The Mexico Memorial airport at 5720 E. Liberty consists of two runways and a terminal which was built back in 2010. This public, city-owned airport is the home of Zenith Aircraft Company and sees its …
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The Mexico Memorial airport at 5720 E. Liberty consists of two runways and a terminal which was built back in 2010. This public, city-owned airport is the home of Zenith Aircraft Company and sees its fair share of traffic between business jets, and private planes.
There are a total of six pieces of navigational equipment that are owned and being maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration at the Mexico Memorial Airport which offers a significant financial break to the city.
“We are very fortunate that our airport has these particular pieces of equipment maintained by the FAA because if we had to maintain it that would be a substantial annual investment for the city of Mexico,” says City Engineer Drew Williford.
According to Williford, the equipment maintained by the FFA “provide(s) aviation safety to pilots landing at the airport”.
One such piece of equipment is called the localizer, otherwise known as LOC.
The localizer is a ground based navigation system that helps communicate to the pilot the location of the runway and aid them in landing. It uses VHF (very high frequency) signals to provide lateral information to the plane's navigation system.
Another piece of equipment are the PAPI (Precision Approach Path Indicators) lights. The PAPI system is similar to the LOC as it is part of landing navigation but instead of lateral, PAPI lights help a pilot understand their vertical position.
The white and red angled lights give incoming pilots valuable information on their slope; two white lights and two red lights means they are on the right path.
“The FAA funds all of the maintenance and upgrades for these systems,” explains airport manager Jay Jacobi. “They fix it all and we don’t spend anything ourselves.”
The original contract with the FAA expires this year on Sept. 30. In response, an offer was made to extend the services another 20 years, until Sept. 30, 2045.
The motion to sign the Memorandum of Agreement regarding the contract between the city of Mexico and the United States Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration passed unanimously.
