Shutting down NDBs

Iresh NDB is the worst navaid I have ever used and most of those Copter NDB 351 approaches ended at the shopette instead of the airfield.

I have given hundreds of instrument evals between Hood (HLR), Temple(TPL) and Killeen(ILE) and I always ended the eval with that approach in order to get back home in minimum time. Now, the ILS is gone at ILE and the VOR is gone at TPL, so there is nowhere left to do a hold unless you go to Waco or GRK...

Get this: they decommissioned the VOR at TPL, but left the DME, so there is a square depicted on the chart and no approaches use it. Why?[/QUOTE]

I have to admit that I ALWAYS hated NDB approaches on the annual instrument check ride. Those should have expired with "Tactical Instrument Tickets" (just another way to kill off pilots in Vietnam before the SAM problem eliminated the need for any augmentation) and "Blue Canoe" simulators. Fortunately, FW pilots were never troubled by such foolishness as a "Tactical" instrument Ticket". I guess that the Army either thought that we were just too stupid to look up at the sky and see if it were to be blue without looking through a piece of paper with a hole in it, or it was just too cheap to spend the money to keep us at Ft. Wolters for an extra couple of weeks (and to have brought over a few UH-1H aircraft with full panels set up for things like ILS approaches so that we would not have had to suffer through trying to take our check rides in those old OH-13 aircraft the cockpits of which seemed to have been designed in a manner not ergonomically well suited for anyone of typical physical dimensions to fly while under the hood) that to allow us to gain the skills that we would ultimately need and which could have prevented an unspecified number of mishaps, but that is probably not an appropriate subject for this Forum (sorry, I am a new guy).

In any event, with most modern cockpits now being equipped with double, or even triple redundancy systems and in many cases complete glass cockpits, it is, perhaps, time for non-precision approaches to be allowed to achieve their demise. I have to admit that since suffix "R" was invented I have rarely filed VFR flight even in CAVU conditions, and quite honestly even in the days when adherence to the "Airway" routes was required the enhanced degree of safety that was available on an IFR flight plan seemed to be worth the effort. Yes, it could be inconvenient at times, perhaps even incurred a few unnecessary costs (which was not really an issue when flying military aircraft), but it did serve to better ensure that I maintained my IFR skills (as a wise old CW4 advised) and there really is no such thing as too much instrument proficiency, nor can I ever remember a pilot dying from going "inadvertent VFR" en route. If anyone who regularly flies RW aircraft really believes otherwise perhaps a recent mishap involving what I believe to be an IFR certified Sikorsky S-76 helicopter in CA will support the case that the costs of not remaining IFR proficient, and/or trying to fly under S-VFR when the probability is that IMC will be a factor enroute or even on an approach they might wish to consider all of the costs, not just the pecuniary ones, when constructing their comparative cost models.

When I was the Operations Officer of our unit, only Misson Essential, or classified flights were made on VFR flight plans. Now I do admit that there are destinations without instrument approaches that I enjoyed, but even then I was able to file and fly IFR and cancel at the appropriate time.

Again, I apologize if this may seem a bit inappropriate to some, however, every friend that I have lost to an aviation accident not directly attributable to an irrecoverable aircraft or system failure was lost on a VFR flight plan or was flying IFR legally, but without the degree of proficiency that could have been developed had they spent the time flying in the system, and perhaps even planned routes to involve actual IMC. Hood times, as are simulators, excellent training tools, but in the end, there is a difference in ergonomic factors when vision is limited artificially and one is flying with a qualified safety pilot in VMC, or in a simulator as the consequences of error, or lapses in concentration are significantly altered.
 
aterpster said:
I thought the FCC limited AM radio to 50 kilowatts at least from the 1950s, on, and 5 KW at night unless it is a "clear channel" transmitter.
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Something about "Brother Al" and his mega-Kilowatt radio station right across the border in Mexico (Del Rio, if I can remember correctly). That and trying to plan flights in West Texas, New Mexico and Western Kansas and Oklahoma so as to reach the destination before sunset to be sure that the radio station I was planning on using would not go off the air before I had the runway in sight. Little else can scare a pilot with a license on which the ink is barely dry than to be trying to find Tres Piedros, N.M. after hearing the Star Spangled Banner playing when the station I was using was signing off for the night.

