Decomissioned VORs - why are they still on the charts?

David Groat

David Groat

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Groatski
Today I made a VFR flight to an airport I've never been to. To keep my nav skills sharp I decided to fly the route old school using VOR vectors in our club 1972 Skyhawk, keeping mu iPad and GPS as backup. I called WX Brief just before takeoff and got a weather briefing, and nothing significant was mentioned.

Moments after takeoff I dialed in the first VOR station and - nothing. No signal or audio identified. The other VORs in the area worked, but not the one I was going to mostly rely on.

When I got back home I did a NOTAM search and discovered that particular VOR was decomissioned over 2 years ago. Why is it still on the charts? My charts get updated every month, and it's still prominently displayed with all the pertinent nav info, yet it was taken off line in Feb of 2015.

This is the second time I've experienced this. Should I just stop relying on VORs entirely?
 
David Groat said:
Today I made a VFR flight to an airport I've never been to. To keep my nav skills sharp I decided to fly the route old school using VOR vectors in our club 1972 Skyhawk, keeping mu iPad and GPS as backup. I called WX Brief just before takeoff and got a weather briefing, and nothing significant was mentioned.
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Did you mean VOR radials?
 
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You can continue to rely on VORs if you begin checking for NOTAMs BEFORE the flight instead of after. <- a little snark there
 
I dunno. I've wondered about that too. Maybe the VORs still define airways, and it's easier than making new waypoints or something.
 
David Groat said:
Today I made a VFR flight to an airport I've never been to. To keep my nav skills sharp I decided to fly the route old school using VOR vectors in our club 1972 Skyhawk, keeping mu iPad and GPS as backup. I called WX Brief just before takeoff and got a weather briefing, and nothing significant was mentioned.

Moments after takeoff I dialed in the first VOR station and - nothing. No signal or audio identified. The other VORs in the area worked, but not the one I was going to mostly rely on.

When I got back home I did a NOTAM search and discovered that particular VOR was decomissioned over 2 years ago. Why is it still on the charts? My charts get updated every month, and it's still prominently displayed with all the pertinent nav info, yet it was taken off line in Feb of 2015.

This is the second time I've experienced this. Should I just stop relying on VORs entirely?
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Google "VOR Minimum Operating Network" and you will learn that VORs will be around for a long, long time. The VOR network will be the backup for a GPS failure. I can't explain the situation you encountered, but I can say with confidence that many decommissioned VOR sites will be redesignated as named navigational waypoints when the MON is complete.

Bob Gardner
 
David Groat said:
Today I made a VFR flight to an airport I've never been to. To keep my nav skills sharp I decided to fly the route old school using VOR vectors in our club 1972 Skyhawk, keeping mu iPad and GPS as backup. I called WX Brief just before takeoff and got a weather briefing, and nothing significant was mentioned.

Moments after takeoff I dialed in the first VOR station and - nothing. No signal or audio identified. The other VORs in the area worked, but not the one I was going to mostly rely on.

When I got back home I did a NOTAM search and discovered that particular VOR was decomissioned over 2 years ago. Why is it still on the charts? My charts get updated every month, and it's still prominently displayed with all the pertinent nav info, yet it was taken off line in Feb of 2015.

This is the second time I've experienced this. Should I just stop relying on VORs entirely?
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Not really sure why they are still on the charts, other than perhaps they are still used as GPS waypoints? The Nottingham (OTT) VOR has been out of service for several years, but is still depicted on the charts.

EDIT: Looks like it's back in service, but so many radials are unusable, I don't know of many around here that use it, considering BAL, ADW, and DCA are all in the area and serve the purpose.
 
Russ R - it's the Pontiac, MI VOR.

Ravioli - It was my hope the WX briefer would let me know things like this. Apparently these notices drop off after a while. And it's okay, I've come to expect a little snark when posting on this site.
 
RussR said:
Which VOR?
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Not original poster, but I've noticed this too.

