We have been hearing about this for many years but it looks like it has finally started.
AIP ENR 4.1
ENR_4_1_RADIO_NAVIGATION_AIDS_EN_ROUTE_pdf
Many now listed as DME only e.g. DVR, LYD, SAM, DTY, MID and others.
I doubt anybody will notice.
Well, the flying schools do, as they have no place to practice VOR usage, or even just demonstrate it.
Doesn’t seem very transparent to me.
DGAC keeps us informed via AICs with the different navaids discontinued at which dates and the long term remaining network.
I don’t rely on them but will often tune the most relevant one just incase something happened on the panel or gnss loss.
I really can’t imagine that they are so expensive to maintain. I do get putting in new ones would be silly.
I flew for many many years using them as a primary nav solution so would prefer them to remain.
It’s only GA that suffer if there are GNSS outages as the big stuff has inertial integrated into theirs if I understand correctly.
GA_Pete wrote:
It’s only GA that suffer if there are GNSS outages as the big stuff has inertial integrated into theirs if I understand correctly.
I think the idea is that GA is supposed to be vectored, if there was a small interruption (and grounded if there is major conflict), while CAT is supposed to use DME-DME.
arj1 wrote:
I think the idea is that GA is supposed to be vectored, if there was a small interruption (and grounded if there is major conflict)
AFAIK there is a recently introduced procedure here to ground everything within a certain narrow sector in case of a war induced danger. It would be triggered by the armed forces and AFIS would request everyone to land ASAP. In case of gliders that would mean nearest suitable field. No idea if a large scale GPS outage is the kind of emergency to ground everything, on the other hand I seriously doubt AFIS capacity to give vectors to everyone on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Not mentioning non txp traffic.
And this is from Airbus (IIRC other airliners do the same):
In the case of a loss of GPS signal, the FMS switches from the mixed GPS/IRS position to an IRS-DME/DME position or IRS-VOR/DME or pure IRS in order of priority.
GA wise I don’t know what to think about this. The biggest problem I have is the lack of availability of instrument approaches for training. And the only airfield that I can think of with a VOR approach locally is Southamptom and they are not remotely interested or helpful.
Lydd are helpful but the VOR has now gone and the airfield does have other approach types available. Goodwood which if I remember correctly only had a VOR approach and that disappeared some 20 years ago when it downgraded from ATC to AFIS. Now that would be helpful.
The VOR’s are very rarely located where I want to go e.g. Southampton. Finally due to levels that I fly in GA or I have to fly. I’m often not high enough to pick two VOR’s for a position fix. Or even one for that matter.
I know its very 1950’s but I actually find the few NDB left around more useful. Especially at somewhere like Shoreham where there is also a closely located tDME. Real shame they dropped the NDB/DME approach in my opinion although the RNP is a godsend.
IFR training should really not be so much of an issue. As long as you can fly a 2d and a 3d approach by hand and on autopilot, the difference between flying a VOR, GPS, LOC and ILS approach is quite small, it is mostly the switchology and dialling nav-aids which are different, which can be done in the procedural sims if you so desire. They all are following the magenta line using a CDI on whatever GPS based FMS is installed, switching to a final approach aid (VOR or LOC/ILS) if required, and a GPS based missed approach. Only NDB approaches using a RBI or RMI are different, but practically nobody flies them on raw data anyway.
So the failure scenario is the one to worry about. I hope it will be a nice VMC all the way up to MSA day when GPs fails, so everyone who needs to can simply descend – at least we will be lost in VMC instead of lost in IMC.
Why is IR training done with VORs when nobody actually uses VORs during any flight for real?
People flying VOR approaches for real (i.e. there is a VOR approach and no other) use a GPS in the OBS mode.
