The facility, designated VOR (Very high frequency Omni-directional Radio range) has all weather capability and is extremely accurate in distance measuring and tracking aircraft.

Set up at a total cost of about Rs 2 crore, the operation and maintenance of the VOR is the responsibility of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), under the supervision of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The VOR would operate from morning to evening every day, with the probability of going in for 24-hour operations as per future requirement.

The local Air Traffic Control, manned by the Air Force, would monitor the facilities and all aircraft using the navigational aids would report to it. Any complaints about malfunctions would also be lodged with the ATC.

A specially equipped Dornier aircraft belonging to the AAI was here last week to carry out air calibration of the VOR. Additional General Manager (Communication) S.K. Sharma and Senior Manager (Communication) A.K. Sharma from the AAI Regional Headquarters, New Delhi, were also present for commissioning the VOR.

The VOR, which functions simultaneously with the Distance Measuring Equipment (DME), has a range of 200 nautical miles and is more effective than the Non Directional Radio Becan, presently in use here.

The VOR has already been installed at major airports around the country and has a zero-error probability with virtually no chance of an aircraft straying off-course. As standard configuration, all civil and military aircrafts are equipped for VOR application. The pilot has simply to tune in to the frequency of an airfield and his instrument panel gives him an accurate position as well as the degree of turn required to maintain course on the ATC routing.

In VOR, the instrument's needle always points towards the station tuned in, helping the pilot come in directly overhead, even if flying in poor visibility and then, if required, engage the runway's Instrument Landing System to get a correct approach for landing. The VOR can also be coupled with the aircraft's auto-pilot, to guide it automatically to its destination.

The VOR remains totally unaffected from lightning, magnetic fields or strong air currents, which otherwise hamper the functioning of convectional navigational aids.

The accuracy of the VOR can be judged from the fact that the mid-air collision over Charkhi Dadri was the result of the same directional radial being inadvertently given to the Saudi Boeing 747 and the Kazakh IL-76.