This has been talked about a lot but nobody posted any real data.
I have made some enquiries within the airport business and got this:
What I didn’t get is the annual maintenance contract for an NDB but it is probably similar to a DME.
Very very interesting, thank you.
So to sum up, basic initial expenditure in the order of:
NDB – 100k
VOR/DME – 300k + 200k = 500k
ILS/DME – 500k + 200k = 700k
And then the yearly running costs on top of that obviously.
Just out of curiosity: Why do the navaids need data comms?
Obviously for airport based installations it doesn’t make much of a difference but for enroute VORs it could be a significant additional cost compared to “just” requiring a 20kW powerline….
I would guess so that its status/performance can be monitored remotely?
I doubt a VOR draws more than a few hundred watts, but getting power (any power) connected to some god forsaken hellhole miles from anywhere could easily cost a few hundred k.
A navaid has a UPS or two, and these can send out emails and such. I get emails when the power fails at home or at work 
I reckon this will be a dial-up phone cable – a local pumping station has that – and you can run ADSL over that if needed. I would think 3G/4G would be cheaper though, with contract SIMs down to €3/month or so, but large parts of the countryside have no GSM coverage. The problem here will be legal requirements for link integrity, so what might actually work perfectly may not be acceptable.
I think the data link is for remote monitoring, plus AIUI for periodic VOR alignment to match the drifting mag bearings.
AT our airport, the Nav equipment was not the major expense for the ILS, it was the site preparation and the approach light system. A lot of dirt had to be moved in front of the GS antenna.
NCYankee wrote:
the major expense for the ILS, it was the site preparation and the approach light system. A lot of dirt had to be moved in front of the GS antenna.
That was one of the major advantages of MLS. No need for a smooth ground plane in front of the GS antenna. Before we had LPV and GLS, of course.
Today I flew new VOR approach to Losinj LDLO (VOR to RW02). That VOR/DME (NTL) has been installed recently and taking into account numbers above, I struggle to understand why would anyone install so expensive device to ensure non-precision approach to LDLO when they could simply develop RNP approach as all other Croatian airports. However, according to Crocontrol data the purpose is approach and en-route so it might be that en-route function is more important.
I am surprised a new VOR would be installed today for enroute nav. No airliner will be using it, other than as an FMS waypoint, and the LOS NDB did fine for that.
I reckon they got it secondhand.
But it will have a DME too and that is useful.
but nobody posted any real data.
Peter: You are to be congratulated for extracting this detailed information and publishing it here.
It is very useful to have these figures in the public domain.
I hope someone might be able to do the equivalent – including especially ‘start-up’ costs and hidden problems – for RNP (RNAV) approaches.
Although these are ‘cheaper’ to both create and maintain, there are bureaucratic demands like geo-reference surveys, plate design and ‘renewal’ costs that discourage many smaller fields in perusing this route.
The greatest scandal is the requirement that these are ‘not allowed’ at non-Towered fields without full ATC, despite the experience of the US where two-thirds of their procedures are at such fields. [The rule is not absolute since they have authorised procedures for some Highland airports but restrict them to ‘authorised’ Commercial operations only.]
At meetings I have confronted officials with both their procrastination to RNP rollout, and their limitations to certain fields based on R/T availability. I have maintained that they are actually encouraging the creation of home baked procedures whereby pilots make/use their own glide slopes (either created automatically by their GPS or by mathematical calculations – in both cases often ignoring step-down fixes.)
In such procedures Safety is sometimes compromised; and the authorities are thereby implicitly involved in potential Accidents.
My protestations don’t seem to move the discussion on very far; but it does create red faces!
