VOR/NDB IAP's going away

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LBPilot82
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VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by LBPilot82 »

Has anyone seen this list? I encourage you instrument guys to check your local area.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-04 ... -08098.pdf

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_ ... 150327.xls


AOPA gave it a quick once-over but don't seem to be getting too involved. Just looking at my old stomping grounds in SoCal, it seems they are eliminating almost every VOR approach in the area. This seems pretty dangerous to me. Yes we still have a ground based ILS we can use at a few select airports but what happens when we have some type of GPS failure? Seems to me we would want some redundancy here. Take Fullerton airport for example. They currently have the VOR-A which get's used so often for training it's ridiculous. If we get rid of that, we are left with the LOC/DME approach and a GPS approach. Since most of us don't have DME anymore, you are stuck going somewhere else unless you have an IFR certified GPS onboard. If you do happen to have DME and want to shoot the LOC/DME approach, good luck to you since that interferes with KSNA traffic and you often get some serious delays. What about getting your instrument rating? Pilots will need to travel who knows how far to practice a VOR approach? What about people like many of us who don't wish to install the latest technology in our classic aircraft... not to mention the cost to do so. I know everyone had a fit when they mandated transponders, but this ADS-B thing seems to be getting pushed through too fast without considering the consequences for the little guy. I know this isn't specifically ADS-B, but its right in there with this push to upgrade to GPS.

My rant for the day...
Richard Dach
49' A Model N9007A
SN 18762
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KS170A
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by KS170A »

For the Instrument rated pilots here, other than in practice, training, or otherwise non-IMC flying, when was the last time you flew a VOR-A or an NDB approach in actual IMC? In my 17 years of flying, my total for those two is a whopping zero. My base airport is losing an NDB and a couple of VOR approaches at satellite airports. In one instance, the loss of the VOR-A is actually good as the inbound leg interferes with the traffic patterns of two other non-towered airports, a non-charted glider port, and an aerobatic area.

I personally have not experienced any GPS failures and there are online tools to help predict RAIM for someone dependent on GPS alone. Perhaps others have?
--Josh
1950 170A
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Ryan Smith
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by Ryan Smith »

Aryana wrote:Yep, looks like I'm gonna miss the boat to do my instrument training in my 170 with its antiquated panel. I don't have a IFR GPS, so if all the VOR/ILS approaches are someday gone I guess I'll lose some weight ripping out all that old stuff and just plug the holes up.
Sounds like an opportunity for an upgrade to me. Your airplane is too light as it is. :wink:
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blueldr
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by blueldr »

In my total ignorance of the more modern equipment, is there a significant difference between a common GPS and an IFR rated GPS?
Could the "Common" GPS be used for training or is the display enough different to preclude that use?
I used to have two hand held "Two Morrow" instruments and found them to be incredebly accurate at almost all of the airports where I checked them out. I often thought that were I to be trapped by weather near my home airport, I was confident that they were capable of saving my life.
BL
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DaveF
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by DaveF »

Handheld GPS isn't legal for use as IFR navigation. For that you need an IFR certified panel-mount device that costs at least 10 times as much. Of course, you'd be foolish not to have a "common" GPS with you as a backup, and you can bet that plenty of real IFR flying is done with the iPad and not with the FAA-approved VOR needle.

Arash, you can do all your instrument training with venturi-driven steam gauges and a single VOR/ILS. You don't need a GPS for the checkride.

My purpose in equipping my airplane with VHF nav was not to make it capable of flying an approach *anywhere*, but capable of flying an approach *somewhere*. I want to be able to fly on top of an undercast and know I can get back down, even if it's not at my original destination. No more sitting on the ground and no scud running. That's plenty for a 170. Even when I was doing a lot of traveling in a T210 I only flew a few approaches in actual IMC, and only one was nonprecision. I was flying for fun and usually exercised my option of waiting for better weather.
bagarre
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by bagarre »

WAAS aside for the moment.

The biggest difference is an 'IFR' GPS is designed self validate accuracy via Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) and a regular GPS either doesn't do this or they didn't get the TSO paperwork filled out.

The system injects errors into the calculation in order to validate it can detect the errors.

