New system provides road signs in the sky for pilots

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jason Barebo
  • 509th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. --  Many people use various systems of navigation while traveling by car. Some prefer the latest and greatest in Global Positioning Systems to get them around while others use the very low-tech road signs provided by state and local highway departments. However, as one individual put it, road signs are hard to come by at 40,000 feet. 

While pilots do have at their disposal an assortment of navigational tools, such as GPS and Instrument Landing Systems, the Tactical Air Navigation system plays an essential part to landing an aircraft. 

TACAN provides pilots with a distance and bearing from a ground or ship-based station. An aircraft will send out a query signal to a TACAN ground beacon. It works together with the ILS by steering pilots toward the Whiteman runway and as they began their approach, pilots will use the ILS to correct their final approach to the centerline of the runway, said Staff Sgt. Christopher Buisman, 509th Communications Squadron. 

"We rely on all of our systems to land," said Capt. Richard Lyon, a B-2 pilot with the 393rd Bomb Squadron. However, if the TACAN system is down, pilots are typically forced to land elsewhere, he said. 

In order to improve the reliability of Whiteman's TACAN system, members of the 509th Communications Squadron, 509th Civil Engineer Squadron and contractors are working to replace the current ground-based TACAN antenna with a newer, more reliable one. A $1.5 million project scheduled for completion July 21.

Replacing the antenna and internal "guts" of the system will give pilots and airfield operations a more reliable system, said 1st Lt. Donald Roley, 509th Operations Support Squadron airfield operations flight systems officer. "When you are talking about reliability and air traffic control services, (TACAN) is a very important system. 

"We should get some better coverage, but we will see the most benefit from the increased up time allowing us to launch out and recover aircraft day or night in any kind of weather," he added. "We are very happy to have this new system."