Are VORs on the decline? Will they die and vanish? Long story short: yes, VORs will die.
I’ve been in aviation for more than ten years now and I’ve heard lots of theories about the end of the VOR system. Because VORs have to be installed at specific location, they are expensive to build and maintain. And because of their limited coverage, many of them are needed to cover wide areas.
GPS is much better. It offers a worldwide coverage and it is much more accurate than VORs. GPS is also easier to use. No frequency to tune in, no need to select a radial or to identify a Morse code. GPS provides a direct position, where VORs require a second station or a DME to establish a position.
Despite all of these drawbacks, VORs are still around, and I bet that they will still be there in ten years from now. Aviation evolves very slowly. Installations like VORs have a life-cycle of several decades. Modifying procedures and publications also costs a lot of work, effort and money. Switching the whole system from VOR to GPS can not be done in one single “big-bang” step.
VORs are also used as backup in case of GPS failures. Not total failure of the GPS system, but failures of the receiver on board aircraft. In a GPS only system, the only navigation system left is radar vectoring. Before predicting the death of the VORs, the same oracles predicted the death of the NDBs. This finally happened – or is still in progress – but way later than they predicted.
GPS continues its extension. In the US there are now more GPS than ILS approaches, and almost all en-route navigation is based on GPS. I don’t know what could replace the VORs as a backup system at this time, but I’m sure that as soon as there will be one, VORs will die.
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Thursday, July 22, 2010
Will VORs die?
