On a recent flight using Garmin  Pilot I noticed a lot of VORs having a red box around them which means there is a NOTAM about service interruption. SO I Googled, "will VOR navigation become extinct" and found some interesting info. Mostly that there are way more VORs that I thought. This article had some good info as well as others but the long of the short of it, yes the FAA is looking to decommission many VOR leaving what they call Minimum Operation Network or MON in the event of GPS outages. They cite its because of operational cost and the fact that GPS has become a reliable alternative. 

https://pilotworkshop.com/tips/vor-decommissioning-as-of-2023/

 

So the plan is to leave a MON network of about 500 (580 actual) VORs located at what the FAA calls the Core 30 airports around the USA. So I search and found that there are about 3,000 worldwide and the USA has close to 1,050 of them. There are 50 states in the USA so that would be each state on average having 20 VORs...thats a lot!

However, the purpose of this post is the idea of actually giving up VOR navigation and the appreciation I have towards that kind of pilotage. I mean, thats how I learned to fly IFR, before the magenta line and before GPS. I still use VORs as navigational waypoints in my flight plan but never dial in the freq and fly that way. But I think I am going to start too again where I can. I am happy that I do have a VOR approach logged in my real life flying as I have bucket listed all the various approaches available and only have a NDB and a LDA let to check off. (ILS, LOC BC, VOR, RNAV, DME Arc and LOC are all checked off).

It does make sense that they are being phased out except now with GPS spoofing a real thing, it makes you wonder. Of the 580 MON VORs to be left, they are stating that above 5000AGL the service should reach a min of 70nm.

How about you guys and gals...who still uses VOR's to navigate with?
 

Edited November 13, 20241 yr by Ident

I learnt old school and often fly them in the sim. Flying a line on a screen isn't very satisfying to me.

I refer to the GPS more as a 'moving map' in the Sim more than following the Magenta line. What makes VOR Navigation so fun in the Sim is going through the steps getting to the VOR, then to the next one, and so forth. Same with NDB's, too.

Old Skool all the way! 🙂

When the revolution comes, we should kill the satellites first !

I love navigating with VOR/NDB and I often even navigate dead reckoning. Much more fun than GPS. However, in Canada the VOR network has become quite sparse 😞

 

Frequently fly VOR/DME SID/STAR/APP in sim with things like 727, 732,742 etc... And when I do it like normal in recurrent on 737MAX with dual FMC failure, my colleague is like watching witchcraft.

I was like ViperPilot, only using the GPS for situational awareness rather than navigation.  Eventually I gave up the GPS altogether making landing at the wrong airport a possibility, sorta like real life pre-GPS.

I like flying old school:  pilotage, dead reckoning, and VOR/NDB.  Sometimes I fly an entire route using VOR, but my favorite use of it is locating my destination after a long flight over water.  For example, flying the A2A Connie or Stratocruiser from San Francisco to Hawaii and tuning the two VORs on each end of the island chain.  Take off on a specified heading then turn two degrees south every hour to fly a great circle route with only vague knowledge of winds aloft.  There is a high degree of anticipation when you're wondering which VOR you'd pick up and which direction it would be.  It gives a huge target and I haven't missed the island chain yet. 😄 

I recoded the VOR needles on the DC-3 to act like NDBs, pointing directly to the station (took more work than you'd think it should) so I could use it like the old A-N radio signals, but with an instrument rather than a sound, one needle pointing ahead, the other behind.  Maybe not as unrealistic as you'd think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-frequency_radio_range

Hook

PS.  If I were flying a modern airliner I'd use modern navigation techniques.  I like flying older aircraft in conditions similar to those encountered in 1930-1950.

H.

Edited November 14, 20241 yr by LHookins

8 minutes ago, LHookins said:

For example, flying the A2A Connie or Stratocruiser from San Francisco to Hawaii and tuning the two VORs on each end of the island chain. 

I did that once in the B377. Except I went Hawaii to San Fran. It was a raining dull day so I decided to give it a go. Since back then they had a navigator on the plane, I would get a lat and long every hour and determine which way I needed to adjust heading to get back to my course line.  I'd get up and walk around but with the A2A and its wear and tear model, I never went far.

Durn whippersnappers! Back in my day, we let loose homing pigeons to guide us.

I came up in the sim (FS2) with VOR/NDB so...it always still seems natural to use them.  I love GPS too, but GPS procedures, fixes and magenta lines make it almost too easy.

I've done some really fun dead reckoning in the sim over the years.  Transoceanic stuff.  Also did some INS flying (DC-8 in P3D) that I haven't done in a few years.   It's fun to get lost, and get un-lost.  With magenta line + ap, your navigation is assured, blah...sometimes I like that, but sometimes, I want to get back to the roots.