Catalina Island may be a figurative shining beacon to the world of romance, adventure and recration in general, but for decades the Island has provided a beacon that literally shines a path to the world’s airlines that come to Southern California.
I am, of course, referring to that bowling pin-shaped structure on the very tip top of Mt. Orizaba in the Island’s interior. Though approaching obsolescence in this day and age, the beacon has been putting out the welcome mat to approaching airliners since its construction back in the 1950s.
Catalina Island may be a figurative shining beacon to the world of romance, adventure and recration in general, but for decades the Island has provided a beacon that literally shines a path to the world’s airlines that come to Southern California.
I am, of course, referring to that bowling pin-shaped structure on the very tip top of Mt. Orizaba in the Island’s interior. Though approaching obsolescence in this day and age, the beacon has been putting out the welcome mat to approaching airliners since its construction back in the 1950s.
If you’ve never seen it, and you feel like you’re due for a bit of a hike, take a trip up to Blackjack Campground one of these days and then push on towards the peak of Orizaba via that harrowing, narrow little road that leads to it.
There, safely tucked behind a fence with a locked gate, lies the subject of this week’s column. It’s job description goes something like this:
It’s 10:30 a.m. in Sydney, Australia, and Qantas Airlines Flight 107 has just taken off from Kingsford Smith Airport. The destination for today’s flight is Los Angeles International more than 13 hours and 7,500 away across the blue Pacific.
For the majority of the trip ahead of them, the flight crew on board the Boeing 747 will use the satellite-based navigation system known as GPS, or Global Positioning System, to find its way.
However, as the aircraft approaches the west coast of North America, the “heavy” (aviation parlance for the Boeing 747) will begin to hone in on the Catalina VORTAC on Mt. Orizaba.
Take a look up into the skies above Avalon at any hour of the day and even well into the night.
If it’s clear in the sky and you have a modicum of patience, eventually you will see one of these envoys of the air winging in from such exotic locales around the Pacific as Honolulu, Papeete, Auckland, Sydney, or Melbourne, to name a few.
“It’s a beacon that airlines or any plane coming in to LAX from Hawaii to Australia can use,” said Paul Moritz, former manager of the Airport-in-the-Sky. “Domestically, the beacon is used by planes coming from anywhere north or south from Seattle to San Diego.”
The many VORTACS in the FAA’s array (the term VORTAC is shorthand, sort of, for VHF Omni-directional Range and Tactical Air Navigation System) emit radio signals which enable navigators anywhere within range of the signal to determine both their location and which heading they require to reach their destination.
Like Qantas Flight 107, hundreds of airliners, military planes and even private aircraft will be doing just this throughout the course of the day.
“You don’t know at any given time how many aircraft are honing in on the signal,” said spokesman Allen Kenitzer of the FAA’s Northwest Mountain Regional Office in Renton, WA.
“It’s a beacon radiating a 360-degree signal. It’s like starting up a radio station in Southern California. You don’t’ really know at any given time who’s listening to it,” he said.
Once the airliners pass directly over the beacon (and therefore directly over the Island), they begin their approach to LAX where other navigational aids come into play.
Although seemingly high tech, the VORTAC system is slowly giving way to the move advances GPS system, according to Kenitzer.
As a consequence, it’s probably just a matter of time before the Catalina VORTAC becomes obsolete and goes the way of the biplane.
