Originally Posted by
jmmoric
The ILS is close to being 90 years old technology as well, and so is the internal cumbustion engine, and fire is even older?.........
But the difference is, in the cases cited above, they all worked as advertised rather than being at the whim of the weather and other gods!!!! Flying NDB approaches in good vis on checks was both amusing .... and sobering! Using GPS as a backup to the NDB worked quite well tho!!!
Seriously tho, you are correct re ILS. What intrigues me is was MLS used much/at all? Seems they had MLS at LHR up until 2017. The Mil have used MLS quite a bit but not sure what civvie uptake there was. I never came across it outside the Mil. I guess, if only a few airlines equiped their aircraft with it (I think BA equiped some of their SH Fleets with it), then the benefits of MLS would have been negated as, particularly at busy fields with a queue down the ILS, you'd have a mix of MLS and ILS traffic so would have to go for the lowest common denominator (ILS) to make sequencing easier. I guess it would be harder to utilise the benefits promised by the MLS on mixed ILS/MLS arrivals - if that were even possible. Dunno!