Pre-dawn Flights to Test New Runway Lights

If you're awake before dawn on Thursday, that low-flying aircraft circling Invercargill Airport isn't lost. It's doing a job.

A specialised flight inspection aircraft — ZK-FIS, a twin-engine Piper PA-42 Cheyenne — arrives Wednesday July 29 and begins calibration flights from around 4am Thursday. It will fly repeated approaches and circuits in both the Runway 04 and Runway 22 directions, testing the airport's newly installed runway lighting system. Expect it until roughly sunrise.

The flights are the critical final step before new aviation lighting can be officially commissioned. Without them, the system can't be signed off, no matter how well it looks on the ground.

Invercargill Airport operations and security manager Rob Somers said the process is more involved than simply switching new lights on. "Installing the new lighting is only part of the process. Before it can be commissioned, every aspect of the system must be carefully tested and calibrated to ensure it performs exactly as required. These specialised flights help verify the accuracy of the lighting and ensure the highest standards of safety for everyone who uses our airport."

Residents near the airport should expect the aircraft to follow patterns that look nothing like normal traffic or flight training — repeated passes, varying heights, the same paths over and over. That's the point. The lighting upgrade is part of a broader airfield improvement programme at Invercargill Airport.