Importance of Runway lights in Catarman National Airport

Classified as a level two or class two principal airports by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, which is a body, associated with the Department of transport and communications in the Philippines, this, therefore, makes the airport a minor domestic one. The body is responsible for operations of not only this airport but also of all other airports in the Philippines except the major international but also other airports in the Philippines except the international ones. Having understood the critical issue of safety and why airports need continuous improvements, this paper takes a more in-depth look at airport improvement the main case being the Catarman airport. In the handling of air travel safety, safe landing and safe take off are essential and must be given the priority.

There is no chance for error when a mega aircraft comes to land in an airfield. The Greenlights mark off the runway while a red light highlights the obstacles and ends of the runways (Burns, 2011). Else, the blue lights run parallel to the taxiways demarcating them while the runways must have either yellow or white lights marking them, this forms the safety standards for every pilot to follow. The Catarman National Airport in recent times has risen in priority to the government of the Philippines from which it received an appropriation of a considerable share of funds. The Catarman airfield received a 15 million peso budgetary allocation from the national government of the Philippines to aid in the improvement of its terminal house ("Catarman National Airport Information | Skyscanner Philippines," 2018).

2 Background information Since the late 1920s, when airports began using lights on landing fields, the fields were marked with beacon lights that rotate so that they could be easily traced after dark. To give some background information, the lights will be discussed in depth. The following are the main divisions of the airport lights: the approach light systems, the runway light systems, taxiway lighting, and the general airport lighting lights. Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) lights are inclusive of four lights, and they are arranged horizontally. Typically, the lights can be either white or red, and this, however, depends on the position of the aircraft on the glideslope. A model PAPI light is situated on the left-hand side of the runway, and the four lights are colored white when the aircraft is too high relative to the glide slope.

The beacon lights are powerful rotating lights that can be seen from a considerable distance. Different beacons are erected to help differentiate between civilian airports and military airports. While military airports’ beacons rotate white and green with two white lights for each green light the public use airport beacons, rotate white and green only. Heliports switch between green, yellow, and white lights. The airport buildings, other tall buildings have a steady red beacon light on their tops to help low flying aircraft avoid a collision. Catarman Northern Samar airport is still improving since 2012; one of its improvements is the airport itself like the departure and the arrival area. Otherwise, the runway still needs some significant improvement, and one of this is the runway lights that will help to improve the airport in many aspects.

It will help the airport safety feature mainly on the passenger and the airline when departure and arrival of aircraft more likely if it rains that, the pilot cannot see the runway when landing. Runway lights help the pilot to see the airport even if the visibility is adequately reduced, and it will also accommodate night flights that will help improve the travel time flexibility. The most important feature of runway light is for visibility on high altitude or for aircraft flying around the area. Other modes of transportation in Catarman include Pedicabs and tricycles that run within the town. There are jeepneys, vans, and multi-cabs, which travel out to other places that are situated in the province. Between Manila or Tacloban and Catarman, passengers are ferried by taxies and bus companies too.

If the Catrman airport is upgraded and improved, then it is going to add to the list of the means of transportations that are existent only that, it will improve reliability on the air transports more than it has been. The research 1. Further researching in this area, will enable boosting of confidence to practice, and it will open more information on this neglected area of research both to the public and the professionals and open up ways to improve on the same. Literature review 2. 1 Introduction From large airports to small airstrips and privately owned airstrips, all aircraft landing sites must be involved in the daily improvement process. Before world war II, the national government’s involvement in airports’ and aviation operations was minimal, and the airports were viewed as federal works relief activities from which some monies ( about 150 million dollars) were spent to improve some of the airfields (Kirk,2010).

However, the government “defense department’s eventual need for a strong network of airports during the world war led to the first federal support for airport construction,” this formed a major turnaround in the history of airports. , 2006) Illustrates that the recent standardized screening is being done uniformly on all travelers like the metal detector, the baggage X-rays and the advanced screening for risks has become more commonplace. The advanced screening includes but is not limited to explosives trace detection, scanning on all passengers and their luggage, bag searches, and physical pat-downs. (Persico and Todd, 2005) wrote that selection for advanced risk screening can be decided based on the predetermined “risk level” of a traveler achieved through a random selection or the Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening Systems (CAPPS II).

