As achimha said, the VDFs are disappearing. In Sweden every tower has radar so from an ATC situational awareness point of view they are not needed.
Two airports in Sweden have PAR (approved for civil use), Ronneby ESDF and Såtenäs ESIB. Both are airbases, but Ronneby has joint military/civil use.
I saw (heard) a case the other day where VDF was useful – pilot reports inbound to Biggin from the west, Biggin immediately reply “confirm position, VDF shows you to the east”.
I guess a mode-S feed (which Biggin also have, but aren’t allowed to officially use) would do the same job. Primary radar (or secondary without unique squawks) doesn’t solve this issue.
I just realised there is no VDF and no PAR approaches in Denmark anymore!
I trained the VDF at EKOD and saw it in the AIP last year, but it has been NOTAM’ed out for some time and it has just gone permanently.
I have flown many fun PAR’s at EKVL (closed around 2006) and Aalborg / EKYT much later, but that too, is gone.
My home airport Roskilde/ EKRK is one of the last two or three in Denmark with a VDF facility. It is used to guide nervous VFR pilots back home in bad weather, but there is both primary and secondary radar available for that too. The real value is for situational awareness for the tower controllers. It is of much more help than radar when the circuit is full. The VDF would have gone away if the controllers had not fought to keep it.
