VORs On The Way Out

From the latest IAOPA newsletter:

The UK is proposing to decommission 28 VORs across the country, leaving a network of just 19 which will also be phased out after Europe’s own satellite system has been launched.  Responsibility for the upkeep of the beacons rests with National Air Traffic Services, a private company owned by the airlines. They say the VORs are becoming obsolete and are no longer supported by their manufacturers, and must either be replaced at huge cost or abandoned.

NATS says NDBs will be gone by 2015, and thereafter only enough VORs should be left to allow aircraft to conform to B-RNAV standards. It assumes that the use of satellite navigation for all phases of flight will become progressively more dominant until a point is reached beyond 2020 when NDB and VOR will not be required at all, and DME/DME fixing will provide a fallback if satellite navigation is not available.

The European Commission is looking to a seven-year transition out of VORs, and will not abandon them altogether until after its own Galileo satellite system is in place. Contrary to its initial plans, it intends to provide the basic Galileo signal free of charge.