Roy Smith wrote:
At this point, I can't imagine doing any
serious IFR flying without a GPS, and once you've got a GPS, there's just
absolutely no need for an ADF anymore (except for those very rare
exceptions of fields which only have an NDB approach and no GPS overlay,
and even then I'm not sure I'd be able to resist the urge to cheat).

I suspect you would not be able to resist the urge to cheat. If you
did, you would be the first one I know.

I don't have IFR GPS, and because of this shoot a lot of NDB
approaches. I've probably shot at least a dozen to within 200 ft of
MDA, a few in conditions where the airport could not be spotted from
more than 2 miles away in the fog and mist.

They are legally NDB approaches in the sense that I have an ADF in the
plane, and it works (and works well - on a quiet night I can tune in
NDB's as much as 60 miles away). In reality, I have LORAN and VFR GPS,
and either by itself is more accurate and more reliable than any ADF.
So the reality of my operation is that I always tune in the ADF, verify
reception, and proceed to shoot the approach using LORAN and GPS. I
will crosscheck with the ADF to make sure it's pointed pretty much
where it's supposed to be, but I don't try to make 1 degree corrections
with it. It's simply not accurate enough for that, and when the filed
is at mins and I have a real need to be there, I want to fly the best,
most accurate approach I can so I know exactly where to look for the
airport in the limited amount of time I will have to find it before
going missed.

Everyone I know who flies NDB approaches does something similar. Of
course if an FAA inspector were to ask me, I would tell him I flew the
NDB approach - and there would be no way for him to prove otherwise.

I used to make ADF-only NDB approaches part of my recurrent training
cycle, and I could consistently perform them to ATP standards after a
little practice - but I've decided that it's just not worth the time
anymore. GPS is just too accurate, too reliable, and too cheap to fly
IFR without it. Even I have faced the reality that the only value in
this day and age to being able to shoot an NDB approach without a VFR
GPS is being able to brag about having done it.

What bothers me is the loss of the ADF from the training environment.
The ADF forced the student to understand the difference between
heading, bearing, track, and course. That understanding, when
internalized, has intrinsic value (in terms of situational awareness,
over and above the strictly positional awareness that moving map GPS
has also made obsolete) in flying IFR. With careful attention to
detail on the part of both instructor and student this can be taught
without the ADF, but based on how many people complain of the extra
training time required to teach NDB approaches, I don't think it's
happening - mainly because without the ADF, there's no easy way to test
it on the checkride.

Michael