LVL near KEMV (Emporia NC) in North Carolina is depicted with hashmarks on the chart, clearly out of service.

COL south of KEWR (Newark NJ) in New Jersey is NotAMed out of service indefinitely.
 
David Groat said:
Ravioli - It was my hope the WX briefer would let me know things like this. Apparently these notices drop off after a while. And it's okay, I've come to expect a little snark when posting on this site.
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Real question now, did the briefer have your proposed route, including the VORs, and didn't mention the NOTAM in the full brief? I don't know which NOTAMs they review on each full briefing. Airports probably for sure, but en-route waypoints would also be quite nice.
 
This was asked on another forum. Something about FAA policy, until the VOR is officially decommissioned it has to stay on the charts.
In this case, the FAA is caught by a couple of conflicting policies. And resolving the policies is more hassle than it is worth, since this should be a short term issue. As it was explained the FAA has the following policies in place:
  • The FAA has a specific budget amount to decommission so many VORs a year.
  • Any VOR which is not part of the long term minimal network and has a significant failure is turned off pending it's normal decommissioning schedule instead of being repaired
  • In anticipation of shutting down VORs, those which are not being retained have gone into a reduced MX pattern
  • Until a VOR is officially decommissioned, it must stay on the chart
The problem has been with the reduced maintenance cycles, the VORs have been failing faster than predicted. So VORs are being turned off due to costly failures faster then they are being removed. In theory this is supposed to resolve in a few years....

Tim
 
If the VOR structure is still recognizable from the air, would it not still be a worthy VFR check point?
 
tspear said:
This was asked on another forum. Something about FAA policy, until the VOR is officially decommissioned it has to stay on the charts.
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Great post Tim.

The actual NOTAMS for the PSI VORTAC are:

!PTK 09/052 PSI COM VOR VOICE 122.15 OUT OF SERVICE 1709201615-PERM
!PTK 11/007 PSI NAV TACAN AZM DECOMMISSIONED 1611151925-PERM
!PTK 02/024 PSI NAV VOR OUT OF SERVICE 1502221416-PERM

Which implies that while the TACAN azimuth has actually been decommissioned, the VOR itself is officially just "broken". Apparently it's broken "permanently", but bureaucratically, that is different than decommissioned.
 
"Until a VOR is officially decommissioned, it must stay on the chart."

Officially decommissioned? If it isn't working, good God, update the chart to so indicate on the next cycle - they could leave the little picture and name on the chart, but just indicate it's useless. That is the FAA in a nutshell, ain't it?
 
Justin M said:
COL south of KEWR (Newark NJ) in New Jersey is NotAMed out of service indefinitely.
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Is there an easy way to discover this, without a briefing, while doing typical flight planning?

Using Foreflight, the VOR looks normal on the vfr and ifr low charts, and clicking the VOR on the chart to bring up details just provides more normal-looking stuff like the Morse code.
 
Sundancer said:
"Until a VOR is officially decommissioned, it must stay on the chart."

Officially decommissioned? If it isn't working, good God, update the chart to so indicate on the next cycle - they could leave the little picture and name on the chart, but just indicate it's useless. That is the FAA in a nutshell, ain't it?
Click to expand...

Problem is you are thinking of this like a singular issue. The FAA has many moving parts, everything from NOTAM, VOR Maintenance, VOR Flight Checks, VOR Monitoring, enroute charting, terminal approach charts, regulations....
They have very well defined processes which attempt to keep all these pieces synchronized. So as much as it could be annoying for us now, image the chaos if they did not follow a process flow and just did it willy nilly.

Having worked with many large organizations which span the globe, and had to develop systems which coordinate many disparate pieces together, I can understand why the FAA has chosen to NOT reinvent a working process for a short term issue which will naturally resolve itself within a couple of years. The man power and cleanup effort on the data and charts if there are process changes could be huge if the one off process flow has a mistake or missing item or something is forgotten....

Tim
 
NoHeat said:
Is there an easy way to discover this, without a briefing, while doing typical flight planning?

