PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Nav aids in Aus to be shut down?
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Old 14th Jun 2012, 02:49
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FlightPathOBN
 
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Well, they just got the WAAS coverage to Alaska in Dec 2011, so I dont know when it moved. This was dated Sep2010, and the move was just proposed. Unless you have 2 sats, you are not going to get LPV anyways...
I suppose all of the ground monitoring stations, coupled with 2 data centers would be free?
Note that in the US, it costs over $50 million dollars a year to operate, plus $50,000 PER procedure....Startup costs? well, you can just imagine...Wide Area Augmentation System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WAAS Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance (LPV) approaches with 200-foot minimums will not be published for airports without medium intensity lighting, precision runway markings and a parallel taxiway. Smaller airports, which currently may not have these features, would have to upgrade their facilities or require pilots to use higher minimums.

Well, I am not going to agree that WAAS is better, perhaps for GA aircraft, but for commercial, it is a step backwards. What a commercial aircraft would have to do to be certified to fly WAAS, just isnt worth the time or effort. As you can see from the FAA's list, very few aircraft are certified to fly the WAAS, even after all of these years.

In reality, WAAS is only meant to replace CAT I ILS in areas where the government didnt want to keep paying for the navaid, so that is all one can hope from it.

Last edited by FlightPathOBN; 14th Jun 2012 at 02:57.
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