What a load of drivel !!!!
JM - Do you set out to deliberately mislead or are you just ignorant?
You have an expensive aircraft very well fitted. Then there are those out there without $15-20K GPS who are reliant on their VOR or ADF for some of their operations in their $75K aircraft. At prsent the Albury NDB is a hot spot of debate re retention for such people
The cheapest TSO'd Garmin GPS (155XL) is currently available for US$2700! Cheaper than a new indicator for my 30 year old ADF.
It would be interesting to know how many people are flying IFR in $75k aircraft equipped only a 30 year old ADF and or VOR. I suspect not many.
As for NVFR - man, I would rather be relying on a modern VFR-only GPS for navigation at night than some of the NDBs around the country that only become reliable from about 20 nm out!
The "unmentionable" provided an incentive to equip with 146 and escalate the demise of the navaids. Even so, the backup network is still quite substantial remembering that should Bing's whizzer ever turn off GPS there is a need to safeguard those very RPT you mention until they land
OK, now pay attention cause this bit is tricky!
NOBODY IS GOING TO TURN OFF THE F*CKING SATELLITES!
Aviation is the USA is rapidly becoming totally dependent on the GPS satellites.
You can also use a mobile phone to set off a bomb - but nobody is going to turn off the mobile phone network either!
But, it's all at a cost. And, likewise VHF coverage. However, VHF won't get you on the ground in IMC
No - but a GPS will get you down more often, with a greater safety margin, than an NDB approach.
Even funnier, even a faulty data card can crash that sole means GPS which you only need one of. If you are 'in the soup', in the soup, with your one GPS blank, the good old antique NDB and VOR might seem good friends indeed
True - but the Garmin 296/396/496/596/or 696 (or in my case "and 696"
) on the yolk will still get me down.
Do you seriously think the 30 year old ADFs in most GA aircraft are a more reliable option?
If this really bothers you, we can mandate the carriage of a spare data card - at a cost of about $300.
Get real and stop talking complete crap!
Dr 