For example:
The Garmin 300XL had RAIM and is IFR certified.
The Garmin 250XL is 100% identical to the pin out to the 300xl but does not have RAIM and is VFR only.
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blueldr
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by blueldr »

As a matter of interest, when my daughter Nancy was flying Lockkheed Herks in East Africa for Southern Air Transport, they had a hand held GPS (Model Unknown) hung up on one of the front windowshe Herk with Velcro. They used this to locate the mud hut villages where they were unloading famine relief cargo.
Believe me, the villages were almost impossible to spot even when you knew where they were. The GPS location was nailed down when someone flew in in a
C-206 and zeroed in the GPS co-ordinates. The Herks were pretty much just landed in the desert brush. I went over there and flew around with them for a month or so and never did see much of an airport where the cargos were off loaded, An absolutely incredible trip.
In 1990 they flew a load of fifty thousand pounds of lentils into a place called WAU in southwest Sudan. When they rwere turning around from the runup area to line up with the runway for departure they hit a Russian anti tank land mine and blew the Herk all to hell. It put her on the beach for two years. The other crew members never flew again.
As soon as she got back on flying, she was right back over there again, I thought her mother was going to have a conniption fit. She saw more combat in Africa in about five years than I ever did in t=wenty two years in the air force.
BL
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LBPilot82
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by LBPilot82 »

What about the requirement for the instrument rating? It is currently required that you perform a long cross country with 3 different types of approaches at 3 different airport. We are quickly eliminating the types of approaches available to us. Also, every instrument examiner I know requires at least one precision and one non-precision approach on the checkride. How would someone in an aircraft equipped with just a VOR be able to do this? I suppose an ILS approach one time and then the same ILS but ignore the glide slope??
KS170A wrote:For the Instrument rated pilots here, other than in practice, training, or otherwise non-IMC flying, when was the last time you flew a VOR-A or an NDB approach in actual IMC? In my 17 years of flying, my total for those two is a whopping zero. My base airport is losing an NDB and a couple of VOR approaches at satellite airports. In one instance, the loss of the VOR-A is actually good as the inbound leg interferes with the traffic patterns of two other non-towered airports, a non-charted glider port, and an aerobatic area.
This is certainly an airport specific question. My example of Fullerton airport is a good one since they often have a marine layer in the mornings. Unless you have DME or GPS, the only option to get into that airport when it is IFR is by using the VOR approach. I have used it many times in IMC for this reason. Yes, these approaches can conflict with other traffic, but when the ceiling is 1000ft AGL, no one is flying VFR anyway.
Richard Dach
49' A Model N9007A
SN 18762
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DaveF
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by DaveF »

The PTS specifies three approaches, two nonprecision and one precision. So you could fly a VOR, localizer, and ILS.
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GAHorn
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by GAHorn »

The problem is likely budgetary. To keep a ground-based approach active it must be flown/calibrated/certified by the FAA or a contractor aircraft within specified time frames. GPS does not require that, and the FAA Hawker they were using for that activity is overbooked.
I trained one of the crews at my workplace a couple years ago and they were bustin' their rear ends trying to keep up with it all domestically, not to mention their calls for places the Air Force needed checks done (like Bagram, etc.).

If a ground based approach doesn't get enough activity to justify it's continuance it is decommissioned.

bluElder, the problem with satellite navigation is complex and it requires accuracy checking of a different nature due to signal propagation and satellite positioning (such as number of sats "in view" and at what angles, and at what signal strengths, and in what RF interference locales, etc., as well as comparing those signals to the known almanac of those non geo-stationary satellites. Hand held units do not typically have the computation-power/chips to make those calculations. IFR certified units not only have that capability, but also have displays and annunciators to confirm the validity of that portion of the flight. That kind of computer-power costs money to mfr and to support, and is why it is so much more expensive.

Although many people have experienced phenomenal accuracy and repeatability of location/navigation with cheaper VFR units, those units are subject to some fairly dangerous errors which occur more frequently than most people realize. Further, those VFR units are not usually provided nor updated with databases to support IFR operations with regard to terrain, obstacles, or numerous SIDS/STARS/RNP/RNAV required in todays airspace.
I have twice witnessed a Garmin 196 which showed my present position to be more than 60 miles in error for over a half-hour while on a North/South track between San Antonio and Fredricksburg.
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention.
An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons. ;)
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LBPilot82
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by LBPilot82 »

DaveF wrote:The PTS specifies three approaches, two nonprecision and one precision. So you could fly a VOR, localizer, and ILS.
Dave, that will no longer be possible. There will be no more VOR approaches to fly! I guess you would need to find 2 LOC approaches and an ILS.
Richard Dach
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SN 18762
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GAHorn
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by GAHorn »

LBPilot82 wrote:
DaveF wrote:The PTS specifies three approaches, two nonprecision and one precision. So you could fly a VOR, localizer, and ILS.
Dave, that will no longer be possible. There will be no more VOR approaches to fly! I guess you would need to find 2 LOC approaches and an ILS.
ILS, LOCalizer, and LOCalizer-BACK-COURSE.
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention.
An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons. ;)
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DaveF
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Re: VOR/NDB IAP's going away

Post by DaveF »

I don't disagree, Richard. I was just pointing out that it is (still) legal to do an instrument checkride without a GPS. I just wish the things weren't so expensive.

I got my instrument ticket back in the Era of Needles. My Cherokee had a King KX170B, a KX145 (worst radio ever made), and a T-12C ADF. My whole airplane cost $12000, now it would cost $10000 just for the GPS.
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