roncachamp
Final Approach
ATC can't assign it to those who lack the ability to navigate it and changing them to GPS routes and turning the dead VORs into WPs doesn't solve that "problem".
Decomissioned VORs - why are they still on the charts?
- Thread starter David Groat
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ATC can't assign it to those who lack the ability to navigate it and changing them to GPS routes and turning the dead VORs into WPs doesn't solve that "problem".
Tantalum
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San_Diego_Pilot
Assuming you saw it on a VFR sectional? While having a VOR there can certainly be misleading from a nav perspective they still make decent landmarks, and I know VFR charts put a lot of stuff on there that you can pick out from the sky. At least around here the Oceanside VOR, Julian VOR, Mission Bay VOR, etc., are very easy to pick out from the sky
PS - before I fly I "listen" for the local VFR to tune it, kind of as a way to check that my nav 1 and 2 are working... if enroute I can't tune something I assume it is because the VOR is down
tspear
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BigBadLou
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I would temporarily reroute.
I know what you're getting at from your perspective but try to look at it from the charting perspective.
It's kinda like demolishing the famous San Francisco suspension bridge but leaving it on maps. Then your GPS will take you to the barricades on the cliff and you'd be wondering why the heck they didn't remove it from the maps when it does not exist anymore.
roncachamp
Final Approach
Bad analogy. If the bridge is demolished the route is unusable by everyone. Decommission the VOR and the airways are still usable by those suitably equipped.
BigBadLou
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You can always rent a helo or a boat to get across, so the route would still be useable ... just not for you with the ill-equipped vehicle.
roncachamp
Final Approach
You can always rent a helo or a boat to get across, so the route would still be useable ... just not for you with the ill-equipped vehicle.
Nice try. The route is US 101, it's unusable by helos and boats even with the bridge intact.
tspear
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The temp route still applies. I find it interesting that this is made out to be the end of the world is coming situation.
The same thing happened when switching to/from NDB; back in the 50s. So it has been a while.
Or when boats lost Loran...
The FAA announced this over a decade in advance, and they getting hammered because the process is so slow. Now they are getting hammered because the process is not fast enough.
Consider the size, scope and magnitude of the organization, how many people depend on the accuracy of the data on a long term basis, I just do not see any good options for the FAA. They dammed if they do, or dammed if the do not. So in that situation, I would leave the existing processes in place, knowing there would likely be a one to three year bubble of bad data to be cleaned out. Now the VOR broke down faster than predicted, to it likely is more like two to five years. But this really is not the end of the world....
Tim
roncachamp
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The colored airway network was based on A/N ranges with an assist by NDBs. VORs and Victor airways replaced A/N ranges and colored airways, the NDBs remained.
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BigBadLou
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LOL Now you're just being plane difficult.
Okay, to appease your analogy OCD, let's say they close all car/truck lanes on the bridge and leave only narrow bicycle lanes. There ya go. Now, again, your vehicle is ill-equipped for the route that Google suggests.
For the record, I am not harping on the FAA for decommissioning of the actual VOR stations, I am merely discussing the charting failure, which shouldn't normally take more than one or two cycles to correct.
roncachamp
Final Approach
LOL Now you're just being plane difficult.
Okay, to appease your analogy OCD, let's say they close all car/truck lanes on the bridge and leave only narrow bicycle lanes. There ya go. Now, again, your vehicle is ill-equipped for the route that Google suggests.
My vehicle is a Trek 7300, I'm good to go.
Kritchlow
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Sheesh.... am I the only one that has been "steered" across most of the US by radar vectors??
In the days before gps it was "fly heading xxx until able yyy". Before you ever were direct yyy there was another vector to zzz.
In the days before gps it was "fly heading xxx until able yyy". Before you ever were direct yyy there was another vector to zzz.
denverpilot
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They can and do offer me illegal direct GPS routings in a /A airplane all the time. I am regularly saying to them “unable”.
Whether they’re getting in any sort of measurable “trouble” for ignoring equipment codes is beyond my ability to guess from afar. I doubt it. And I don’t feel like calling their bosses every time it happens.
But they’re clueless.
roncachamp
Final Approach
Please describe these "illegal direct GPS routings" and the situations in which they are offered to you.
tspear
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azure
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When you aren't equipped with a legal means of navigating the route?
tspear
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When you aren't equipped with a legal means of navigating the route?
Show me the rule/reg. I have flown direct on /A planes; with a DER no less.
Tim
denverpilot
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“Cleared direct XXX.” Which is 500 miles away, not receivable at that distance, and well outside of the service area of the VOR.
