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

standard of 17.5 percent of the design
day operations. The general aviation
2-27
peaking characteristics are summarized
in Table 2N.
TABLE 2N
Peak Operations Forecasts
Mesquite Metro Airport
Current
Annual Operations
Short Term Intermediate Term Long Term
(GA and Air Taxi) 100,225 127,900 140,600 166,500
Peak Month (12%) 12,027 15,348 16,872 19,980
Busy Day 561 716 787 932
Design Day 401 512 562 666
Design Hour (17.5%)
Source: Coffman Analysis
70 90 98 117
ANNUAL INSTRUMENT
APPROACHES (AIAs)
An instrument approach, as defined by
the FAA, is “an approach to an airport
with the intent to land by an aircraft in
accordance with an Instrument Flight
Rule (IFR) flight plan, when visibility is
less than three miles and/or when the
ceiling is at or below the minimum
initial approach altitude.” To qualify as
an instrument approach at Mesquite
Metro Airport, aircraft must land at the
airport after following one of the
published instrument approach
procedures and then properly close their
flight plan on the ground. The
approach must be conducted in weather
conditions which necessitate the use of
the instrument approach. If the flight
plan is closed prior to landing, then the
AIA is not counted in the statistics.
Forecasts of annual instrument
approaches (AIAs) provide guidance in
determining an airport’s requirements
for navigational aid facilities. It should
be noted that practice or training
approaches do not count as annual
AIAs.
Typically, AIAs for airports with
available instrument approaches
utilized by advanced aircraft will
average between one and two percent of
itinerant operations. Two percent has
been an accepted industry standard for
general aviation airports that currently,
or are expected to, support corporate jet
aircraft, which is the case for Mesquite
Metro Airport. Also, the increased
availability of low-cost navigational
equipment could allow for smaller and
less sophisticated aircraft to utilize
instrument approaches. National
trends indicate an increasing
percentage of annual approaches given
the greater availability of approaches at
airports with GPS and the availability
of more cost-effective equipment. Table
2P summarizes both historical and
forecast AIAs for the planning period.
According to the FAA Air Traffic
Activity statistics, Mesquite Metro
Airport had 101 AIAs in 2004. This is
the absolute minimum number of AIAs
conducted at the airport. As previously
mentioned, to be counted as an AIA, a
flight plan cannot be closed prior to