Seems like if I wasn't planning on flying to New Orleans, or Chicago (neither of which at that time I had any interest in flying to even if I could have afforded the time on a Cessna 172, or planning to have a little fun across the border in Mexico, which I could rarely afford in either time or money back then, I had any number of restrictions as to my nighttime destinations. I am 100% certain there were other "clear channel" AM radio stations in the U.S., I just wasn't all that familiar with them at the time. It was funny how the landscape pretty much looked all the same between Manhattan, KS and Amarillo, TX (tho it has been said that at 10,000' msl you could see the lights of one of those cities from the other if the weather was clear enough) all seemed to look the same, reflections of gravel roads marking off the section lines North and South, just no road signs visible from the air to tell me one road from the other. Easier than remembering to point all of the 4x4's in the direction of the North Star before settling in for the night when off-roading so as to have some degree of orientation as to which way to head if the weather came in overnight, but not all that much of an advantage as running out of fuel in a Ford Bronco or an MB G-wagen was far less consequential than doing so in anything from a Cessna 172 to an MU-2F, though other than facing the Flying Evaluation Board that entire area was just a forced landing zone for anything from an OH-6A to an EH60Lm it even a CH-47.
 
First, let me tender my apology to this group as it seems as if I have arrived much like a "bull in a china shop" with perhaps an excess of enthusiasm and a dearth of manners. Of course, I should have introduced myself to the others, and given you a small bit of background so that you could individually decide how to qualitatively, rather than quantitatively evaluated my postings as well as having placed them into perspective.

I began flying in 1969 by participating in the ROTC Flight Training Program as an undergrad at Kansas State University. It was a great program as it allowed me to get my Private Pilot Certificate and a leg up on getting into flight school after entering onto active duty. That worked out well for me in so many ways. I did achieve the goal of earning my wings as an Army Aviator along the way to then POTUS Nixon's Senior Trip to Southeast Asia, and after earning that Private Pilot's rating I had no shortage of friends who were willing to split the cost of the flight time just to go flying to somewhere on the weekends, which allowed me to upgrade from a Cessna 150 to a 172 and eventually to a 182 as filling up the seats in the airplane was easier when divided four ways rather than just two ways, and the best part of it was that as the only person with a pilot's license I got to do all of the flying, the lesser "best part" was that it relegated me to serve "designated driver" status on most trips due to the wisdom of extending the "bottle to throttle" times to the point that unless we were gone on an academic break period of like a week I had a rare stroke of wisdom for my age at the time and completely abstained from one of my favorite sports, undergraduate drinking sorties. Flying around with three friends was responsibility enough and I was inexperienced enough that I needed all of my wits about me, and sometimes even then I needed their navigation skills as much as I did their monetary contributions to get us where we were aiming to go. IFR flying and instrument navigation were both somewhat of a mystery to me at the time so I concentrated first on my control of the aircraft and doing things that eventually become a bit like second nature, e.g. maintaining a specific course, at an appropriate altitude while scanning the skies for relevant air traffic and avoiding conflicts, as well as assuring that the altitude I had selected was sufficient to be clear of all obstacles in our path. I will admit, much to my chagrin, that I was not, and probably never would be the proverbial "natural" pilot hence an attentiveness to detail and concentration on virtually everything aeronautical was required for me to safely fly the plane and survival being intuitive I rapidly learned my limitations.

After graduation, as expected, I went on to an active duty tour that began with an inordinate number of months of schooling in the trade, finally culminating in getting into flight school and earning my wings, transitioning into mission aircraft both at Ft. Rucker, AL and in-country (South Vietnam) at the Army's branch of flight school at Vung Tao. I was fortunate in some ways, and less so in others, as my combat tour was spent in a special project at the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (MACV for those old enough to remember), as an "Advisor", at times to some who knew far more than I did making that title more honorary than factual, which meant that while I did earn some qualifications in several different types of aircraft I did not get the thousands of hours of flight time that was typical of Army pilots of the era. When I came home I was assigned to Ft. Hood, TX, which contrary to some popular misconceptions, being in Central TX, which was in my mind the actual "heart of America' and which became "home" even when I am not actually able to be living there. As the only "branch material" aviation assignments there were with the MI Aviation Company, and they were already filled by officers qualified in the OV-1 Mohawk it was another lost flying opportunity, not wasted as I did have access to aircraft assigned to the III Corps Flight Detachment to maintain proficiency and the requisite number of hours of flight time required to keep my flight pay, but I spent much of my time attending to the command of the detachment to which I was assigned.