Using Foreflight, the VOR looks normal on the vfr and ifr low charts, and clicking the VOR on the chart to bring up details just provides more normal-looking stuff like the Morse code.
Click to expand...

Search the NOTAMs, likely easier to ask the briefer unless you do it for a living and learn to do a quick scan.

Tim
 
tspear said:
Problem is you are thinking of this like a singular issue. The FAA has many moving parts, everything from NOTAM, VOR Maintenance, VOR Flight Checks, VOR Monitoring, enroute charting, terminal approach charts, regulations....
They have very well defined processes which attempt to keep all these pieces synchronized. So as much as it could be annoying for us now, image the chaos if they did not follow a process flow and just did it willy nilly.

Having worked with many large organizations which span the globe, and had to develop systems which coordinate many disparate pieces together, I can understand why the FAA has chosen to NOT reinvent a working process for a short term issue which will naturally resolve itself within a couple of years. The man power and cleanup effort on the data and charts if there are process changes could be huge if the one off process flow has a mistake or missing item or something is forgotten....

Tim
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I'm sorry, but this is an excuse for a self-inflicted wound - a "couple of years" isn't that short a term to be misinforming, or failing to inform in an efficient manner, of primary nav aids being out of service. I'd give them a pass if one was down for maintenance, between chart releases. But this is nonsense, and just incompetence. Plenty of far larger organizations handle this sort of thing with far less fuss.

They may have very well defined processes, but they certainly don't have very well designed processes.
 
They may have very well defined processes, but they certainly don't have very well designed processes.
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lol. Yup.
 
Sundancer said:
They may have very well defined processes, but they certainly don't have very well designed processes.
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Agree. But I can predict the response. You are supposed to know the notam so this really is not a burden for the pilot.

Tim


Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk
 
tspear said:
This was asked on another forum. Something about FAA policy, until the VOR is officially decommissioned it has to stay on the charts.
In this case, the FAA is caught by a couple of conflicting policies. And resolving the policies is more hassle than it is worth, since this should be a short term issue. As it was explained the FAA has the following policies in place:
  • The FAA has a specific budget amount to decommission so many VORs a year.
  • Any VOR which is not part of the long term minimal network and has a significant failure is turned off pending it's normal decommissioning schedule instead of being repaired
  • In anticipation of shutting down VORs, those which are not being retained have gone into a reduced MX pattern
  • Until a VOR is officially decommissioned, it must stay on the chart
The problem has been with the reduced maintenance cycles, the VORs have been failing faster than predicted. So VORs are being turned off due to costly failures faster then they are being removed. In theory this is supposed to resolve in a few years....

Tim
Click to expand...

How much money does it take to turn of the electricity?
 
David Groat said:
Russ R - it's the Pontiac, MI VOR.
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What bothers me is inconsistency - when looking at this VOR on the sectional - the channel number is crosshatched but the frequency is not. Clearly, per sectional chart legend both frequency and the channel should be crosshatched. The same problem with this VOR exists on the low IFR enroute charts - only the channel number is crosshatched.
 
Justin M said:
Not original poster, but I've noticed this too.

LVL near KEMV (Emporia NC) in North Carolina is depicted with hashmarks on the chart, clearly out of service.

COL south of KEWR (Newark NJ) in New Jersey is NotAMed out of service indefinitely.
Click to expand...

That one was notamed OTS permanently for a couple years before they put the cross hatch on. I wasted a lot of time planning a flight down to that area for students to practice using it before I found out.
 
Y'all are so quick to remove the vors from the charts, but those navaids still define airways, both low (V) and high (J) airways, as well as being in air route traffic control computers, data subscriptions, procedures, etc. If they're still needed for air traffic purposes, they'll need to stick around until they can be replaced and airways, procedures, departures, arrivals, etc. can be updated. Like others mentioned, that's a planned process, and just because a VOR goes out of service doesn't mean they just erase it off the chart.

