A Couple Of Things

As GPS becomes more ubiquitous-and as the FAA works to reduce its expenses for things like navigation facilities, airports and controllers-it has long-range plans to unplug hundreds of VOR facilities throughout the U.S. in favor of the satellites. There were 967 U.S. VORs operating in late 2012, and AOPA says the FAA wanted that number to be 500 by January 2020, when ADS-B and the next-generation ATC system are supposed to be in place.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Wednesday, May 20, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The FAA plans to reduce the number of VOR navigation facilities and cancel hundreds of VOR and NDB approaches nationwide, though original reduction targets have been scaled back.
Pilots are encouraged to check an FAA spreadsheet detailing proposed approach cancellations to determine if commonly used procedures will be affected.
The FAA is developing a "B4UFLY" smartphone app for model aircraft and UAS users to determine safe and legal flight locations, offering features like status indicators and interactive maps.

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As GPS becomes more ubiquitous—and as the FAA works to reduce its expenses for things like navigation facilities, airports and controllers—it has long-range plans to unplug hundreds of VOR facilities throughout the U.S. in favor of the satellites. There were 967 U.S. VORs operating in late 2012, and AOPA says the FAA wanted that number to be 500 by January 2020, when ADS-B and the next-generation ATC system are supposed to be in place.