Decommissioning plans for NDB VOR & especially ILS across Europe

I would think Ryanair and Easyjet have CAT3 on their aircraft. They don’t operate old stuff, which is one big factor in their very good safety and despatch rate.

I recall reading, years ago, a discussion on some ATC forum about this. It had been calculated that once the % of CAT3 days falls below something like 1%, it is acceptable to divert and provide buses, or to just cancel or delay the flight and pay compensation. Not sure that would work for e.g. Rouen where I cancelled several flights in succession due to fog… but then Rouen isn’t CAT3 anyway.

So they must work this out and accept the consequences.

You don’t need a HUD for a CAT3 but the other day I was talking to a high-end bizjet pilot (don’t recall the plane but he said it had a 10k nm range) who said they do a zero-zero into Innsbruck, with HUDs. Maybe someone recognises this certification level.

Peter wrote:

I would think Ryanair and Easyjet have CAT3 on their aircraft.

Thanks to the lovely book “Kaufen Sie noch ein Los, bevor wir abstürzen” written by an ex Ryanair pilot (“Buy another lottery ticket before we crash”), we know that only parts of the fleet were equipped for CATIII, so it was a constant shuffling and betting on weather at the destinations if you got the “right” plane for your rotation or not. With some captains refusing to take a “CATII only” plane. This might be different now with the 737-NG’s.

All the secondary airports with ILS to be decommissioned won’t have been CATIII anyways, I think.

Rwy20 wrote:

Thanks to the lovely book “Kaufen Sie noch ein Los, bevor wir abstürzen” written by an ex Ryanair pilot (“Buy another lottery ticket before we crash”)

I have to read that one. Thanks for the tip!

A late post on this subject. I flew to Calais yesterday.
As part of my pre-flight preparation I checked to see if my Jepp chart for Calais was current. It was not. The current chart shows that the ILS approach has been withdrawn and replaced with RNAV (GNSS) which is fine if you have the equipment onboard, which I do not. The alternative is the NDB approach which has to be flown without the withdrawn DME. So now the GA pilot either has to re-equip with expensive new kit or brush up on neanderthal NDB procedures.
On top of that Calais has no ATC so you have to read from a script for “French only”. As there is now a substantial list of de-commisioned ILS around France we must now accept that this is the price of “progess”!

I understand that this is not great for many, or even most, pilots of traditionally IFR equipped aircraft. Since nobody can expect that most (many?) older aircraft will be equipped with new LPV or LNAV/VNAV certified navigators and other necessary equipment (antennas, cables) this means that the safety standard of all these airports is lowered, because many IFR pilots will be forced to fly either the LNAV approach or the ground based non-precision approach (NDB) … or even make up their own GPS approaches with equipment that is not certified for IFR approaches.

OTOH LPV and LNAV/VNAV are clearly the future, of private IFR flying anyway. It had to be done at one point. No equipment, no maintenance, (practically) no calibration … easier and safer to fly, if you have the kit

As there is now a substantial list of de-commisioned ILS around France we must now accept that this is the price of “progess”!

To me it looks like France is waking up to the real cost of running low-use airports (which for many years were blindly funded by chambers of commerce / local govt / etc and as a consequence were badly managed e.g. Dinard taking a year to send out invoices!) and is shutting down the costly parts, except where required by

• airlines (most can’t fly LPV, and there is no CAT3 LPV)
• bizjets (likewise but to a much lesser degree)
• busy flying schools which carry a lot of clout locally and which have old wrecks which they don’t want to equip with LPV
• strategic considerations given France’s extensive nuclear and military presence (e.g. Cherbourg LFRC is strategic to the big nuclear facility nearby and its ILS will likely remain)

and probably the same will happen everywhere else but maybe at a slower pace.

LPV will be the way to go.

It’s less of a driving factor for Brits because

• they need customs/immigration as their first stop and IME most of the relevant airports have ILS for the airline reason above, or they are located where an IAP is not really a factor (e.g. the Adriatic)

• the UK has very few LPV approaches because the airports don’t have the 30k per runway end to get the IAP designed.

Surprisingly Le Touquet LFAT has got its ILS back… I really though the long INOP period was to be the end of it.

NDB procedures are flown using GPS by nearly everybody so the decision is purely whether the MDA is usable.

(practically) no calibration

Calibration flights are still needed for regulatory compliance. Whether they are cheaper than ILS I don’t know but obviously the equipment doesn’t need maintenance (Mr Trump pays for it) so you save probably of the order of 10k-30k a year on the maintenance contract of an ILS.

The cost of ILS is mainly around equipment maintenance rather than calibration and regulation.

A tip for those wanting to use the NDB into Calais: There is no FAF, and no way apart from timing to judge when to descend from 2000’. Therefore my suggestion is to descend in the base turn to 1310’ (the minimum at that point is 900’), fly that level to the beacon, then start a descent at the beacon, treating it as the FAF. Not entirely conventional, but then neither is the procedure as drawn.

I am told that Calais is expecting to recruit a new FISO shortly. At least the restaurant has reopened.

Timothy wrote:

The cost of ILS is mainly around equipment maintenance rather than calibration and regulation.

Incorrect. Calibration is a significant cost.

Peter wrote:

LPV will be the way to go.

Disagree. It is one option but there must be alternatives. I was calibrating the other day and we could not get a satisfactory level of accuracy (14.1m lateral and 23.7m vertical error). GPS accuracy outside of EGNOS/WAAS/MTSAT is not great. Even within SBAS regions the prescribed 95% 7.6m lateral requirement is sometimes missed, still being nowhere near the requirement for anything more than a Cat I approach. Put yourself in a high RF environment and things get worse.

Timothy wrote:

Therefore my suggestion is to descend in the base turn to 1310’ (the minimum at that point is 900’), fly that level to the beacon, then start a descent at the beacon, treating it as the FAF.

The minimum in that sector is 990’ not 900’.

Dave_Phillips wrote:

Incorrect. Calibration is a significant cost.

So, what is the difference in cost between calibrating an ILS and an LPV?

The minimum in that sector is 990’ not 900’.

Thank you, I was doing it from memory. But the point remains the same, drop to 1310’ in the base turn and use the NDB as a FAF.