You mean I have to TALK to ATC? - long

In article .com,
says...


The trip back was pretty cool. I opted to fly the VOR all the way into SYI,

I'm surprised to see that primary students are still flying VOR
radials. I thought that had gone the way of ADFs and light beacons,


And what way have those gone?
NDB's are still in widespread use, and impetus to decommission them has slowed
in recent years. They're also very handy in many situations.

As for VOR's, and VOR/DME airways,they still represent the backbone of the IFR
route system, and cannot be supplanted by random/direct routes anytime soon.

There's even talk of bringing LORAN-C back into the picture . . .

I'm surprised to see that primary students are still flying VOR
radials. I thought that had gone the way of ADFs and light beacons,

And what way have those gone?
NDB's are still in widespread use, and impetus to decommission them has slowed
in recent years. They're also very handy in many situations.
As for VOR's, and VOR/DME airways,they still represent the backbone of the IFR
route system, and cannot be supplanted by random/direct routes anytime soon.
There's even talk of bringing LORAN-C back into the picture . . .

Amazing. When I did my primary training in '94, the talk was all
about phasing out VORs and ADFs "soon". That was one of the primary
reasons that I didn't proceed directly to the instrument rating at the
time -- I didn't want to be saddled with an obsolete knowledge-base,
given that everything was moving to GPS.

Here we are, 13 years later, and apparently little has changed. We've
got a navigation system (GPS) that is accurate to within a meter, and
yet the entire system is still built around VORs, which is accurate to
within...a lot. (Anyone know how accurate it is to be flying a VOR
radial say, 30 miles from the VOR station? Is it a mile? A half
mile? 1000 feet? I have no idea...)

But I do know this: In the real world of (relatively unregulated) VFR
flying, GPS rules. The fact that the IFR system hasn't completed the
change-over in a decade is just another example of how glacial
progress can be in aviation.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article . com,
Jay Honeck wrote:

(Anyone know how accurate it is to be flying a VOR
radial say, 30 miles from the VOR station? Is it a mile? A half
mile? 1000 feet? I have no idea...)

iirc - an airway is 8 miles wide.

btw - accuracy is one thing, but remember, inaccuracy of VORs, for example,
just means more airspace has to be protected. That protection includes
obstacles (man-made and natural) and other airplanes.

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

In rec.aviation.student Jay Honeck wrote:
Here we are, 13 years later, and apparently little has changed. We've
got a navigation system (GPS) that is accurate to within a meter, and
yet the entire system is still built around VORs, which is accurate to
within...a lot. (Anyone know how accurate it is to be flying a VOR
radial say, 30 miles from the VOR station? Is it a mile? A half
mile? 1000 feet? I have no idea...)

If your VOR is accurate to within one degree, then the inaccuracy is 30 *
pi/180 or about half a mile. Increase the inaccuracy proportional with the
VOR inaccuracy, so two degrees gets you to within a mile, etc.

However, there's the question of how accurate you need to be, and how
accurate you *want* to be. When you're 30 miles out, being within a mile
of where you want to be is probably fine. And having navigational systems
that are too accurate can be dangerous. There is some concern now that GPS
is leading to increased mid-air collisions due to pilots following the GPS
exactly, causing them to run into other aircraft who were also following
their GPS exactly along the same track. The obvious fix is to not follow
it so exactly, but I think a lot of people get trained to fly as precisely
as possible and then carry that over to following their GPS.

There's also the question of reliability. For IFR flight where you *need*
some kind of navigation system, having only one is dangerous. Maybe VOR
isn't the best backup system but there ought to be *something* in
operation other than GPS.

But I do know this: In the real world of (relatively unregulated) VFR
flying, GPS rules. The fact that the IFR system hasn't completed the
change-over in a decade is just another example of how glacial
progress can be in aviation.

Backups are more important for IFR, though. If I'm flying and suddenly GPS
goes out, I'll just shrug and keep looking out the window. If someone is
flying IFR in the clouds and the One True Nav System goes down, he's
pretty screwed.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

Jay Honeck writes:

Here we are, 13 years later, and apparently little has changed. We've
got a navigation system (GPS) that is accurate to within a meter, and
yet the entire system is still built around VORs, which is accurate to
within...a lot. (Anyone know how accurate it is to be flying a VOR
radial say, 30 miles from the VOR station? Is it a mile? A half
mile? 1000 feet? I have no idea...)

I suggest it's a case of accepting bothersome but known and well-quantified
risks rather than accepting unknown and unquantified risks. The behavior of
VORs is well understood; the potential problems with GPS are not.

But I do know this: In the real world of (relatively unregulated) VFR
flying, GPS rules. The fact that the IFR system hasn't completed the
change-over in a decade is just another example of how glacial
progress can be in aviation.

In IFR, your life depends on the instruments; in VFR, it does not. So VFR can
afford to take risks with instruments that would be potentially deadly with
IFR.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Jay Honeck writes:

Here we are, 13 years later, and apparently little has changed.
We've got a navigation system (GPS) that is accurate to within a
meter, and yet the entire system is still built around VORs, which is
accurate to within...a lot. (Anyone know how accurate it is to be
flying a VOR radial say, 30 miles from the VOR station? Is it a
mile? A half mile? 1000 feet? I have no idea...)

I suggest it's a case of accepting bothersome but known and
well-quantified risks rather than accepting unknown and unquantified
risks. The behavior of VORs is well understood; the potential
problems with GPS are not.

But I do know this: In the real world of (relatively unregulated) VFR
flying, GPS rules. The fact that the IFR system hasn't completed the
change-over in a decade is just another example of how glacial
progress can be in aviation.

In IFR, your life depends on the instruments;

You are an idiot.


You don't fly,

Your life doesn't depend on instruments you lying sack of ****.


Bertie

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:08:11 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:


You don't fly,


My personal fave is "Bankruptcy Boi."

Thanks. G

I can see him losing a GPS signal and falling on his ass out of the office
chair while talking to simulated ATC

B A R R Y wrote in
:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:08:11 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:


You don't fly,


My personal fave is "Bankruptcy Boi."

Funny how he never wants to talk about that..


bertie

Bertie the Bunyip wrote in
:

B A R R Y wrote in
:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:08:11 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:


You don't fly,


My personal fave is "Bankruptcy Boi."

Funny how he never wants to talk about that..


bertie


He started to last week in rec.travel.air and, as one would suspect,
managed to make a total ass of himself there. He tried to show how the
stock market was nothing but gambling and that stock had no intrinsic
value. After someone ripped him a new one, he shut up on that topic. But,
at one point in his attempt to justify his stand, he implied that he had
been wiped out in the dot.com bust.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)