NDBs to be removed?
 

As many will be aware, there is a CAA consultation underway concerning the introduction of B-RNAV in controlled airspace.

One of the Options, the one the CAA prefer, would also include the removal of the following en-route NDBs:

Burnham BUR
Chiltern CHI
Epsom EPM
Henton HEN
Leeds LBA
Litchfield LIC
New Galloway NGY
Scotstown Head SHD
Wescott WCO
Whitegate WHI
Woodley WOD

However, there is also the option of introducing B-RNAV whilst keeping the present NDB infrastructure.

I have no problems accepting the introduction of B-RNAV, but the CAA's safety assessment does not adequately consider those who use en-route NDBs outside CAS, for example to back up non-IFR GPS systems in marginal VFR, or to augment visual navigation.

Anyone who wishes to comment on the CAA's proposals should go to Consultation – Introduction of BRNAV below FL 95 | Consultations | CAA and view the consultation response documents. If you feel that the retention of en-route NDBs is worthwhile, download the Annex B response form and send it to the address stated.

BRNAV is already mandatory, and has been for years, above FL095 all over Europe. Lowering it a bit seems irrelevant since it's all CAS anyway.

The NDBs listed are IMHO of the most marginal relevance to anybody.

Difficult to say about GPS backup... there are still VORs and DMEs.

In my experience, lotsa people use WOD, HEN and WCO

CHT also helps keep folk out of the LHR zone....

Those of us flying in Class G at lower levels often can't receive a VOR in some areas. I always dial an NDB in transit where available; they generally are.

Call me slightly cynical but surely this is only a cost cutting exercise; the argument about ECO friendliness is spurious rubbish. The maintenance costs involved for these navaids are not huge; surely a few less expensive consultations and palm trees at the Belgrano might help defray the cost.

As a Devil's advocate, how much do such pilots contribute to the costs of that infrastructure ??

IFR equipped aircraft generally can navigate perfectly well without the need for NDBs and their inherent inaccuracies.

VFR guys should be looking out of the window ;)


Retires to the safety of the bunker :}

Using NDBs, VORs and what else? GPS isn't allowed for primary navigation.

Agreed, but in marginal conditions, this may sometimes not be enough - I thought there was a problem with incursions into CAS as it is?

What has this got to do with it? Would you rather a pilot blundered into your bit of CAS, endangering safety? Similar argument - should private motorists be allowed to read roadsigns - they don't pay as much road tax as a commercial operator? :hmm:

Since when has safety had a financial cost? Apart from in the minds of bean counters and management?
So for those few pilots who tend to make up most of the fatal accident stats in light aircraft. Scud running, dodgy weather etc. Because of cost, we are now going to lose aids that have at times been invaluable to many.

If you can only make comments like VFR should be looking out of the window and IFR don't need them, then I suggest you go out and get caught by a bit of unseasonal and often unforecast crud.

The ident of NDB playing through your headsets and a solid needle offers a lot of help to people. Yes most of us have GPS, but as the CAA are so fond of saying "It isn't approved as a primary navigation aid".

So what are people to do in slightly marginal conditions? With an aid there, they can often get by perfectly safety, without it, well let's just say D&D will become an awful lot busier.

Having flown commercial aircraft under IFR without the benefit of any R-Nav system, then having these aids helps in that situation as well. Are all the IFR charts going to be rewritten when WCO disappears for instance, or will it just become a meaningless dot that only your computer can find unless you get cross cuts from elsewhere?

Nice to see that the needs of the many are being utterly ignorned by the few because "you don't pay for it". Take the money out of the treasury or fuel duty that everyone in GA pays and that the airlines manage to avoid forking out for, if that is the argument.

Heathrow SIDs
 

Take a look at the Heathrow SIDS. At the moment, they rely heavily on NDBs, especially Burnham and Chiltern (CHT, BEagle, not CHI)

I use CHT, HEN and WCO all the time to keep me honest with the airspace when instructing from Denham. Can't put a monetary value on that, certainly wouldn't pay extra to keep them! CHT is a particularly useful 'get you home' for Denham. It's also used (or at least used to be used) as a part of the go-around procedure from Heathrow.

If all the NDBs were to go tomorrow, I'd be left with a very expensive stop-watch in the instrument panel, but I can't really see a justification for hanging on to these 80-year-old technology beacons. I've a hand-held GPS I keep in my headset bag as an emergency backup that's far more accurate and useful.

It's not just the equipment maintenance that's an issue, there's the keeping up of the lease on the land the beacon is on, site security etc. We had the same problems keeping up ILS markers, they've mostly gone, un-noticed and un-mourned, now.

TheOddOne

NDBs have been vanishing for decades. Around Manchester, who remembers Congleton, Ormskirk, the Mike Echo... and even 'modern' stuff has bitten the dust - Barton VOR!

SSD

ILS markers were replaced by the use of DME. You don't need a flashing light when you have a constant readout of distance to go and groundspeed.