Are you really this dense, or did you just never do any enroute work at all?
The answer of course is, “Unable, but I am vector qualified.”
It’s not a valid clearance for a /A aircraft.
tspear
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Why? What is the reg that prevents it?
What did they do before the extensive VOR network, what do people do when crossing the oceans, gulfs...
Tim
denverpilot
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Oceans, probably a NAT track (for North Atlantic) or waypoints and you had to have appropriate nav capability to fly it. Never were any VORs in the ocean.
Doesn’t apply to CONUS. I can’t accept a VOR 500 miles away, and they’re not supposed to issue it. But they don’t look at the equipment codes anymore, they’re children of the magenta line as much as everyone else is these days.
roncachamp
Final Approach
Sounds like the controller spoke without checking the equipment suffix. A minor error.
I'm not at all dense, I spent nine years at Chicago ARTCC.
A perfectly reasonable response.
You described it as "illegal", it's not.
tspear
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Why can you not accept it? What is illegal about it?
It may not be smart, but what is illegal as you stated?
And with all the other VORs available, why can you not use two others to cross check your position?Use the E6B, I am sure it can help with the basic trig...
Tim
denverpilot
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Multiple controllers, multiple facilities, quite repetitive.
Well, willingly living in Chicago might qualify as dense.
So I’m not legally allowed to accept it, but there’s nothing in the 7110 that says they can’t issue it? I swear I’ve seen it, but not my part of the job to do. My part is to keep refusing the idiot’s bad clearances for equipment type. Seems a little stupid if that’s there’s no rule against it on one side and a definite rule on the other side.
But, fine. I’ll go with “effing retarded” then. Considering the number of them who’ve done it, that fits fine as a description, if it’s not a legal issue. Better?
tspear
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roncachamp
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Well, willingly living in Chicago might qualify as dense.
Chicago ARTCC is in Aurora, I lived in Geneva.
There's no rule against it on either side.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Maybe nothing. It depends on whether or not you find the AIM to be regulatory. Or accurate.
The AIM says controllers won’t issue it, not that you can’t accept it. But I think you’d have a hard time convincing an ALJ that you weren’t careless or reckless accepting a direct routing you couldn’t navigate to, if something went sideways in that process.
The screwed up part is the AIM saying the controller won’t issue it, if it’s not in the 7110. And I’m not going to go digging in the 7110 to look up someone else’s job. They’re the experts. Whether it’s in there or not, isn’t my responsibility.
FAA are supposedly the experts writing the AIM correctly for what a pilot should expect. If they didn’t, shame on them. Wouldn’t be the first time they contradicted themselves in writing.
Not my problem. My problem is knowing if I accept it, I’m as big an idiot as the guy or gal who issued it.
tspear
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In Denver, yeah it could be a problem, the mountains not only reduce were you can fly, they also reduce the effective number of VORs you can use for cross verification.
Out here in the flat land, not as much of an issue....
Tim
denverpilot
Tied Down
They’ve decommissioned enough of them, a cross radial isn’t a guarantee. Don’t need terrain blockage out here or further west past the mountains. They’re spaced a long way apart.
Maybe if you’re lucky, they’ve left it on the chart for two years and you didn’t notice the NOTAM 100 miles off your course. (The original topic of the thread, and another reason that doing that is negligently stupid.)
roncachamp
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denverpilot
Tied Down
Sorry, it says controllers can issue it if they like (this wording has changed) but must provide navigational assistance... e.g. a vector, since it’s obvious nobody can receive a VOR 400 miles away.
“At times, ATC will initiate a direct route in a radar environment which exceeds NAVAID service volume limits. In such cases ATC will provide radar monitoring and navigational assistance as necessary.”
Won’t be issued in a non-radar environment and pilots are told not to exceed service volumes when filing or requesting a route.
Also says controller won’t issue it unless it can be used as a compulsory reporting point, which obviously doesn’t work if the thing is off the air, but we already covered that.
Of course I don’t hear many pilots filing a waypoint-per-ARTCC which is also required in a direct route... when you hear cleared-direct-a-billion-miles-away approved, either.
“File a minimum of one route description waypoint for each ARTCC through whose area the random route will be flown. These waypoints must be located within 200 NM of the preceding center’s boundary.”
Just for fun, there’s still the paragraph about allowing aircraft that are WAAS equipped to operate IFR enroute ouside of ground based service volumes, only in Alaska. Haha. Perhaps that paragraph should be updated nowadays.
