Goodbye to VORs

[niknak]

Over the coming few years, a number of VORs in the UK will be withdrawn.
Most, if not all VORs are owned, operated and maintained by NATS and paid for by those who pay Eurocontrol route charges within, or when overflying the UK, i.e the airlines, executive aviation and the every small number of other IFR operators whose aircraft exceed the specified minima.
Polish up on your navigational equipment and skills boys and girls!

[mingalababya]

What about NDB's? Have they started decommsioning those as well?

[IO540]

Reference, niknak, and which ones?

GA would barely notice; all real flying is done on GPS and VOR/DME is at most a backup for the GPS.

Transport jet operators might be more concerned because INS uses DME/DME fixes for calibration. The modern ones can use GPS too but in case of GPS failure all you are left with is inertial nav which might put you within a few miles of where you are going (depending on when it last got calibrated). That probably doesn't matter since most European traffic is radar vectored end to end.

They could withdraw all non-approach VORs but I bet they won't withdraw DMEs!

[BEagle]

So, after blackmailing us all into spending a mint on 'FM-immune' VOR receivers, they now intend to withdraw VORs?

Where did this information come from?

[Captain Smithy]

Surely would be madness, what would replace VOR? Not everybody has GPS. For example I know that none of the four aircraft at my club are equipped with GPS.

[IO540]

FM Immunity is also for the localiser, Beagle.

Not that anybody has demonstrated any need for this requirement anyway - it's precautionary...

VORs are being decommissioned here and there, around the world, but this is a long way from suggesting that the UK will get rid of them in some kind of big way.

Capt Smithy - I guess it depends on what you use them for. At low levels (most UK GA flies 1000-2000ft) the range of a VOR is too poor to make it useful for long range enroute nav.

At high levels (say FL100-250, in the GA context) you are probably doing airways flights under ATC control and there ATC routinely give you a DCT (or own nav) to a VOR which is too far away. 200nm away is not uncommon. BRNAV capability is assumed and for GA this means an IFR GPS. You could hack it with a KNS80 and intermediate VORs I suppose... a lot of hassle.

So VORs are pretty limited in their GA usage. Of course they don't tell you this in PPL or IMCR training.

[172driver]

So VORs are pretty limited in their GA usage. Of course they don't tell you this in PPL or IMCR training.


IO I would disagree with this. It depends which part of the world you are flying in. At FL 85-100 or thereabouts (i.e. the altitude most non-turbo, non-pressurized spamcans and their occupants feel well), you can navigate quite happily using VORs in most parts of Europe, and, of course, in the US.

Other than that I agree with your comments re GPS.....

[Captain Smithy]

Good points, IO540.

[IO540]

This is a bit like the debate whether GA needs ATC at all. It doesn't really, when you get to analyse the impact on the risk of the flight. Anything short of a radar service is worth practically nothing, and anyway if everybody called up London Info the service would immediately collapse so they are obviously hoping that most people in Class G will just fly around on a listening watch. Short of a radar service, we may as well fly around with a listening watch on 121.50. This will rub some people up the wrong way but...

I do stand by my comments on the usefulness of VORs. It comes down to the difficulty (in most of the UK) of flying at high level while OCAS, and while outside the UK CAS transits are a lot easier it's still a request which can be denied, forcing you to sometimes ludicrously low levels (look at Belgium or Italy for example). And as soon as you get significant gaps in the coverage the navigation system falls apart. You can't just fly a heading until the next VOR comes into range (much as this is taught).

In the USA it's different; they have loads of VORs and one can fly their entire airways system purely with VORs. This is drummed into you in the FAA IR, with their VOR changeover points, MRAs, etc. One could no doubt fly Europe's airways system purely with VORs too but in practice ATC don't give you those "obvious" routes. You can request them if you lose BRNAV capability due to equipment failure (I've done that) but this is not normal.