After completing those early years of my military career, I was offered a position as a Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Dept., which became my actual, full-time adult career while remaining in the reserve components of the Army, in aviation-related positions by choice over those years, finally retiring after one month shy of 40 years, and having flown an assortment of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft ranging in size from OH-6 to CH-47 helicopters, and RU-8 to RU-21 fixed-wing airframes, with my last assignment being in a small unit flying first EH-1H and then as we upgraded airframes the EH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. Along the way, I earned Commercial Airplane Single and Multi-Engine Ratings and similar Rotary-Wing ratings as well as Instrument Ratings in both categories and Boeing 234 and Sikorsky S-76 Type Certificates. My civilian occupation also gave me some aviation-related opportunities that included attending several NTSB schools including those relating to aircraft fire and accident investigation.

After retiring from both of those careers I went into private practice for a number of years, and unfortunately and I hope temporarily, I found myself without an FAA Medical Certificate though I hope to cure that issue shortly (however, who knows how shortly is to be defined when COVID-19 has put virtually every elective procedure on hold, and the backlog continues to grow so procedures that were scheduled for May or June are being pushed back due to the backlog of the cases that were scheduled for February, March and April need to be done first). In the interim, along with several other retired military aviators, are trying to assemble a group large enough to make the purchase of something like an MU-2F or similar class of aircraft a realistic goal while still keeping the group small enough that we all have the opportunity to fly enough hours and have access to the airplane frequently enough, and for long enough periods of time to make this plan of partial ownership personally rewarding while remaining financially viable. We are, as I presume many on this board and in the group in its entirety, looking for an airplane that will give us the enjoyment of flying while also allowing us to make practical use of it as well. There is always a need to just fly for the sole purpose of enjoying flying, but with so many commitments and practical considerations every form of aircraft ownership by those other than Mike Bloomberg or Donald Trump exists in a work of compromise and as we all hold Commercial Pilot Certificates, those of us who can sustain a Class II Medical Certificate, along with someone to manage the day-to-day affairs of aircraft ownership, e.g. hangars, insurance, etc. will be exploring the potential for placing the airframe in a posture where it might be available for charter if that can ever be a realistic possibility. There are still a lot of loose ends to consider and for some of us more than others the downtime and income stream has added newly important considerations affecting our planning time and some objectives which may result in it necessarily being extended, One of the things that we all agree upon is that any aircraft that is purchased must be one that we can afford to own, maintain and to fly without counting on deriving any income, or support from external sources. That is, IMNSHO, the ONLY way for partial ownership to succeed. Just a process of finding the right people, in the right number, so as to make owning and flying the airplane something we can enjoy without worrying on a daily basis how we are going to be able to pay for it. [Sorry for the editorial content, but by including it I am hoping that everyone on this list who already owns an airplane, either individually, as a group or as a member of a flying club (if such things still exist in what has been a diverging economic environment) will kick in some advice, lessons learned from their experience(s), and hopefully flatten the learning curve as a bunch of older pilots try to assemble as a group to remain able to pursue flying by constructing a viable program for doing so].

Finally, a couple of exclusively personal facts about myself, which is probably the most important part of any introduction. As noted, I am a retired Federal Special Agent of the U. S. Treasury Department, a retired
U. S. Army Master Aviator with several thousand hours of flight time distributed between fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft with as much of it as practicable being IFR/IMC flying. I have also been a Chief of Police, a Municipal Court Judge, and in private practice and have taken "Of Counsel" status in the firm that I founded after the retirements. I have Ph.D., a Psy.D., and M.Dsc. degrees which I hope to also retire, yet hold in reserve to be sure that I can always pull my own weight in any aircraft ownership positions I enter into in the future. Other than that, flying has been an avocation, a vocation and along with collecting automobiles has been a driving force in my life and right now being medically grounded, temporarily, one of the things that I like most to do. Henceforth, I shall endeavor to just try to restrain myself from offering more opinion than might be welcome among the group, and hope to learn from the experiences of the others, who from my short period of observation having recently joined the group have far more experience in aircraft ownership and operations, more learned in the skills and knowledge in the fields of aviation operations in the civilian environment and who will hopefully be willing to share these experiences with me, and indulge me when I do get off on a trail that might only be tangentially related to the subject of a specific board or forum as I learn to adapt to the existing processes and conform to expected norms.
 
Dr. Stephen Spies said:
First, let me tender my apology to this group as it seems as if I have arrived much like a "bull in a china shop" with perhaps an excess of enthusiasm and a dearth of manners. Of course, I should have introduced myself to the others, and given you a small bit of background so that you could individually decide how to qualitatively, rather than quantitatively evaluated my postings as well as having placed them into perspective.

