25th Jan 2018 | Elizabeth Sasu
The Honourable Minister for Aviation, Mad. Cecilia Dapaah, has tasked the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority and Lands Commission to remove encroachers from the Aviation site that houses the Doppler VHF Omnidirectional Range (DVOR) at East Legon. This development has come into play as a result of complaints from staff of GCAA about encroachers on their land.
As we went round the facility, we realized that there were new buildings coming up close to the perimeter wall. According to the minister, no building or structure must come 150 metres close to the perimeter wall and those who are even building according to the 150 meter dimension must not build high rise buildings because it may interfere with the efficacy of the machines which direct planes to land.
Mr Simon Allotey of GCAA stated categorically that,” instead of the equipment giving the pilots the correct bearing, because of the distortion, it may take it off the runway or if its overflying the airspace, it will take it off-course, so there is a safety risk there”. He asked the public to respect the current regulations of developing around the station or around various civil aviation facilities.
Mad. Cecilia Dapaah appealed to Ghanaians to make sure, ”we do not have structures or engage in nefarious activities that will compromise the integrity of our machines and equipments”, that a lot has been spent to achieve this success in the skies meaning, ”the safety in the skies and we will never compromise on that”. She further quoted the Vice President of the republic by saying that, ”the Vice President at times says that people don’t read or if they read, they don’t want to absorb what they’ve read”.
Mr Nsafoa of the Lands Commission said that, they will need a court order to remove the encroachers because they didn’t have permit to build on that land and even if they did, the permits will be revoked if found to be, ”inimical to the existence of this structure”.
Lets Educate ourselves a bit
According to Wikipedia, VOR/DME refers to combined radio navigation station for aircraft, which consists of two radio beacons, placed together, a VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) and distance measuring equipment(DME). VOR produces an angle between the station and the receiver in the aircraft, while DME does the same for range. Together, they provide the two measurements needed to produce a navigational “fix” using a chart.
The VOR system was first introduced in the 1950s, but became much more practical with the introduction of low-cost solid state receivers in the 1960s. DME was a modification of World War II-era navigation systems like Gee-H, and began development in 1946. Like VOR, it only became practical with the introduction of solid state receivers during the 1960s.
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), commissioned the newly installed Doppler Very High Frequency Omni-Range (DVOR) and Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) on December 8th, 2011 during the 67th International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO ) Day celebration .
Source: gh-aviation
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