If you're planning on navigating via navaids, check the notams to make sure hey work first. Airmanship 101.
 
Design processes that get the job done efficiently. Management 101.
 
This has been alluded to, but yes, that fix is still a part of airway routing.
Now, why is it still depicted as a VOR?? My guess is it's a (long) transition period to acclimate folks to its new status as a GPS waypoint.
 
Kritchlow said:
This has been alluded to, but yes, that fix is still a part of airway routing.
Now, why is it still depicted as a VOR?? My guess is it's a (long) transition period to acclimate folks to its new status as a GPS waypoint.
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No it's not. Once it's turned off, everyone is immediately forced to acclimatize to its new status. It would be far easier in fact to acclimatize, if it werent on the charts with a frequency.
 
PSI is practically in my back yard and some of the radials have become useless. I guess we can handle that for another year.
 
"Fake" decommissioning is a safety issue and leaving it on the charts clearly shows FAA is more interested in its "processes" than in actual safety.

Just like the ADS-B "puck".

Nothing is safer because of the decision to leave dead things on charts, nor only send traffic data to aircraft that transmit OUT data.

They go through phases with this, but right now they're in a phase where nobody is truly leading and making decisions based on a safety culture. They've had it and lost it so many times you just get used to it.

Maybe they'll hire some leaders who have a real safety emphasis in the operations division again sometime soon. We shall see. They're nowhere to be found right now, and if their engineers are saying anything about it, it's falling on deaf ears somewhere.
 
denverpilot said:
"Fake" decommissioning is a safety issue and leaving it on the charts clearly shows FAA is more interested in its "processes" than in actual safety.

Just like the ADS-B "puck".

Nothing is safer because of the decision to leave dead things on charts, nor only send traffic data to aircraft that transmit OUT data.

They go through phases with this, but right now they're in a phase where nobody is truly leading and making decisions based on a safety culture. They've had it and lost it so many times you just get used to it.

Maybe they'll hire some leaders who have a real safety emphasis in the operations division again sometime soon. We shall see. They're nowhere to be found right now, and if their engineers are saying anything about it, it's falling on deaf ears somewhere.
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Nate,

It is my understanding that PSI will be deactivated sometime in 2018 but in the meantime some radials are not dependable or are useless. IMO that doesn't render the VOR totally inop but states it should be considered that certain radials are no longer reliable. In the meantime just understand what does and doesn't work and use the VOR accordingly. It is still a reporting point for VFR traffic.
 
Norman said:
Nate,

It is my understanding that PSI will be deactivated sometime in 2018 but in the meantime some radials are not dependable or are useless. IMO that doesn't render the VOR totally inop but states it should be considered that certain radials are no longer reliable. In the meantime just understand what does and doesn't work and use the VOR accordingly. It is still a reporting point for VFR traffic.
Click to expand...

There's other stuff that isn't maintained correctly besides that one. But if that one doesn't work right then it's a safety problem anyway.

They've been hurting so bad for maintenance personnel they have an ad campaign going to try to entice people to join the ops side ranks. People don't seem to be too eager to pick a tech career maintaining old junk they let fall into disarray.

Initiative does seem to be somewhat rewarded though. The guy I know who works in ops gets awards of "excellence" for traveling fixing the old crap. He's hanging on for retirement and he's out.
 
Seems like it'd be a fun job. Not sure why no one wants to do it. It's probably fairly easy to figure out what's wrong, you get outside, you're probably not around the usual office politics, VORs can be in some cool places, etc.

I'd do it, rather than stay in the office.
 
Manteca VOR (ECA) is decommissioned and still on the charts, but at least it's marked as decommissioned (by hatching over the frequency and channel number).
 
Salty said:
No it's not. Once it's turned off, everyone is immediately forced to acclimatize to its new status. It would be far easier in fact to acclimatize, if it werent on the charts with a frequency.
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Ahh... okay. Seeing as though you're the expert on why not my "guess" is not correct, you must certainly know the answer to the question.
 
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