Gary one of first airports to get space-age navigation tool

Gary/Chicago International Airport has a new main runway for landing passenger airliners and cargo jets.

But don't go to the airport looking for it, as you'll only see the same 7,000-foot-long slab of concrete that runs from the Grand Calumet River in the southeast to the EJ&E railroad tracks in the northwest.

Now, though, Runway 30 is a two-way street -- under all conditions.

Before Aug. 3, large jets were not able to approach the runway from the northwest for instrument-guided landings when visibility was reduced, according to Chris Curry, who takes over the job of airport director this week.

That had made it difficult for Gary to attract passenger airlines, which want two approach options available for pilots at all times.

"We couldn't get in from there (the northwest) and we had a railroad, and both of those can be show-stoppers for airlines," Curry said. "But now we have this, and we're getting rid of the railroad. We're starting to cook."

Construction work to move the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern tracks is to start this winter. That work will also eliminate the 25-foot embankment the tracks sit on.

When Southeast Airlines operated at the airport for 10 months in 2004, airport personnel would have to call the railroad to stop trains when planes needed the proper clearance for takeoff, Curry said.

The northwest approach was made possible by using global positioning system (GPS) satellite navigational aids and having pilots use a curved approach rather than a straight-line one.

The curved approach allows jets landing at Gary to come in over Lake Michigan and avoid planes taking off from Midway Airport, in Chicago, which was the primary obstacle to the northwest approach.

Making full use of that approach -- which is being called Runway 12 -- was suggested by Boeing Corp. when it first based its fleet of corporate jets at the airport, according to Joseph Burkhardt, Jeppesen Boeing operations supervisor for procedure design.

Jeppesen Boeing is a Boeing Corp. subsidiary and one of the world's leading providers of aeronautical services.

The work to formulate the new approach and earn Federal Aviation Administration approvals took two years.

It was one of Curry's main tasks when he worked at Jeppesen Boeing from 2002 to 2004. Burkhardt was Curry's boss at the time.

Burkhardt said there are only about 12 airports in the United States using the landing procedures now in use on Gary's Runway 12. The satellite navigation aids are what make the curved approach possible; no ground navigation aids are needed.

"That is a huge precedent, and makes Gary one of the first in the nation," Burkhardt said. Such systems represent the next generation in navigation aids for the air transport system, Burkhardt added.

Boeing flies two corporate 737s in and out of the airport. When configured for commercial passenger flights, those jets each hold about 130 passengers. That is the jet size airport officials would like to attract for passenger and cargo service.

A planned extension of the main runway to 9,000 feet from its present 7,000 feet, a project set to break ground this winter, should also make it easier to entice airlines to Gary.