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Decommissioning plans for NDB VOR & especially ILS across Europe

@Peter

€ 750 for STC and LPV certification
€ 5000 for upgrade to W units (sold 2 non-WAAS 430s for 8000, paid 13.000 for two W 430s with 250 TT
€ 1300 for combined WAAS and COM antenna
€ 350 for 1 GA-36 WAAS antenna
The rest was for the installation, mainly of the antennas.

I have found more recent and more official information in this presentation from the DGAC

On page 4, it contains a map of ILS procedures that are considered to be part of the “minimal ILS network” (dark and light blue), and those outside (yellow). It confirms that the yellow ILS will be decommissioned from the start of January 2016 if the airport operator doesn’t take over the responsibility for maintaining the ILS. And it removes the two-stage approach that was still set out in the 2013 document, so for example the ILS at Le Touquet is now already on the list of “endangered species”.

So France is now relying on the US military keeping the GPS system alive 24/7 at least until Gallileo+Egnos is fully operational.
A wise decision??

EKRK, Denmark

It is mentioned in the DGAC presentation, and was already the issue of discussion here (I think for dutch airspace users) that there are subsidies available to speed up the implementation of EGNOS adaptation:

http://www.gsa.europa.eu/gsa/grants (click on the 2015 and 2016 Annual Grants Plan)

The application period from the 2015 Annual Grants Plan is already over, but the one from the 2016 plan is until December. It is supposed to help “airspace users” and it reads like anyone can apply if you plan one of the following:


Proposals submitted to the call should cover one or more of the activities described below:
- The design, development and implementation of EGNOS LPV/LPV 200 approach
procedures, PinS, low level IFR routes at different European airports/heliports/routes
and publication in the national AIP.
- Design and implementation of other communication, navigation and surveillance
applications benefitting from EGNOS for all phases of flight.
- The installation of GPS/EGNOS enabled avionics and granting of airworthiness
certification for RNP APCH procedures down to LPV minima, including PinS.
- Development of retrofit and forwardfit solutions including LPV capabilities.
- Implementation of approach procedures benefitting from the LPV 200 capabilities
provided by EGNOS.
- Implementation of enablers or catalysts for EGNOS adoption, such as, but not limited
to simulators, validation tool or training material.

It may be true that decommissioning, say, 50 % of the ILS and investing that money into the development of LPV approaches and installation of suitable avionics may be a rational choice. But I wonder if all the bureaucracy involved in re-distributing the money makes it worthwile. Maybe this would be a topic for our GA organizations to develop a standard grant application where you just have to fill in a few details, sign it and send it off, maybe in a bundled form? That should supposedly also help the agency that has to treat these applications.

Michael_J wrote:

So France is now relying on the US military keeping the GPS system alive 24/7 at least until Gallileo+Egnos is fully operational.

They will keep ILS on 44 airports (+5 military) as part of the minimal coverage. Germany currently has ILS at 49 airports (+11 military). That still makes for a better coverage per square mile in France than in Germany. How many airports with ILS are there in Denmark?

I think it would be naïve to think that we would be independent of GPS even if France kept all these ILS installations. If the US switched it off tomorrow, aviation (and not only aviation) in Europe would already be in trouble.

That is not to say that I don’t regret this decision by the French, but I wouldn’t want to pay for all these ILS either if it was my tax money.

Last Edited by Rwy20 at 26 Jan 13:45

I wonder if one day we will not come full circle with vastly improved accelerometer technology and end up with Inertial Navigation in a small (suitable for light aircraft) sized box accurate enough to allow vertical navigation…

YPJT, United Arab Emirates

AnthonyQ wrote:

end up with Inertial Navigation

You mean complementary to GNSS as a backup for a few minutes?

More or less like what a Cirrus Perspective does when you lose the GPS signal en route, it goes into dead reckoning mode and interpolates your position from airspeed and headings for 15 minutes, displaying a yellow plane icon on the MFD. Only much more precise as to allow to finish an approach.

Rwy20 wrote:

You mean complementary to GNSS as a backup for a few minutes?
More or less like what a Cirrus Perspective does when you lose the GPS signal en route, it goes into dead reckoning mode and interpolates your position from airspeed and headings for 15 minutes, displaying a yellow plane icon on the MFD. Only much more precise as to allow to finish an approach.

Yes, that is one possible first step…regular reference position checks…but ultimately is there a limit to INS use that you can’t envisage may be overcome with improved accelerometer technology? Granted that position reference checks would likely still be required…but maybe the time between checks could end up long enough to be able to conduct any flight in its entirety? You can see the advantages of being totally self contained for navigation….

YPJT, United Arab Emirates

AnthonyQ wrote:

improved accelerometer technology

I’m no expert, but given the current price and weight for an ADIRU that you see on an Airbus, and the fact they have three of them, and they still trust a GPS position more than what these systems come up with, I think we are far from being able to do a complete flight on inertial navigation only in a small plane. For example, you would have to be able to predict precession very accurately if you wanted to have approach precision at the end of a flight. I feel that wouldn’t be possible even if your sensors had an error of zero.

Rwy20 wrote:

More or less like what a Cirrus Perspective does when you lose the GPS signal en route, it goes into dead reckoning mode and interpolates your position from airspeed and headings for 15 minutes, displaying a yellow plane icon on the MFD.

All G1000 systems have this capability.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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