VOR?

John Baker

John Baker

Final Approach
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John Baker
The guy that does my avionics claims that VOR nav aids are only going to be around for a "couple more years" and then they will be turned off for good. It will be all GPS after that. Any thoughts?

John
 
John Baker said:
The guy that does my avionics claims that VOR nav aids are only going to be around for a "couple more years" and then they will be turned off for good. It will be all GPS after that. Any thoughts?

John
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Are you sure he wasn't talking about NDB's? From what I hear VOR's are here for a long, long time.
 
I wouldn't bet on either being shut off in a couple of years. They will both be around for awhile. NDBs will probably go away when individual stations become uneconomical to repair.
 
FAA is probably doing what they are doing currently with BC LOC approaches. From what I hear the equipment/antennas for these are no longer supported, so as these systems fail they are being decommissioned.
 
Any thoughts?
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1) Did he try to sell you a GPS?

2) You probably should find a more knowledgeable avionics guy. There may be other, more important, things on which he is also misinformed.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I wouldn't bet on either being shut off in a couple of years. They will both be around for awhile. NDBs will probably go away when individual stations become uneconomical to repair.
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So no chance of NDBs being gone by the time I do my IA checkride in a couple months? DAMN! I hate those things!
 
airdale said:
1) Did he try to sell you a GPS?

2) You probably should find a more knowledgeable avionics guy. There may be other, more important, things on which he is also misinformed.
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1: No, he was telling me to wait until I get my private and new medical before I spend the money.

2: He has been in his own avionics business for probably over thirty or fourty years. His business is well respected by most in the San Diego area.

John
 
airdale said:
2) You probably should find a more knowledgeable avionics guy. There may be other, more important, things on which he is also misinformed.
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You're kidding right? What the heck does being misinformed about a broad government policy decision about the furure of a national navigation system have to do with technical knowledge of how to install, repair, maintain and test avionics equipment? Might as well fire your car mechanic or lawn service because they don't vote the way you do. After all if they're misinformed about that... :no:
 
nddons said:
So no chance of NDBs being gone by the time I do my IA checkride in a couple months? DAMN! I hate those things!
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Probably not, but if you stay away form kenosha not much chance of getting an NDB approach on the check ride.

I got sooooo lucky on my check ride. I was doing it at night and it was IMC at Kenosha. So we opted to go to Rockford where I had flown all of the approaches the night before. We did the LOC-BC to the hold and then the ILS in did our manuevers and back to C81 on a partial panel GPS approach.

I have done NDB approaches, even did the Kenosha one in actual and I know not to ever do them unless they are the approach of last resort.
 
vontresc said:
Hartford (HXF) still has an NDB as well...
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I fly out of Waukesha (KUES) and HXF is my CFII's NDB of choice. :mad2:

The last time we left a hold over HXF and he told me to proceed direct Badger VOR, I shut off the ADF so fast my CFII thought I'd ripped it out of the panel!
 
GigG601XL said:
INOP


Print this, cut it out and stick it on your ADF.
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You also to have log the INOP. :nono:

I forgetting to log mine. I think it can be fixed, and I actually sunk money into it. It's good for getting AM radio.
 
You're kidding right?
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No.
What the heck does being misinformed about a broad government policy decision about the future of a national navigation system have to do with technical knowledge of how to install, repair, maintain and test avionics equipment?
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Absolutely nothing.

But: This guy also gives people advice on equipment. If he is seriously misinformed about VORs, what misinformation might he be dispensing about 406mhz ELTs, WAAS, ADS-B and all the other new stuff that is around or coming?

Maybe I should have said: "You probably should find a more knowledgeable avionics guy for anything beyond installing, repairing, maintaining and testing your avionics."
 
I'm afraid you missed the most important information on that page, but so, apparently, did everyone else who looked at it. I should have mentioned it when I posted the link. The bar-chart near the bottom (the one with the blue vertical bars) shows that even though the official start of VOR decommissioning isn't until 01 October 2010 the Feds have actually been letting some of them die without repairs since 2007. They're following the same strategy with NDBs: when both NDBs near Beatrice, Nebraska (KBIE) went belly-up this past summer the FAA immediately announced that it had no intention of repairing them. Yet if you read the NOTAMs for KBIE you'll see that they're listed as DCMSND...WIE UFN. My guess is that the equipment won't be removed and the shacks demolished until the official start of NDB decommissioning in 2012, but those beacon's won't ever be operational again.

The way is now being cleared for the Next Generation National Aerospace System even though key enabling technologies haven't been developed yet and key parts' concepts of operations aren't yet finalized in detail. That's how beaureaucrats work when they're confident that those able to stop their plans aren't paying attention: burn enough bridges behind you before they notice and they'll have to let you move forward...
 
mikea said:
I think it can be fixed, and I actually sunk money into it. It's good for getting AM radio.
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One of the first conversations I had with my current CFI was about the advances in avionics, and how nobody learned how to use an ADF any more. My reply: "That's for listening to WCCO on!" He couldn't quit laughing for a while.

(For the uninitiated, WCCO is the big smoke news radio station in the Twin Cities.)
 
nddons said:
So no chance of NDBs being gone by the time I do my IA checkride in a couple months? DAMN! I hate those things!
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My instructor says I'm the only student he's had who actually likes NDBs.

They aren't bad, and they do give you instrument approaches into a number of airports that haven't yet gotten GPS approaches. I wouldn't put one in my plane, but I definitely would not remove it if I had one, and I'd rather buy a plane that has one than not, especially since there a number of ILS approaches and such for which an ADF is required.

That said, IFR WAAS GPS is the way to go, if I had my own plane that is what I'd put in it, unless it already had a non-WAAS IFR GPS. The Mooney has an Apollo IFR GPS, works just fine.
 
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