MON Airports vs. MON VORs and More

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Editorial Staff

Monday, April 11, 2016 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The Minimum Operational Network (MON) will preserve select VORs and repurpose airways to guide IFR aircraft to MON airports, with guidance to the airport itself rather than necessarily a VOR on the field.
For ADS-B equipped aircraft, transponders (and thus ADS-B) should remain on whenever the aircraft is powered, unless specifically instructed by ATC to squawk standby.
Pilots can seek to change inconvenient ATC procedures by politely engaging with local air traffic facilities and potentially rallying support, remembering the option to declare "unable" for safety reasons.
While modern GPS and moving maps significantly enhance situational awareness, pilots must remain actively engaged with the flight to avoid complacency.

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MON Airports vs. MON VORs

Reading the sidebar to Fred Simonds’ February article “GPS Backup Strategies” about the MON, I wonder if Victor airways will disappear when the FAA decides that GPS is the primary means of navigation in the NAS. I get that when satellite navigation goes dark the priority is to get all airborne IFR flights on the ground somewhere—anywhere—so wouldn’t pilot action be to tune the nearest MON airport and fly direct (if above 5000 feet AGL) and fly a published ILS or VOR approach from an IAF with no need to follow an airway to get there?

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