Much better!

Technology does move on, but to simply remove stuff without giving an alternative is madness, unless we are allowed to use or GPS's.

All of us do anyway, especially when the proverbial hits the fan, but doesn't that just how how far removed the CAA are from the reality of flying and why the are sometimes worse than useless.

AAAgh, I think I'm losing the will to live!!!

Indeed, Islander :) Let me do this one - I need the practice from time to time :)

Reference please ............................. :ugh:

It's all in the consultation document.

The proposal is to mandate BRNAV for IFR flights in en route CAS throughout the UK. Thus affected aircraft would be suitably equipped in accordance with the ANO provisions, however that is acheived for each aircraft.

This change can arguably be done without using ADF (one proposal from the CAA).

As the aids involved are en-route aids designed to support en-route CAS (plus some terminal NDBs for procedures wholly contained within CAS), and sufficient navigational performance would exist for IFR flights affected by the change, why should anyone wish to continue providing aids which are not necessary for flights within the CAS involved ??


If any segment of the industry wants to make a safety argument for the continuation of the NDBs being discussed, then they need to lobby the CAA and provide the CAA with a good reason for keeping them and funding them.

The CAA would presumably have to try and get that funding from somewhere in the industry as it's got to recover such costs from somewhere. Public taxation is not an option under present rules so who would pay ?? The airlines who don't need them and are under heavy pressure due to fuel costs ?? The ATC units who don't need them and would be pilloried if they passed the costs on to their airline customers ??

Sorry guys, but unless you make a cast iron case to the CAA as to what air safety benefits it brings those who will be asked to stump up the £££, and those organisations and operations can see that the cost does actually provide them with something tangible, you may as well accept that the NDBs will disappear.

I'd just be wary of beating your chest too hard about VFR pilots who can't possibly avoid CAS without these NDBs. The alternatives to ensure public safety might be something more draconian perhaps and very unpalatable.

PR, If you play devil's advocate, and retreat to your bunker, are you surprised if others choose to reply in a similar vein to kick the door? :E

I see this as a moot point, since enroute (IFR) ATC already treat all CAS as RNAV airspace i.e. when they tell you to go to waypoint X they couldn't care less whether it is an airways intersection (which needs RNAV to navigate to), or a ground beacon (which could be too far away for you to receive its signal).

Getting sent to XYZ (where XYZ is a VOR 200nm away) is quite normal.

So, for flight inside CAS, I don't see a problem.

If this is the price to be paid for not having to carry an ADF for IFR in CAS, I suppose it's OK.

But one still needs to carry an ADF in practice, because there are so many NDBs within instrument approaches around Europe.

Incidentally, the only way to comply with RNAV requirements is (in GA context) an IFR GPS.

Point of order, Mr Speaker:ok:

I think you'll find that, with the exception of the Yeadon NDB, all the others are owned by NSL, not CAA.

It's NATS wot want to rationalise their ground based navaids. I would bet that some of their en route D-VORs might not make the cut when it comes to the replacement budget either:uhoh:

Forget not that everything hinges in commercial air transport who in comparison to tiddley widdley GA pay quite a lot of money for the privelage of not hitting anything.

Sorry if this is bad news but we need a reality check sometimes.:=

Sir George Cayley

Theoretically, yes but in practice, the sort of aeroplanes operating from LHR will be using the FMS for navigating their way around the SIDs. Beacons will be treated as Lat/Long positions, in the same way as reporting points.

IO 540, whilst your points are entirely valid for flights within CAS, my point is that the objective of B-RNAV inside CAS does not mandate the removal of those en-route NDBs used by other airspace users outside CAS.

Just leave the NDBs alone and advise people that navigational accuracy cannot be assured after a (to be promulgated) date and they shall not be used for en-route navigation inside CAS after that same date?

If not, why not?

Bring em on I say .... I fly VFR regularly ... non transponder, and with limited navaids. That's the way it should be ;)

Well, some of the NDBs mentioned are NERL (= NATS En Route) and some are NSL (= NATS Services Limited). The CAA provide nothing because they contract NATS under their licences.

There are plans already out for review about VORs and DMEs. So don't expect anything to be put back at Newcastle, for instance ;)


Why would an en route CAS provider have to provide navaids for people who fly outside their airspace ?? :confused:

To help people navigate around the chunk of airspace they've been handed? When British Telecom dig up the road, they don't expect drivers to stump up for the cones to put around it. If a commercial operator is given a swathe of airspace for its exclusive control, and from which it makes a profit, it doesn't seem unreasonable for them to help the users it's forcing out to go around it.

One point I haven't seen mentioned is that a lot of people use the enroute beacons outside controlled airspace and away from airfields for training - either NDB tracking or NDB holds. It's not uncommon to see people holding around WCO, for example. If the beacons disappear, it will be harder to practice these skills and we should expect a reduced ability to use them when needed.