The Carson City Airport

and vacuum investment cast components for aerospace, energy, defense and commercial applications; SpecLine (aerospace spherical bearings); NAFCO USA (aerospace fasteners including design); and Chromalloy (aviation engineering, engineering analysis & support, metallurgical analysis). Moen reports that the CCA is finalizing an Airport Master Plan process that’s attempting to forecast the Airport’s development over the next 20 years - and that development includes physical growth: “As part of the plan, we identified, probably, about 75 acres that we’re looking at annexing in the future. And we already have about 50-plus acres of land available for development. So, to bring another 75 on, would satisfy some future development needs.” Regarding the CCA’s ongoing development, Moen admits that there is one major impediment standing in the way: “We have a couple of GPS non-precision approaches that serve our Airport, but we don’t have a precision instrument approach,” he begins. “A few years ago, the FAA, during a flight check inspection, implemented a night-time restriction on those approaches. So, that’s an issue; we may have 330 days of VFR (Visual Flight Rules) weather a year, but we have night, every day. So, we have just undergone a night-time instrument approach feasibility study.” “We hired a company called Lean Engineering to study how the night-time instrument approach restriction could be mitigated,” he continues. “And the firm came back to us and said, ‘It’s not a deal killer. We can work around that.’ So, in January, they submitted a final summary of the feasibility study, indicating that, through installation of a Runway Lead-in Light System, and a Medium Intensity Approach Lighting System, we can mitigate the restriction. The way that a lead-in light system works: it starts out about three miles from the Airport, and through a series of sequenced flashing lights, you can only see them from the air; they’ll be baffled so they’re not visible from the ground, but they would provide a path on that visual portion of the non-precision approach to the runway. OUR BUSINESS IS AVIATION. OUR PRIORITY IS YOU. PLANNING ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION CONTACT: MIKE BECKHOFF, P.E. (775) 346 - 3010 ARMSTRONGCONSULTANTS.COM