I began flying in 1969 by participating in the ROTC Flight Training Program as an undergrad at Kansas State University. It was a great program as it allowed me to get my Private Pilot Certificate and a leg up on getting into flight school after entering onto active duty. That worked out well for me in so many ways. I did achieve the goal of earning my wings as an Army Aviator along the way to then POTUS Nixon's Senior Trip to Southeast Asia, and after earning that Private Pilot's rating I had no shortage of friends who were willing to split the cost of the flight time just to go flying to somewhere on the weekends, which allowed me to upgrade from a Cessna 150 to a 172 and eventually to a 182 as filling up the seats in the airplane was easier when divided four ways rather than just two ways, and the best part of it was that as the only person with a pilot's license I got to do all of the flying, the lesser "best part" was that it relegated me to serve "designated driver" status on most trips due to the wisdom of extending the "bottle to throttle" times to the point that unless we were gone on an academic break period of like a week I had a rare stroke of wisdom for my age at the time and completely abstained from one of my favorite sports, undergraduate drinking sorties. Flying around with three friends was responsibility enough and I was inexperienced enough that I needed all of my wits about me, and sometimes even then I needed their navigation skills as much as I did their monetary contributions to get us where we were aiming to go. IFR flying and instrument navigation were both somewhat of a mystery to me at the time so I concentrated first on my control of the aircraft and doing things that eventually become a bit like second nature, e.g. maintaining a specific course, at an appropriate altitude while scanning the skies for relevant air traffic and avoiding conflicts, as well as assuring that the altitude I had selected was sufficient to be clear of all obstacles in our path. I will admit, much to my chagrin, that I was not, and probably never would be the proverbial "natural" pilot hence an attentiveness to detail and concentration on virtually everything aeronautical was required for me to safely fly the plane and survival being intuitive I rapidly learned my limitations.

After graduation, as expected, I went on to an active duty tour that began with an inordinate number of months of schooling in the trade, finally culminating in getting into flight school and earning my wings, transitioning into mission aircraft both at Ft. Rucker, AL and in-country (South Vietnam) at the Army's branch of flight school at Vung Tao. I was fortunate in some ways, and less so in others, as my combat tour was spent in a special project at the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (MACV for those old enough to remember), as an "Advisor", at times to some who knew far more than I did making that title more honorary than factual, which meant that while I did earn some qualifications in several different types of aircraft I did not get the thousands of hours of flight time that was typical of Army pilots of the era. When I came home I was assigned to Ft. Hood, TX, which contrary to some popular misconceptions, being in Central TX, which was in my mind the actual "heart of America' and which became "home" even when I am not actually able to be living there. As the only "branch material" aviation assignments there were with the MI Aviation Company, and they were already filled by officers qualified in the OV-1 Mohawk it was another lost flying opportunity, not wasted as I did have access to aircraft assigned to the III Corps Flight Detachment to maintain proficiency and the requisite number of hours of flight time required to keep my flight pay, but I spent much of my time attending to the command of the detachment to which I was assigned.

After completing those early years of my military career, I was offered a position as a Special Agent with the U.S. Treasury Dept., which became my actual, full-time adult career while remaining in the reserve components of the Army, in aviation-related positions by choice over those years, finally retiring after one month shy of 40 years, and having flown an assortment of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft ranging in size from OH-6 to CH-47 helicopters, and RU-8 to RU-21 fixed-wing airframes, with my last assignment being in a small unit flying first EH-1H and then as we upgraded airframes the EH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. Along the way, I earned Commercial Airplane Single and Multi-Engine Ratings and similar Rotary-Wing ratings as well as Instrument Ratings in both categories and Boeing 234 and Sikorsky S-76 Type Certificates. My civilian occupation also gave me some aviation-related opportunities that included attending several NTSB schools including those relating to aircraft fire and accident investigation.

