While most swans that we see have white feathers, black swans do exist. In 2007, Nassim Nicholas Taleb published a book titled Black Swan. He described a “Black Swan Event” as an unforeseeable event that goes beyond what is expected with potentially dire consequences, with a very low probability of happening, and one that we typically cannot forecast. While the context of the book was mainly focused on finance and general macroeconomic events, the concept has a widespread applicability—especially in aviation risk management. Think of it as something so far out there, we don’t even think about it, like a wing falling off, or complete loss of GPS navigation.
MON Requires VOR Skills
My colleague Fred Simonds wrote a very interesting article on “Backing up GPS” in January where he covered the FAA’s Minimum Operational Network (MON). MON has several components; the main one is the shutting down by 2025 (a very optimistic deadline) of about a third of the existing VORs due to age and associated maintenance costs. Additionally, the widespread prevalence of GPS for primary navigation seems to imply that VOR navigation (and ILS approaches) might soon join the dustbin of obsolete navigation systems such as Loran-C, the four-course range, VLF-Omega ,and Columbus’ astrolabe.