I would not even consider doing a long leg in UK or Europe without GPS. If VFR, it's too easy to get snookered into a low level scud run, either under some piece of CAS, or laterally many miles away from the coast and also at low level. If IFR, one could not use VORs entirely for nav short of declaring equipment failure every so often (excepting the clumsy RNAV option and using intermediate VOR/DMEs). I am afraid that's the way things have moved in the BRNAV world in which all IFR flight takes place - ATC just forget that a VOR is a VOR and treat it just like any other waypoint.

The question is that if VORs were to go wholesale (most unlikely in our flying lifetimes, IMHO) what does one backup the GPS with? There isn't a DME/DME based moving map product. There was a VOR/DME based moving map product (Collins?) but it died when GPS came along. One could make one, of course.

[Al Smith]

Never learnt how to use a VOR anyway

[sternone]

is this also the case outside the UK in eu ?

[Lukesdad]

Just a thought, if there are going to be no VORs or NDBs will the IMC rating be revised to allow the use of GPS units precision or otherwise?

[adverse-bump]

what a load of crap. who's come up with these lies!

[niknak]

AD

It's not crap or lies.

Deans Cross leaves the planet for good at the end of 2007, more to follow, as for the associated DMEs, obviously those will go as well.

There are very few "en route" NDBs left which are owned and operated by NATS and if you check the small print, you will observe that nearly every airport NDB (which are all operated by the airport authority) will have the caveat that it is for airfield, not en route use.

[IO540]

Niknak

I assume you work for NATS. Can you offer an opinion on how INS will calibrate itself with no DMEs? I know modern airliners use GPS but most of the world's jet transport fleet is not exactly "modern".

Nobody uses NDBs for enroute nav, except a very casual backup for a GPS.

[Spitoon]

This is a rather volatile thread with an unecessarily provactive start. But the story is based in truth.

IO, read the posts carefully, it's some VORs that are for the chop, not DMEs - for precisely the reason you cite. Also, don't confuse air traffic services with the radio-navigation service. At a guess, I suspect that many GA pilots would be happy to work without ATC but not without the radio-nav service - unfortunately funding for the two services is somewhat blurred in the UK.

[helicopter-redeye]

... Deans Cross leaves the planet for good at the ..


Ah, my old friend DEAN CROSS (note spelling) - may his name live on forever

No doubt the new reporting point for Scottish Information will be 'abeam the former DCS site'

h-r;)

[dirkdj]

DME will be around for a long time, even after the last VOR is shut down. FMS will happily calculate position with 3 DME readings, think of it as a ground based GPS system, calculations are almost the same.

The roadmap is to phase out NDB followed by VOR. There is a roadmap on the EASA website somehere.

[javelin]

MCT VOR and Newcastle VOR's are going or may have gone.

[Cusco]

Well I hope they keep CLN (Clacton) VOR going for the forseeable future:

It's the only VOR in East Anglia to give a reliable reading on our RNAV to find our strip when the Wx is sh*te................

(OK BKY sometimes works but not always when approaching from the west: so I hope BKY survives the cull too....)

Safe flying

Cusco;) ;)

[IO540]

I can see MCT going (the place has an ILS and no significant airways through it) but I can't see CLN going due to a number of airways being defined with it. But then who knows; I haven't got a clue as to the reasoning (if any) behind all this.

[the bald eagle]

Thats my flying F:mad:D :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

[Bert Stiles]

MCT going? - they've only just put it in. (Age... I know)

Thank you Mr helo redeye for pointing out that it's Dean Cross before I did.

Bert.

[vanhigher]

Excuse my ignorance , but why would airports want to dispense with their on-field VOR's ?
surely when the ILS is u/s then VOR/DME approaches are the most reliable alternative ?

[Spitoon]

It's likely to be an economic decision. How often is the ILS out of service and what is the cost to the airport? And how much does it cost to operate and maintain a VOR?

Bear in mind also that it won't be long before RNAV approaches are available at many airports and there will be no infrastructure costs associated with such approaches - maybe a good back up to ILS.