Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
by Gordon Gilbert
- March 4, 2019, 12:08 PM
Nav Canada, the country’s provider of civil air navigation services, has finished a study of navigation aids and concluded that “given the comprehensive radar surveillance coverage, and the propensity of area navigation (Rnav) with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) equipped aircraft, many VOR and NDB navigation aids (navaids) are no longer required and should be decommissioned.”
The decommissioning process will be done in 15 phases over the next seven years. Where a current navaid identified in the study serves as an instrument approach aid or anchors an airway segment, Nav Canada said it will “ensure that a Rnav/GNSS instrument approach procedures or Rnav airway segments are published, where required, before removal of the identified navaid.”
Aeronautical information circulars (AICs) will be published for each upcoming phase, Nav Canada said. The first phase, consisting of decommissioning some 20 navaids deemed nonessential, will start on April 25. Corresponding aeronautical charts will also be amended.
Nav Canada’s action follows the FAA’s decommissioning of legacy navaids that started in 2012. Under the U.S. agency’s planned schedule, a minimum operational network of VORs and an “optimized network” of DMEs would be retained, and this drawdown would be complete by January 1 next year.
Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, I WAS Birddog
-
- Rank 7
- Posts: 694
- Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 8:43 am
Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... -vors-ndbs
-
- Rank (9)
- Posts: 1887
- Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:53 am
- Location: On final so get off the damn runway!
-
- Rank 5
- Posts: 397
- Joined: Thu Mar 04, 2004 9:10 am
- Location: Betelgeuse
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
It's a good thing GPS jamming and GPS spoofing are not real things happening around the world.
-
- Top Poster
- Posts: 8132
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:25 pm
- Location: Winterfell...
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
It’s just the VORs and NDBs that are disappearing. The co-located DMEs and TACANs are remaining in service.
YWL VOR has been NOTAMed off for a long time but the DME still works and identifies.. allowing you to use DME DME RNAV or RNP on a multi-sensor FMS without GNSS.
In the US at least, there appears to be a long term trend towards supporting DME DME Navigational infrastructure with improved accuracy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6210753/
YWL VOR has been NOTAMed off for a long time but the DME still works and identifies.. allowing you to use DME DME RNAV or RNP on a multi-sensor FMS without GNSS.
In the US at least, there appears to be a long term trend towards supporting DME DME Navigational infrastructure with improved accuracy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6210753/
Geez did I say that....? Or just think it....?
-
- Rank (9)
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:24 am
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Or solar storms. Granted big ones are rare, but in the future they will now ground the entire IFR world due to no navigation.Mostly Harmless wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:27 pm It's a good thing GPS jamming and GPS spoofing are not real things happening around the world.
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Time to dust off the ole' Astro Compass
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Cause radio waves were impossible to jam?goingnowherefast wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:11 pmOr solar storms. Granted big ones are rare, but in the future they will now ground the entire IFR world due to no navigation.Mostly Harmless wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:27 pm It's a good thing GPS jamming and GPS spoofing are not real things happening around the world.
-
- Rank (9)
- Posts: 1887
- Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:53 am
- Location: On final so get off the damn runway!
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Apparently there will be a recovery network of conventional NAVAIDs left in place in case of a GPS outage.
There's a bunch of info from Nav Canada here.
There's a bunch of info from Nav Canada here.
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
IFR in Canadastan will mean "I Follow Roads".
-
- Rank 10
- Posts: 2565
- Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:07 pm
- Location: Negative sequencial vortex
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
I hope they leave some NDBs in the NDA. Even with RNAV approaches and GPS, it's nice to have some way to set your compass "independent of a magnetic source". Unless you can see the sun and happen to have your astrocompass and a current almanac, or you happen to be able to see Polaris, NDB/GPS is about the way to go for this. The magnetic pole was heading steadily towards the geographic one, but now it's kind of gone bugshit. Who knows what it's going to do next.
If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
We're also losing the ability to circle to land from most approaches.