After retiring from both of those careers I went into private practice for a number of years, and unfortunately and I hope temporarily, I found myself without an FAA Medical Certificate though I hope to cure that issue shortly (however, who knows how shortly is to be defined when COVID-19 has put virtually every elective procedure on hold, and the backlog continues to grow so procedures that were scheduled for May or June are being pushed back due to the backlog of the cases that were scheduled for February, March and April need to be done first). In the interim, along with several other retired military aviators, are trying to assemble a group large enough to make the purchase of something like an MU-2F or similar class of aircraft a realistic goal while still keeping the group small enough that we all have the opportunity to fly enough hours and have access to the airplane frequently enough, and for long enough periods of time to make this plan of partial ownership personally rewarding while remaining financially viable. We are, as I presume many on this board and in the group in its entirety, looking for an airplane that will give us the enjoyment of flying while also allowing us to make practical use of it as well. There is always a need to just fly for the sole purpose of enjoying flying, but with so many commitments and practical considerations every form of aircraft ownership by those other than Mike Bloomberg or Donald Trump exists in a work of compromise and as we all hold Commercial Pilot Certificates, those of us who can sustain a Class II Medical Certificate, along with someone to manage the day-to-day affairs of aircraft ownership, e.g. hangars, insurance, etc. will be exploring the potential for placing the airframe in a posture where it might be available for charter if that can ever be a realistic possibility. There are still a lot of loose ends to consider and for some of us more than others the downtime and income stream has added newly important considerations affecting our planning time and some objectives which may result in it necessarily being extended, One of the things that we all agree upon is that any aircraft that is purchased must be one that we can afford to own, maintain and to fly without counting on deriving any income, or support from external sources. That is, IMNSHO, the ONLY way for partial ownership to succeed. Just a process of finding the right people, in the right number, so as to make owning and flying the airplane something we can enjoy without worrying on a daily basis how we are going to be able to pay for it. [Sorry for the editorial content, but by including it I am hoping that everyone on this list who already owns an airplane, either individually, as a group or as a member of a flying club (if such things still exist in what has been a diverging economic environment) will kick in some advice, lessons learned from their experience(s), and hopefully flatten the learning curve as a bunch of older pilots try to assemble as a group to remain able to pursue flying by constructing a viable program for doing so].

Finally, a couple of exclusively personal facts about myself, which is probably the most important part of any introduction. As noted, I am a retired Federal Special Agent of the U. S. Treasury Department, a retired
U. S. Army Master Aviator with several thousand hours of flight time distributed between fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft with as much of it as practicable being IFR/IMC flying. I have also been a Chief of Police, a Municipal Court Judge, and in private practice and have taken "Of Counsel" status in the firm that I founded after the retirements. I have Ph.D., a Psy.D., and M.Dsc. degrees which I hope to also retire, yet hold in reserve to be sure that I can always pull my own weight in any aircraft ownership positions I enter into in the future. Other than that, flying has been an avocation, a vocation and along with collecting automobiles has been a driving force in my life and right now being medically grounded, temporarily, one of the things that I like most to do. Henceforth, I shall endeavor to just try to restrain myself from offering more opinion than might be welcome among the group, and hope to learn from the experiences of the others, who from my short period of observation having recently joined the group have far more experience in aircraft ownership and operations, more learned in the skills and knowledge in the fields of aviation operations in the civilian environment and who will hopefully be willing to share these experiences with me, and indulge me when I do get off on a trail that might only be tangentially related to the subject of a specific board or forum as I learn to adapt to the existing processes and conform to expected norms.
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Welcome to POA. Any relation to a guy named John Wayne Jones? ;)
 
Dr. Stephen Spies said:
I began flying in 1969 by participating in the ROTC Flight Training Program as an undergrad at Kansas State University. It was a great program as it allowed me to get my Private Pilot Certificate and a leg up on getting into flight school after entering onto active duty. That worked out well for me in so many ways.
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I beat you by 13 years, Doc. I soloed (on my own dime) in a Cessna 140 at Denver-Stapleton December, 1956. I was enlisted in the USAF at the time, and this was just before USAF Aero Clubs. In 1969 I was on my second type as a young captain at TWA. In the interval from 1956-69 I finished the USAF enlistment, got four years of college behind me, and two years at a public accounting firm during one of the dry periods of airline hiring.

As to NDBs, four-course range approaches were part of my instrument rating ride in 1958. And, NDB approaches were more common than VOR approaches. I also taught range approaches in a Link C-3 at the time.

Although I stopped all flying in 2002, I know a lot about DME/DME/IRU, to which Russ was referring.

The system is in a major transition. GPS/RNAV is the best thing that happened to the IFR system (but it needs a backup, thus the FAA MON program).
:)
 
aterpster said:
I beat you by 13 years, Doc. I soloed (on my own dime) in a Cessna 140 at Denver-Stapleton December, 1956. I was enlisted in the USAF at the time, and this was just before USAF Aero Clubs. In 1969 I was on my second type as a young captain at TWA. In the interval from 1956-69 I finished the USAF enlistment, got four years of college behind me, and two years at a public accounting firm during one of the dry periods of airline hiring.

As to NDBs, four-course range approaches were part of my instrument rating ride in 1958. And, NDB approaches were more common than VOR approaches. I also taught range approaches in a Link C-3 at the time.

