There are new changes to the Smithers Regional Airport.
They now have a new landing system for their aircraft. The system is called RNAV and VNAV.
This will guide the aircraft to land by using a set of GPS coordinates that help stay within the vicinity of the runway and to land much lower.
The previous landing system at the airport was higher and not as easy for the aircraft to land, which became a problem during bad weather.
Airport Manager, Rob Blackburn said the new system should improve the number of planes landing significantly.
“As that aircraft approaches they’re locked on to that virtual pipe in space, then they are able to see that lower elevation, whereas if they’re flying around at a thousand feet in the previous landing system it was unlikely that they would see the runway lights or to lock into that approach,” said Blackburn.
The airport has been working on this project for three years and it was officially published in June.
Blackburn also said it is hard to get this kind of project approved.
“We’re really excited that we got something like this approved and it’s in operation and our new aircraft that are coming to Smithers are using it,” said Blackburn.
Blackburn also warns that as they can land more planes that there can be times where the weather is too bad that they can’t land.