Musings on KCDW, ILS, and WAAS

I fly primarily out of CDW in Northern NJ. Although I'm not "plugged in"
with the various machinations at the airport, there's some trickle down.
Accuracy, of course, is completely suspect. So have a large grain of salt
at the ready.

What I "heard" was that Mac Dan had been hoping for a runway extension and
the addition of a glideslope to the existing localizer. This would have
improved their charter business somehow (although I'm not familiar with the
relevant FAR parts so I don't know how).

Unfortunately for them, the current work on 4/22 includes neither
lengthening nor ILS. The best approach will remain a localizer.

In retrospect, I was kind of glad this occurred while wearing my selfish
hat. Both TEB and MMU are becoming increasingly unfriendly to we 100LL
burners. Pushing more charter business at CDW would, I imagine, cause the
same thing to occur there. So the lack of the glideslope is, I thought,
good for some of us.

But I just read the article on WAAS and precision GPS approaches in the
current IFR. Now, I wonder...

Once this sort of thing really comes online, how will that impact MacDan's
charter business? If a WAAS-based precision approach is put in at CDW,
won't that do whatever the glideslope would have done for their business?
And might that not cause CDW to become less "spam can" friendly, as has
been occurring with TEB and MMU?

I find myself wondering if WAAS is going to end up a Bad Thing for at least
some of us.

Anyone with information or opinions on this subject? I'd love to know, for
example, what difference the glideslope would made to the charter business,
and if that same difference occurs with a precision GPS approach.

- Andrew