Although I stopped all flying in 2002, I know a lot about DME/DME/IRU, to which Russ was referring.

The system is in a major transition. GPS/RNAV is the best thing that happened to the IFR system (but it needs a backup, thus the FAA MON program).
:)
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I am pleased to not be an anachronism on this list.

I am developing a program for disabled Vets using GIS, GPS, Charting (like the old DECCA (sp) system in some of the UHI-1D & H series airframes), geocaching, and precisely locating historical sites. One of the things that I am most looking forward to is the entry into the market of lower-priced Inertial Navigation Systems (INS). Much like GPS was back in "our" flying days, the price is still above much of what the General Aviation (GA) market is willing or able to spend, and they are still not TSO'ed nor well integrated into the glass cockpit, however, we had them on our EH-60x and of our RC-12x aircraft and they can are a great addition to the cockpit. I am hoping to integrate one into my program for the Vets before too long.

As the new system continues to evolve, though most probably more slowly now due to the COVID-19 issue the workload in the cockpit of even the less expensive and more common GA marketplace airframes and opens up the IFR environment up to a new group of pilots. Gone are the days of Flight Engineers and Navigators, CONSOLAN (long-range) navigation systems, etc. and I doubt that they are sorely missed by most. Ergonomically, each one of these improvements has made single-pilot IFR flight safer, and at times equally as cost-effective especially as an alternative to S-VFR, which should make the skies safer for all of us, pilots, and passengers.

Now, if I could just find a Jetstar Series II 731 or a Sabreliner converted to a full glass cockpit, at a price that I could afford, even with three or four partners, keep the Saudis and the Russians in competition with each other so that I could afford the fuel, and end the 14-day COVID-19 quarantine upon arrival in some states, not only would I really be able to use, and enjoy the skills acquired in the military as great benefits in retirement. My main concern would then be that in discovering such a thing I would fear that I was no longer alive to take advantage of same as I must have already died and gone to heaven
 
tsts4 said:
I'm struggling with the so what concerning this. I haven't flown in a plane equipped with a working ADF since like 1988.
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tsts4 said:
So enlighten me as to why this is a big deal
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It sounds like it doesn't apply to you but NDB approaches are still big internationally. The US is one of the few countries that has gone full-tilt into GPS/GPS overlay approaches. So yeah if you fly only GA and/or in the US, then the demise of NDB probably isn't a big deal. If you've fly outside the US you can find yourself in trouble with the governing body of aviation in the country you're flying and a violation of their rules filed through the FAA goes against your certificate just as much as one coming from the FAA.

See this conversation here:
Rgbeard said:
At Ensenada (MMES) the NDB transmitter was taken by thieves (copper?) and hasn't been replaced.

Unfortunately, it's the only instrument approach, and yeah, we get IMC here.
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aterpster said:
It escapes me why Mexico hasn't implemented an RNAV approach at MMES. The cartels can't steal the GPS sats.
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Groundpounder said:
Can’t you just do the gps overlay?
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aterpster said:
Not legal because you wouldn't get approach sensitivity in the final segment. Also, Mazaitlan shouldn't issue an approach clearance.
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Overlay approaches can have issues, particularly when magnetic variation causes CF leg end points to not align which causes approaches using them to have excessive roll between fixes. Overlay approaches were (if I'm not mistaken and if I am, then its how it seemed to me) a temporary stop gap. They weren't meant to wholesale replace the underlying approach, they were meant to speed the adoption and use of GPS until such time as the FAA could fully vet the approach for GPS and/or create new GPS-only approaches. I think it was a good conceptual idea but flawed in its execution, while the FAA has made a fair amount of progress in replacing overlays, their existence has given rise to the idea that you can just overlay just about any non-precision approach in your GPS.

