The Sibulan-Dumaguete airport will soon get a major upgrade with the installation of satellite-based instrument flight rules (IFR) this month.
Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines Deputy Director General John C. Andrews said the Dumaguete airport is one of four domestic airports that will get the IFR this May. The other airports to be upgraded are in Butuan, Legaspi, and Laguindingan.
With this upgrade, planes can now take off and land even in bad weather. When aircraft flights are under satellite-based IFR, there are no visibility requirements which legally and safely allows flying through clouds or other conditions where there is zero visibility outside the aircraft.
IFR is a set of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations. The other set are visual flight rules (VFR).
IFR is defined in the Federal Aviation Regulations as: “Rules and regulations established by the FAA to govern flight under conditions in which flight by outside visual reference is not safe. IFR flight depends upon flying by reference to instruments in the flight deck, and navigation is accomplished by reference to electronic signals.”
The IFR is also referred to by pilots and controllers “to indicate the type of flight plan an aircraft is flying,” such as an IFR or VFR flight plan. (PNA)
