Fed: Planes flying in "commercial" airspace must get GPS

In article ,
says...


That is one of my concerns also.



I’m sure the FAA is relieved to know that you’re on the case, but if you
believe someone with your limited understanding of the system is going to
dream up failure modes that the NextGen developers, in their haste, have not
worked out to the tenth decimal place then you really have a leaky roof, and
probably a crack in the toilet bowl as well.

As far as the VOR’s are concerned, you’re barking up the wrong tree. ADS-B OUT
is the first mandated item, but far from the last. ADS-B IN will follow
shortly, CPLDC datalink and UAT transceivers as well. At this point we are one
ARINC fiber cable away from full ground-based control of every airplane in the
system (not that this is a stated goal, but to demonstrate that we are soon
achieving far better system integration than your 1980’s instrument textbook
lets on). So the VOR’s are really superfluous with a few exceptions, which
will be retained along with the odd NDB. It will be important to maintain a
minimum structure of surveillance radar as a backup, but then even though I
know the system ten times better than you do I would not be so presumptuous as
to imagine I have something to tell them about implementation.

Where the battle lines will be drawn is over the issue of cost per
participating aircraft and equipment mandates that the AOPA is likely to see
as overkill and overpriced for GA.