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
True. However, you can't buy ILS/NDB/VOR jammers on Amazon.C-GGGQ wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:52 pmCause radio waves were impossible to jam?goingnowherefast wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:11 pmOr solar storms. Granted big ones are rare, but in the future they will now ground the entire IFR world due to no navigation.Mostly Harmless wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:27 pm It's a good thing GPS jamming and GPS spoofing are not real things happening around the world.
-
- Rank (9)
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:24 am
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
And a solar storm knocks out GPS for a very large area over a long time frame. Definitely able to take out RNAV capabilities at the destination and anything else within fuel range. Radio jammers, not so much.
Granted they're rare, every 30-50 years? But that's pretty drastic consequences.
Hopefully the "recovery network" is kept in top notch condition, and aren't dependant on circling NDB approaches that aren't even turned on until they flip the switch for the "recovery network". I can just imagine everybody flying nothing but LPVs and ILSs for 10-20 years, solar storm hits and now we're fumbling our way around with NDBs that nobody even had the ability to use and stay proficient with.
Also, the last time the US detonated a nuke in space, it did serious damage to the few satellites that were up there at the time. Should N. Korea or somebody else get that idea, they'd decimate the navigational abilities of a GPS dependant airspace system.
Granted they're rare, every 30-50 years? But that's pretty drastic consequences.
Hopefully the "recovery network" is kept in top notch condition, and aren't dependant on circling NDB approaches that aren't even turned on until they flip the switch for the "recovery network". I can just imagine everybody flying nothing but LPVs and ILSs for 10-20 years, solar storm hits and now we're fumbling our way around with NDBs that nobody even had the ability to use and stay proficient with.
Also, the last time the US detonated a nuke in space, it did serious damage to the few satellites that were up there at the time. Should N. Korea or somebody else get that idea, they'd decimate the navigational abilities of a GPS dependant airspace system.
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Do you have a reference? Legitimately interested in reading up on this.
-
- Top Poster
- Posts: 8132
- Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:25 pm
- Location: Winterfell...
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
Not on any approaches I’ve noticed. There usually isn’t a reason to circle anymore because you have LPV approaches at the opposite end of any single ILS installation, but the provisions are almost always there with the exception of busy airports.
In the US, they even have the higher circling minimums which allow for a wider circling area... making circling able to turn into more of a reasonable circuit rather than having people excessively close and high trying to maneuver the aircraft to landing.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... ce-expands
In the US, they even have the higher circling minimums which allow for a wider circling area... making circling able to turn into more of a reasonable circuit rather than having people excessively close and high trying to maneuver the aircraft to landing.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... ce-expands
Geez did I say that....? Or just think it....?
-
- Rank 2
- Posts: 50
- Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 11:21 pm
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
About a month ago, none of the blue and teal 37's had GPS in the morning at YEG. Many MEL's were applied to headstarts. I assume our neighbors had similar GPS issues?? They thought maybe a truck in Nisku had a jammer?
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
http://www.navcanada.ca/EN/products-and ... oke-EN.pdf
I often circle for efficiency, if these procedures really were deemed that dangerous I would have preferred to see the minima get pushed up or the assessed area be expanded.
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
I like circling because it allows me to fly the most direct approach then maneuver below cloud to land on a more into wind runway. The alternative often has me overflying my destination by 10-15 miles then turning around and doing a straight-in approach. In flat-ish land with a MSA of 4000 and a ceiling of 3500 there's plenty of room to be safe while saving hundreds of dollars worth of gas in a light twin when I do it that way.iflyforpie wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:29 am There usually isn’t a reason to circle anymore because you have LPV approaches at the opposite end of any single ILS installation
-
- Rank (9)
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:24 am
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
That sounds to me like it is more of using an instrument procedure to cloud break, then maneuvering under VFR to a landing.
Re: Canada To Decommission Hundreds of VORs, NDBs
It is, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to communicate to ATC my way.goingnowherefast wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2019 2:54 pm That sounds to me like it is more of using an instrument procedure to cloud break, then maneuvering under VFR to a landing.