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Flight Inspection Operations Group
Flight Inspection Operations Group
- | Updated: 10:14 am ET January 07, 2010
Peter W. Gretsch, Director of Flight Inspection Operations Group - (405) 954-3766
Flight inspection operations are headquartered in Oklahoma
City, Oklahoma, at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center. There are
six flight inspection field offices, located throughout the
continental United States, and one in Anchorage, Alaska.
International Operations
are conducted
from Oklahoma City. From this location, we respond to worldwide
request from international customers. Flight inspection is
conducted by a work force of 188 employees. Our pilots and
technicians flight inspect more than 5,500 facilities throughout
the world, averaging 20,000 flight-hours annually. A flight
inspection crew usually includes two airspace system inspection
pilots and one flight inspection technician. A fleet of
approximately 30 aircraft of 4 different types supports the
flight inspection program: Challenger 601, Challenger 604, Lear 60 and Beechcraft BE-300.
Flight Inspection
Flight inspection ensures the integrity of instrument approaches and airway procedures that constitute our National Airspace System infrastructure and the FAA's international commitments.
We accomplish this through the airborne inspection of all space and ground-based instrument flight procedures and the validation of electronic signals in space that are transmitted from approximately 13,500 various navigation systems.
Airborne inspection of navigational aids is a two-part operation, requiring the skills of highly trained flightcrews. The first part is an evaluation of the "signal in space" - the radiation pattern of the navigational aid much like that of a radio station. The second part is to certify the instrument approach procedures that are designed to allow pilots to safely use airport runways in adverse weather.
