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Decommissioning plans for NDB VOR & especially ILS across Europe

The Paperwork was € 750, the rest was the HW upgrade, new antennas, installation

The airports which have Ryanair etc will have to retain their ILSs for a long time.

The ones which drop the ILS for LPV will also have LNAV approaches i.e. the old sort so you will have an MDA of say 500ft instead of the 250ft or so possible with LPV.

So you can go in in OVC005 rather than OVC002 or so.

And a “W” box will have the +V “advisory” glideslope but then you may as well have LPV. I think most bizjets get the advisory glideslope even on conventional approaches and this is a key capability because e.g. they get an “ILS” into say Shoreham.

That’s the bottom line.

Eventually light GA people will install LPV but it will take a long time. Too many planes are worth less than the avionics required. I could do a bodge for about 10k but a proper neat job would be about 25k (GBP) and the biggest issue is finding someone who can do it. There is no UK firm I would use, based on past experience. I would go to Jesse, but the Q is what boxes to put in. I would like 2×IFD540 but Avidyne are still having major problems and IMHO the company may not be around for long.

OTOH an ILS is a very expensive thing. A few €M to install and then some 5 or 6 digits a year to keep going, largely due to regulatory requirements.

The Paperwork was € 750, the rest was the HW upgrade, new antennas, installation

What for, exactly?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

The ones which drop the ILS for LPV will also have LNAV approaches i.e. the old sort so you will have an MDA of say 500ft instead of the 250ft or so possible with LPV.

Even a VOR approach can be done down to 250 feet IIRC but in practice that hardly ever happens.

The main problem concerning the decommissioning of the ILS is that it becomes ineligible as alternate.

An airfield having only a GNSS approach cannot be used for alternate. And if the only remaining approaches are conventional non-precision approaches, the alternate minima are really high and make the airfield unsuitable as alternate.

LFPT, LFPN

Peter wrote:

The airports which have Ryanair etc will have to retain their ILSs for a long time.

On the list of French aerodromes above there are quite a few Ryanair destinations. I don’t think they will do themselves a favor by decomissioning ILS. And a place like Annecy with difficult terrain will get ridiculously high minima with a GPS only approach (even with LPV).

Peter wrote:

So you can go in in OVC005 rather than OVC002 or so.

Theoretically yes, but many commercial operators have rules that if the destination is non-precision only (as would be the case with any non-LPV-capable aircraft) two alternates will be required one of which needs a precision approach. Which adds another complication to flight planning.

And I have to repeat myself from previous threads: I think it is complete madness to make the infrastructure of a whole continent dependent on a system that is owned by the military of a foreign state. Leaving just a handful ILS installations of large airports in place is not enough. Unless we have some kind of ground based backup to the GPS satellites and/or our own Galileo constellation in place not a single existing ILS should be taken down.

EDDS - Stuttgart

Flyer59 wrote:

The Paperwork was € 750, the rest was the HW upgrade, new antennas, installation

It depends if you find a STC or not.
I’ve been quoted £3000 for the AFM and the paperwork only. I have a 530W already.
This is just moving paper, no one would take a screwdriver in his hands.

I agree with Peter. Relying on one system is not a good thing.
I thought LPV approaches would be additional to existing approaches or to fields with currently no approach, but replacing is a bad idea.
It will also limit the number of airfields for training and the downward spiral starts.

Last Edited by mdoerr at 26 Jan 12:46
United Kingdom

what_next wrote:

I don’t think they will do themselves a favor by decomissioning ILS.

You know, combined with what the OP wrote about Lyon Bron (the airport pais for it so they keep it) it may well be an attempt by the French state to get the airports to pay in order to retain them. Maybe that is what is behind this long list.

On the other hand, I think LPV approaches are going to be the future, come what may. Not only are they massively cheaper to operate, they are also possible in places which would never be able to afford or justify an ILS. I heard not long ago that even big hubs like Zürich aim to get rid of the CAT I ILS’s they have, in favour for LPV, for that reason. Ok, they are not saying “right now” but maybe in a few years when the existing installations end their life cycles. Given that they just replaced their CAT IIIb Installations that may well be 10 years or so.

BUT: Exactly the destinations you guys fly to with biz jets will go there big time. So sooner or later it will be a race which company upgrades and can satisfy customer demand and which ones won’t and will loose the business. I honestly think the French state, under current government particularly, will not care.

Ryan Air I don’t know but I am quite sure that more and more airliners have been upgraded already to fly LPV approaches and they will all get the necessary upgrades if available. As for GA, those who need to upgrade can do it relatively easily.

Peter wrote:

Eventually light GA people will install LPV but it will take a long time. Too many planes are worth less than the avionics required. I could do a bodge for about 10k but a proper neat job would be about 25k (GBP)

All you’d need is a 2nd hand GNS430W. You have all the rest. But if you want to upgrade your installation anyway, it will be the least part of the cost to add LPV.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 26 Jan 12:43
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Aviathor wrote:

An airfield having only a GNSS approach cannot be used for alternate.

This was extensively debated during the development of the implementing rules for PBN. The interpretation of current AMCs is not trivial. For example in AMC 20-27:

c)  Flight crew should ensure sufficient means are available to navigate and land at the 
destination or at an alternate aerodrome in the case of loss of RNP APCH airborne 
capability. 
In particular, the pilot should check that: 
­  a  non­RNP APCH procedure  is  available  at  the  alternate, where  a  destination alternate is required 
­  at least one non­RNP APCH procedure is available at the destination aerodrome, where a destination alternate is not required 

One interpretation is that this only applies if a GNSS procedure is to be used at the destination. If a conventional approach is planned, the alternate may be GNSS-only.

The proposal in Opinion 03/2015 is consistent with that (a non-GNSS approach at destination or alternate):
‘CAT.OP.MPA.182 Destination alternate aerodromes — instrument approach procedures relying on GNSS
The operator shall only select an aerodrome as a destination alternate aerodrome if an instrument approach procedure that does not rely on GNSS is available either at that aerodrome or at the destination aerodrome.’.

But there is strong pressure to get rid of this limitation and permit flights to rely entirely on GNSS based approaches.

I (wrongly) assumed Flyer59 already had WAAS

Last Edited by AnthonyQ at 26 Jan 13:42
YPJT, United Arab Emirates

For private IFR operators who actually fly approaches, the lesson is that you should be thinking about getting WAAS approach capability over the next few years as you will eventually need it. At the moment it isn’t a problem but it will become increasingly limiting not to have it. I think this may be true for CAS flight enroute in the future as well.

EGTK Oxford

JasonC wrote:

I think this may be true for CAS flight enroute in the future as well.

It is already a problem with non-waas boxes. The 430/530 non-WAAS have not enough capacity to store direct to waypoints.
There are some WPs you can use as part of a procedure, but can’t used as direct to waypoints.

United Kingdom
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