David Megginson said:
My ADF's not coming out until it fails and isn't economically repairable. The Canada Flight Supplement (our A&FD) still publishes the lat/lon of commercial AM radio stations, and that's my goto if all else fails: GPS blocked because of a threatened terror attack, stuck too low under an icing layer to get VOR reception, etc. Those 50,000 watt commercial AM transmitters won't give you high course precision (the track will be a bit of a slalom course), but they're not line-of-sight, so you can pick them up from huge distances at low altitude, unlike VOR.
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This was always my thought about ADFs but the ability to find lat/lon of a station from the Chart Supplement (the "new" name for A/FD's in the US since March 2016), plot it on a paper chart and determine where you are all while still maintaining control over the aircraft is not something I'd want to do in a true emergency situation where my GPS/iPad failed and all I had left in my plane was my ADF, especially without a lot of practice and I'm honestly not even sure the lat/lon of the stations are published in the US Chart Supplements... Using foreflight to search all 757 riveting pages of the NorthEast chartsupplement I wasn't able to find any reference to KYW/1060 which is one of the more well known stations in the Philadelphia region (also apparently one of the oldest radio broadcast stations in the US) and pretty much anyone who has grown up or lived in the area probably knows their "jingle" by heart (KYW... news radio... 10-60), traffic and transit on the 2's and other news broadcasts. I'm pretty sure for the US, you'd have to reference the FCC database which is available online but not sure about offline versions/publications (not to mention it being another, albeit small, cost to flying).

PeterNSteinmetz said:
I have just completed a project to provide a KML overlay that can be used in Foreflight and other EFBSs which shows the location, frequencies, and call signs of all AM radio stations in the US. So you can turn the layer on, zoom in on a target area, and find nearby stations to use with your ADF (well, my plane still has one ;)

Available at my flying page at http://steinmetz.org/peter/flying/index.html.
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Way cool! Thanks for posting this! Now to figure out how to script it so its auto-updating. lol.


Brad W said:
This old codger for one kinda hates to read this.
I certainly wouldn't want to have NDB's be the primary nav aid for everything....
but I value the simplicity of them.

Just speculating, VOR stations are probably much more complex and expensive to maintain....so I get the idea of letting them die out...but NDB's sure seem very basic and probably very cheap...and a network of them around seems like a great back-up in my thinking
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The above issues with overlays and the international is one of the biggest issues I have with the FAA's efforts to modernize. I am all for modernization but for once the FAA seems to be a bit ahead of the global curve here... That leaves a real issue/gap in terms of ability to conduct real world flight training on systems still used globally but decommissioned here in the US. I'm not saying they should all be kept online and maintained but the wholesale decommission and removal strikes me as just as concerning.

NDB's as you noted probably dont cost much to keep running (though I think if the FAA had their way, we'd all be flying the purple line which unlike NDB's doesn't require local resources or cost the FAA anything at all really) and of the approximately 3,000 VOR stations globally, the US had approximately 1/3 of them so we can certainly afford to drop some VOR stations. I'd like to think this move away from NDB/VOR is well thought out but then the FAA's track record on these things isn't the greatest (such as their decision a few years back to remove from charts the lighted-mail-routes used in Montana for mountain passes and then forgetting where they were when someone noticed and said hey, maybe we shouldn't remove these since they're still active...)

A part of me also would like to see some legacy equipment remain online if for no other reason than for "historical purposes" of course, I guess the issue with that is that fewer and fewer aircraft will have the equipment necessary to use it even for "historical" demonstrations. Even "Fifi," 1 of 2 remaining B29 Superfortresses in flying condition, has gone GPS (of course as a military aircraft adapted to civilian use as a flying museum, hard to say what it "should" be equipped with).

Its kind of sad really and the conversation I had today with a friend who I turned on to flying and who went off to start learning to fly with a major university known for their flight program, all that much concerning. He called me up and said "I've only ever flown glass, how do you identify and keep out of airspace when flying steam gauges?" Of course in the days when Bravo's bear little resemblence to the upside down birthday cake we all know and love and now are a mix of visual, radial and GPS fixes, its not as applicable as it once was... For better or worse. I'd argue that the changes to the Bravo's while again great on paper, are flawed in execution. They're easier to fly than ever if you have GPS or local knowledge but if you dont have either of those things, there is something to be said about the simplicity of uniformity and knowing your DME distances for the different shelfs.
 
apr911 said:
Way cool! Thanks for posting this! Now to figure out how to script it so its auto-updating. lol.
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You ‘re welcome. It is a script to generate the file, but I am not sure how it could get pushed to Foreflight.
 
apr911 said:
NDB's as you noted probably dont cost much to keep running (though I think if the FAA had their way, we'd all be flying the purple line which unlike NDB's doesn't require local resources or cost the FAA anything at all really) and of the approximately 3,000 VOR stations globally, the US had approximately 1/3 of them so we can certainly afford to drop some VOR stations. I'd like to think this move away from NDB/VOR is well thought out but then the FAA's track record on these things isn't the greatest (such as their decision a few years back to remove from charts the lighted-mail-routes used in Montana for mountain passes and then forgetting where they were when someone noticed and said hey, maybe we shouldn't remove these since they're still active...)
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When I was flying in Northern MN 2 years ago I met some FAA and MN state officials at Grand Marais/Cook County (KCKC). I asked them why they were up that way. They explained they were evaluating removing several of the NDBs in northern MN. Apparently these are paid for by the state.

