.

I dunno if that makes you feel any better.

Don