In a different study (Gkritza et al. , 2006); found out that the upsurge in the use of advanced risk screening has tremendously intensified the overall safety of all public air travelers-more especially the commercial air passengers in the world over. It, therefore, suggests that the humiliations encountered by the Arab-Israelis may have had total negative during security screening by Israeli Arabs may have had adverse effects on their trust level in the screening staffs, this consequently put a negative bearing on overall safety measures. 3 Summary From the researches that have been done and those that have been reviewed in this paper, it is clear that the level of security and therefore safety has been heightening since inception and later improvements. Apart from that, other challenges face the issue of security like the Although few challenges are facing the systems that arise from human behaviors and perceptions by others, the reviews did indicate a positive story about the security screening systems.

Also, the screening system has boosted confidence in both travelers and the airport staff safety. 4 Notice of gaps in knowledge Although there are numerous researches done on the topic of safety in airports and its many angles, few works have been done on the runway appearance and almost no research done on runway lights, and yet they contribute a lot to the safety of all the parties in the airport. 2 Data collection approaches Using online surveys, which included several questionnaire items data was collected. Also, a few interviews were conducted of some of the sampled target audiences that were willingly ready to be interviewed. In the current study, respondents provided ratings for how safe they felt with an airport with runway lights versus one that had no runway lights like the small and private airfields.

The airport control-room staff, pilots, groundsmen, and taxi operators were queried on the easy of an emergency landing on a field with runway lights compared to one without. They were required to answer on several scales that were different. The questionnaires can be used to collect data that is considered classified or confidential as they guarantee a high degree of confidentiality To speed up the process and reduce the amount of time the questionnaires had to be automated by setting them as online surveys. The move saved not only time but also financial resources involved in giving feedback and made the process of data gathering easy. The online surveys meant that data handling and input was automated and hence sped up.

4 Limitations of strategy The use of questionnaires extremely costly regarding consuming time, setting up, analyzing, giving and receiving feedback, reporting and even transcribing. The procedure required a massive infusion of financial resources, and some respondents like the visually impaired are left out of the research for their inability to ready given their physical condition. In this research, three important ethical aspects will be considered. To begin with, to guarantee the confidentiality of the respondents was paramount; their names were not caught as a significant aspect of information accumulation (Neale, and Hanna, 2012). The personality of those who took part in the research was to stay unknown. It was to be accomplished by giving the respondents a coded identity in the form of numbers.

Just vital data and information of the workers, for example, age and sexual orientation were caught and recorded to distinguish between different groups of airport workers, users and the factors that they think affect their safety most. Then in the second step, this model was adjusted to full structural equation models to investigate associations among the noted endogenous and exogenous constructs. The goodness of fit was then checked on these models. At large, the goodness of fit is tested using Chi-square test, which tells of how the two models- the theoretical model and independence model are comparable. For a model to be considered to show the goodness of fit, then the Chi-square statistic must be non-significant. The chi-square test undertakes multivariate normality and is exceptionally susceptible to sample size and regardless of a good model fit, it often demonstrates large samples significance.

1 Measured and latent variables The technique for measuring the linear correlation between factors that determine the importance of runway lights be called the Structural equation modeling. Bearing in mind that these relationships can be directional or non-directional in kind regression coefficients that connect the variables denote them. In the current study, both latent and measured variables were a composition of the models. Factor analysis, therefore, assumes that covariance between variables that are measured can be better explained by underlying latent factors that are present. 5 Findings From the research that was conducted at the Catarman National airport, it became clear that airfield lighting is as equally crucial to pilots as a suitable runway. Therefore, it is necessary to offer course and identification to those in the air and the ground crews as well.

Recommendations It is recommended that lighting lights be installed to assist pilots in making the difference between major roads and the airport runways. Whether local, private, or commercial, airfields must install airfield runway lights for night landing or emergency landing of other planes that may be under distress. Many companies provide unique runway lighting solutions but choosing a reputable company to contract will be in the best of the safety of the airport crew and those yet to land. Several companies have begun offering runway lighting solutions, and it is high time the sector was regulated to control uniformity (standardization) and compliance and up the effort to stamp out the rogue companies that install low-quality lights that might mislead and misguide.

I disagree f. I strongly disagree. I. I will prefer to use Catarman airport during my night air travels to Northern Samar. _____ II. If the Catarman airport had runway lights to aid in landing and takeoff ground crew will be found at the correct position at the right time, and this will minimize their incursion danger____ (1 = extremely poorly to 9 = extremely well) Aviators 1. Overall, I think runway lights guide me and keep me alert when am at the cockpit ready to land _____ Key: (1 = completely inappropriate to 9 = extremely appropriate) 2. Overall, I think the absence of runway lights at Catarman airport directs aviators____ when they are landing. Key: (1 = extremely poorly to 9 = extremely well) 3. Overall, I think I am _____ confident about the judgments made by pilots at Catarman airports when landing at night given that it lacks the runway lights.

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