I see they are still on the charts, so don’t know what happened to that plan
 
apr911 said:
(such as their decision a few years back to remove from charts the lighted-mail-routes used in Montana for mountain passes and then forgetting where they were when someone noticed and said hey, maybe we shouldn't remove these since they're still active...)
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Montana does still have some beacons charted on the Sectional. Far as I know, the only state that still maintains navigation beacons. Here are a couple examples from the Great Falls sectional.

Screenshot_20200512-210847_Pilot.jpg Screenshot_20200512-210815_Pilot.jpg
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
When I was flying in Northern MN 2 years ago I met some FAA and MN state officials at Grand Marais/Cook County (KCKC). I asked them why they were up that way. They explained they were evaluating removing several of the NDBs in northern MN. Apparently these are paid for by the state.

I see they are still on the charts, so don’t know what happened to that plan
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Pretty sure that's the case with the mail-route light beacons in MT (they're maintained by the state, not the FAA). It'd be particularly sad if the FAA decided to remove them from the charts and forgot where they were all while paying for their upkeep and maintenance but then it wouldn't really surprise me given the government bureaucracy involved.
 
smv said:
Montana does still have some beacons charted on the Sectional. Far as I know, the only state that still maintains navigation beacons.

View attachment 85759 View attachment 85760
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Yup. It looks like they're down to 3 as of 2017.
https://missoulian.com/news/state-a...cle_3fc154b6-76aa-5162-bc03-efd28713307e.html

The FAA removed them from the sectionals in 2011 and the team that maintains them had to call the FAA to get the FAA to put them back on and for some odd reason, had to provide the locations of the beacons (I guess because once deleted, they couldn't just put them back on the map where they used to be and had to have their location re-verified, dont know its claimed in the article by the maintainer that the FAA through the plot data away but I find it hard to believe that it was thrown away that quickly if at all by the government and it doesn't seem the article consulted to the FAA in writing so it wasn't really clear on why the FAA couldn't just restore the beacons on the sectional and had to ask the Montana team to resubmit them).
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2015/april/28/light-the-way

The interviewed maintainer of the beacons hit on one of the reasons I support keeping some of these systems online. Sure they're relics of a bygone era but that doesn't mean they have to go unmaintained and be lost to antiquity.
 
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apr911 said:
while the FAA has made a fair amount of progress in replacing overlays
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By my count, there are 65 GPS overlay approaches ("xxx OR GPS") left in the US. Compared to about 6600 RNAV (GPS) approaches, calling that a "fair amount" of progress seems a bit disingenuous.
 
RussR said:
By my count, there are 65 GPS overlay approaches ("xxx OR GPS") left in the US. Compared to about 6600 RNAV (GPS) approaches, calling that a "fair amount" of progress seems a bit disingenuous.
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A valid point, fair was used as a ambiguous qualifier for exactly this reason though. I am aware that the FAA has publish quite a lot of GPS approaches (apparently 6600 by your count) but to really characterize their progress you'd need to know how many overlays were created in total and how many were retired/are left.
 
smv said:
As recently as last October, these were all still on the Great Falls sectional... Not sure how many are still there now. The two above were the first two I found on the current GF sectional.

View attachment 85761 View attachment 85762 View attachment 85763 View attachment 85764 View attachment 85765 View attachment 85766 View attachment 85767
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The article refers to the number of airways left, not the number of beacons.
So there are 3 airways left with associated beacons. Not sure how many beacons that actually leaves; I assume at least 6 beacons. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my post.
 
smv said:
Montana does still have some beacons charted on the Sectional. Far as I know, the only state that still maintains navigation beacons. Here are a couple examples from the Great Falls sectional.

View attachment 85759 View attachment 85760
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This is fascinating. I never knew that these still existed. Probably as a result of too much time behind the Garmin "Looking Glass".

My ARNG CH-47 unit did Mountain Flying Course at Ft. Carson, CO more than 20 yrs. ago and these were never mentioned even way back then. Personally, I would have thought it worth the time and effort just to fly up there and "familiarize" us with these aids to navigation, though at what a Chinook cost per hour to operate DA may not have concurred with this opinion.

I guess that there are some necessary concessions to progress but hopefully if MT ever decides to decommission them they will be donated to the Air & Space Museum at the Smithsonian.
 
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