VORs for Armageddon

Its the summer of 2020, and youre tooling along in your G10,000-equipped bugsmasher, dutifully tracking that magenta line direct to your destination because NextGen allows free flight RNAV-direct navigation. Weve come so far from the days of A/N ranges and dead reckoning.

Editorial Staff

Friday, August 01, 2014 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The FAA has a plan to address potential GPS navigation failures in the heavily GPS-dependent NextGen aviation system.
The interim solution is the Minimum Operating Network (MON), which involves maintaining a reduced, strategically placed network of VORs to provide backup navigation above 5000 feet AGL.
MON is designed to guide aircraft to an airport with a conventional approach within 100 miles during an outage, but it requires pilots to maintain proficiency in VOR-based navigation.
A long-term solution, Alternate PNT (APNT), is expected around 2025 to provide a smoother, more integrated backup for IFR navigation during GPS outages.

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With everything going to GPS for navigation and position on ATC scopes, what happens if GPS fails? Fear not, the FAA has a plan. Don’t you feel better now?

It’s the summer of 2020, and you’re tooling along in your G10,000-equipped bugsmasher, dutifully tracking that magenta line direct to your destination because NextGen allows “free flight” RNAV-direct navigation. We’ve come so far from the days of A/N ranges and dead reckoning.