No, we have alphabet soup here. Like you took your old airspace and picked ICAO letters to describe it, so did we. So everything looks the same, but is completely different. We are now actually commencing a process of changing what we do, and how we do it, but I (for one) are not convinced those driving the changes understand all the issues.
Either do I.
Question 1. I was reading in "Flight" the FAA is recomending GA aircraft encountering GPS interference climb to 5,000ft, thus putting themselves within range of at least one VOR, and they will retain enuf VOR in the future to provide this back-up to GPS. Does this really give an indication of the VOR coverage in the US or am I being misled?
Question 2. This reference in AIH (
Chapter 4. IFR Section 1. NAVAID Use Limitations ) seems to indicate that I can't clear a AC50 between, say, YMIA (VOR) and YHSM (Class H RBN 146NM away & outside radar coverage) unless the flight is RNAV equipped. Is this the case? Our rules only require a positive fix every 2 hours, which we separate with by assuming a maximum cross track tolerance of 30nm. It would also be entirely considered a pilot problem and ignored as a factor in clearance issue. Is this sort of restriction actually imposed?