Flying high with Luigi Iboleon Dy
The country does not run short of Filipino students with exemplary performances in universities abroad. At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, a son of a topnotch cardiologist and businessman is set to make a mark with his research on worldwide aviation. Purdue, online sources say, is famous for high-tech research work and international programs.
In December, Luigi Iboleon Dy, 25, will graduate with an expected perfect GPA of 4.0 at Purdue University for his PhD in Technology, with concentration in Aviation Technology. His dissertation “Assessing the Effectiveness of Simplified Runway Status Lights” in airports is set to democratize the high cost of maintaining the safety of aviation around the globe.
Luigi is the only child of businessman Edison Dy and Dr. Leni Iboleon-Dy. They are responsible for their son’s fascination with flight. Leni bought her son more than a hundred die-cast airplanes when he was a child and with every toy plane, Luigi toyed with the idea of becoming a pilot. Edison, on the other hand, gifted Luigi with a Microsoft flight simulator when he was in grade school and Luigi learned “to fly airplanes” with his computer. With his loving parents as conduits to his dream, Luigi became a licensed pilot while in high school at Xavier School.
“For my dissertation, I’m working on what I call the simple, affordable, flexible, and expandable runway status light system in the airport. The idea is a traffic light for runways. A really more appropriate analogy is a railroad crossing signal. The idea is that when a plane is coming, you’ll have an indication. A system like this exists but it’s very expensive, because it uses different sensors and radars,” he begins.
Luigi adds, “In the US, around 20 airports have this (runway status light system). Each system costs approximately $20 million. The underlying information system is usually used for providing air traffic controllers with information where airplanes are; with that, you can trigger runway status lights. The existing runway status light system works very well but it is very expensive. Because it’s very expensive, most airports can’t have it.”
Luigi, who also took his undergraduate and master’s degree in aviation at Purdue University, claims that with his PhD project, the exorbitant price of the runway status light systems at airports will be lowered “to a conservative estimate of a few hundred thousand dollars.”
“There’s a technology now that’s implemented around the world called ADS-B or automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast. If you want to know where an airplane is, ADS-B will help you find it. Airplanes carry transponders. Transponders broadcast the identification, position, and altitude of the plane. Think about it as a GPS in your phone but it is shared (broadcasted) information.
“The idea is that, if we have this system, why can’t we feed it to runway status lights so that pilots can easily see a runway’s status. If you think about radio stations, you can listen to any station you want, anything within your area, just like ADS-B,” Luigi says.
Luigi developed the prototype as part of his dissertation research. He received a $12,000-stipend from the Transportation Research Board as part of their Airport Cooperative Research Program Graduate Research Awards to support this. The device he built was also funded by his professors.
To protect the intellectual rights of his study, Purdue University has already applied for a patent for his research work.
“Most airports that have existing runway status lights have expensive detection and lighting systems. My approach is significantly more affordable because it would utilize computer vision and ADS-B, and simpler lighting configurations. It’s how we can provide the same indications at a lower cost,” Luigi says.
He adds that his study will also benefit general aviation (non-scheduled commercial flights, private jets, and personal flights), which experience risks of accidents in the runway.
“By developing this low-cost runway status light system, you can have runway status lights at smaller airports, where it’s arguably needed most,” he says, adding that after his PhD, he will be part of the academe because he derives fulfillment in giving back through research.
“In the Philippines, I think we have more than 100 small airports. The airports that we don’t think about are the target for simple, affordable, flexible, and expandable runway status light systems,” he says.
Luigi observes that the aviation industry “is obsessed with making it perfect.” His dissertation is one step towards achieving perfection.
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One’s flight to life’s perfection bears the footprints of nurturing at home. Though perfection is an aspirational state, Luigi believes he receives many glimpses of it from his parents.
“My mom and dad are my best friends,” says Luigi, unabashedly adding with a shy smile that “I’m a mama’s boy who calls her every day, from five minutes to one hour.” He started studying abroad when he was 18. Since he was a child, his parents have brought him along on many of their travels overseas.
Adding color and meaning to his life now is his 25-year-old fiancée, McKenzie Ellegood.
In his pursuit of excellence, he always has his parents in his thoughts. It brings him sincere joy to make them happy whether with a random or scheduled phone call or his excellent performance in school. But what makes Leni and Edison happy all the more is that they raised an ethical human being, because “my parents are highly ethical individuals.”
Luigi says the most important value his parents have instilled in him is “to be ethical.” Doing things right and for the right reasons is something “I got from my parents.”
“They always choose to do things the right way. When I was two or three years old, someone tried to give me a balloon from a birthday party we didn’t go to. I didn’t want it because I said it wasn’t my birthday party and the balloon wasn’t mine.”
He recognizes the challenges of being an only child but he also is grateful that he has parents who have made it a point that he will not miss enjoying the comforts of life every child deserves. He grew up with the normal good cop-bad cop parenting; his mom was the lenient one when he was growing up. “But now, my mom takes the reverse role,” he says, letting out a hearty laugh.
What are the lessons Luigi learned from his mom and dad that have helped shape him now?
“My mom was very focused. I feel like my eight years is long for school but my mom stayed longer. She taught me the value of being studious.
“The technical part, the field interests are from my dad. My dad was responsible for the fun technical stuff. A lot of the hard work and studying from Mom.”
The lessons he learned from them, Luigi carried tightly in his heart — up to Purdue University, up to where life will take him further.
“I love them both. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it was not for my mom and dad. That’s probably the reason I think I am an easy child,” he concludes. *
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