airport/documents/Mesquite Master Plan Final.pdf - The City of ...

at least 35 feet wide for aircraft in ARC
C/D-II. Current and future planned
taxiways meet this standard.
The existing parallel taxiway is located
300 feet west of the runway (centerline
to centerline). This separation is
adequate under current conditions.
Runway 17 provides the airport’s lowest
instrument approach visibility
minimums at three-quarters of a mile.
The recommended plan considers
upgrading the approach capability of
Runway 17 to provide a one-half mile
visibility minimum approach. To do
this, the FAA requires the parallel
taxiway to be located at a separation of
400 feet from the runway. Moreover, as
previously discussed, aircraft in
airplane design group III aircraft may
begin to frequent or base at the airport
in the future. The runway/taxiway
separation standard for ARC C/D-III
aircraft is also 400 feet. For these
reasons, the plan considers ultimately
relocating the parallel taxiway 100 feet
to the west.
Relocating the parallel taxiway 100 feet
west could pose development issues in
the future. Similar to runway design,
taxiway design must include a cleared
OFA. The taxiway OFA is designed
such that the wings of an aircraft
traversing the taxiway will not
encounter obstructions along the route.
If the airport is to remain at an ARC
C/D-II design standard, the taxiway
OFA is 131 feet. If the airport
transitions to ARC C/D-III, however,
the taxiway OFA expands to be 186 feet
wide. Exhibit 5B depicts the taxiway
OFA for both scenarios. As illustrated,
the ARC C/D-II taxiway OFA does not
impact any existing structures or
parking areas. For ARC C/D-III,
5-7
however, the taxiway OFA penetrates
several hangars and aircraft parking on
the main terminal ramp. In order to
accommodate these aircraft and this
level of design, the obstructions would
need to be removed/relocated and the
aircraft parking areas abandoned.
Analysis in previous chapters indicated
that plans should be made to upgrade
the instrument approach capabilities of
the airport. Currently, Mesquite Metro
Airport is served by three instrument
approach procedures. The lowest
approved visibility minimum is
provided by the Instrument Landing
System (ILS) Runway 17 approach.
This approach procedure allows
properly trained pilots and equipped
aircraft up to approach category C to
land on Runway 17 with visibility not
lower than three-quarters of a mile and
250-foot cloud ceilings. It is
recommended that this approach be
improved to visibility down to one-half
mile. In order to achieve this minimum,
two improvements are needed. First,
the current lead-in-light system would
need to be replaced by a medium
intensity approach light system with
runway alignment lights (MALSR).
Second, the parallel taxiway would need
to be relocated 100 feet to the west as
discussed above.
Future plans also call for improving the
visibility minimum to Runway 35. The
plan considers a not lower than threequarters
of a mile visibility approach
similar to the existing approach to
Runway 17. Runway 35 is already
served by a lead-in-light system; thus,
no new equipment would need to be
installed. The approach can be
provided by global positioning system
(GPS) technology.