“GPS en route IFR operations may be conducted in Alaska outside the operational service volume of ground-based navigation aids when a TSO-C145() or TSO-C146() GPS/wide area augmentation system (WAAS) system is installed and operating. WAAS is the U.S. version of a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS).”
“At times, ATC will initiate a direct route in a radar environment which exceeds NAVAID service volume limits. In such cases ATC will provide radar monitoring and navigational assistance as necessary.”
Won’t be issued in a non-radar environment and pilots are told not to exceed service volumes when filing or requesting a route.
Also says controller won’t issue it unless it can be used as a compulsory reporting point, which obviously doesn’t work if the thing is off the air, but we already covered that.
Of course I don’t hear many pilots filing a waypoint-per-ARTCC which is also required in a direct route... when you hear cleared-direct-a-billion-miles-away approved, either.
“File a minimum of one route description waypoint for each ARTCC through whose area the random route will be flown. These waypoints must be located within 200 NM of the preceding center’s boundary.”
Just for fun, there’s still the paragraph about allowing aircraft that are WAAS equipped to operate IFR enroute ouside of ground based service volumes, only in Alaska. Haha. Perhaps that paragraph should be updated nowadays.
“GPS en route IFR operations may be conducted in Alaska outside the operational service volume of ground-based navigation aids when a TSO-C145() or TSO-C146() GPS/wide area augmentation system (WAAS) system is installed and operating. WAAS is the U.S. version of a satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS).”
denverpilot
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Sure. Every single time over and over and over because nobody reads the equipment codes anymore. Children of the magenta...
airbornejohnny
Line Up and Wait
So safetywise,here's a hypothetical. Long vfr Xc, clouds quickly building, and you realize you're lost all at the same time. Looking outside, you see a lake with nothing else around it, just a lake. You find what you think is the lake on your vfr sectional, and find a vor 20 miles away and tune it, and nothing. Finding the radial to verify where you are would help an awful lot, especially if there is an airport nearby as well (although there's a few of those that are on sectionals as public with fuel but are actually closed...even the google satellite image you can see the x along the runways...). Try the radio of course, but suppose mr. murphy got your number today and that crapped out too. Obviously, one could still theoretically live to complain about it, but the charted decommissioned vor could also lead to confusion in the chaos, and while by some measures not be a direct safety issue, but could certainly contribute to an accident.
Personally I think a point charted as part of the airway system should work as intended and charted. If it doesn't work or is effectively out of service, it should be charted accurately whenever the new charts are issued. Obviously we need to do our part in planning the flight, but the system supposedly there for us to rely on should work, and if one is so far off route that a notam didn't even show up (yes, REALLY bad planning) then its status on the chart should be more reliable than some of these navaids that have been notamd for years and not stricken from the chart.
Personally I think a point charted as part of the airway system should work as intended and charted. If it doesn't work or is effectively out of service, it should be charted accurately whenever the new charts are issued. Obviously we need to do our part in planning the flight, but the system supposedly there for us to rely on should work, and if one is so far off route that a notam didn't even show up (yes, REALLY bad planning) then its status on the chart should be more reliable than some of these navaids that have been notamd for years and not stricken from the chart.
Timbeck2
Final Approach
Nowhere that I've been rated as a controller was I required to memorize equipment suffix codes. That being said, I make sure I'm familiar with a particular suffix if I'm working it. But if a controller clears you direct it doesn't necessarily mean they're an idiot. Sometimes, the equipment suffix isn't even depicted on the scope on which the data tag may have been entered by another controller near the beginning of a flight. I'm a slant A and I've been cleared direct more than a few times. Sometimes I say unable, other times I just overlay my chart on foreflight. Not legal but not worth a discussion in VFR conditions.
denverpilot
Tied Down
So what’s the point of stuffing useless information into the flight plan if nobody’s using it anymore?
(Especially MORE useless information apparently no one is using, like the new ICAO flight plans. I think those not only ask for all equipment on board but for a measurement of your prostate size in millimeters.)
tspear
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Actually I recall reading an article that said for enroute direct with /a and Garmin Pilot was legal. As long as you have the ability to determine position using the VOR, the Garmin Pilot counts as situational awareness. The author did say this may not be the smartest thing to do in the mountains and IMC.
Tim
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Kritchlow
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What happened to "fly heading xxx until able direct yyy"? I've literally crossed the country via radar vector.
That was pretty standard in the days prior to gps. More for high altitude, and obviously not for intersections however.
There have been long and vociferous arguments about that here and elsewhere!
So far, most people here and on the red board have accepted that as legal and appropriate.