Performance-Based Navigation Archives

In a general sense, I knew that NextGen would be the end of the VORs that have reliably led aviators for decades. But 10 days before Christmas, the retirement of these familiar white cones is much more real.

That’s when the FAA published its request for comments on its plan to start retiring legacy systems to the old navaids home. The comment period ends on March 7, 2012, and you can read the proposal and comment on it here.

It’s the next step in the implementation of NextGen’s “flexible point-to-point navigation enabled by geospatial positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure and aircraft advanced navigation systems.” I added that emphasis; most of the aircraft owners I know have already stepped up to GPS/WAAS, but if you haven’t, and you depend on your airplane to get from point A to B in the weather, now is the time to think seriously about stepping up to this technology.

Sure, the FAA plans to retain an optimized network of DME stations and a “minimum operational network (MON)” of VORs to ensure safety and continuous operations in the lower 48 states and terminal operations at the “Core 30 airports,” as well as the existing ILS network (the FAA will meet new Category I requirements with LPV approaches), but it seems clear that the FAA will maintain these legacy systems behind glass labeled “Break In Case of Emergency!”

Mention the Next Generational Air Transportation System to pilots and the first thing that comes to mind is money and the pain resulting from complex changes. If you’re a GA flyer, add unkind words for the airlines, the primary beneficiary of the satellite-based NextGen system.

Or are they? Numerous articles have recently floated the idea that NextGen systems could reopen the runways at historic Floyd Bennett Field (that’s FBF on the left), across Jamaica Bay and 5 miles from JFK. This opportunity, and what it means to general aviators nationwide was a cold slap that screamed SNAP OUT OF IT, breaking the endless circle of cynicism and despair stemming from the inconvenience of change that NextGen represents.

Nationwide, there are hundreds of airports like FBF, buried under Class B airspace that, one way or another, inconveniences, limits, restricts, or shuts down their operations. There are 119 such airports under the inverted airspace wedding cake pounded into DFW.

ny map It just so happens that the FAA’s NextGen team is, this year, working to streamline approaches and departures in the DFW metroplex. The FAA’s goal is to “deconflict” 21 such areas by 2016. Next up are Atlanta, Houston, Southern and Northern California, and Charlotte. And they are going to do it by putting airliners on narrow, satellite-defined tracks. They are already in place at JFK, and in time more airliners and their crews will be capable of using them. That gives GA flyers some more breathing room, and surely is a benefit due to NextGen.

VOR Days Numbered in FAA Proposal

NextGen & Congestion-Closed Runways