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18th July 2003, 03:18 AM

Richard Kaplan wrote:

> Suppose the FAA truly does plan to decommission all navaids except GPS.
>
> How long do you think it would take to design, test, and publish replacement
> WAAS GPS approaches to replace every ILS, LOC, or other approach in
> existence today which does not meet the criteria for a straight GPS overlay
> approach?
>
> As food for thought, one of the advantages of even non-WAAS GPS is supposed
> to be the ability to publish approaches to any airport in the U.S. Well,
> years after the introduction of GPS my own home airport (KWAY) still does
> not have an instrument approach of any type at all; a request is pending,
> but I have been told it could be a long wait.
>
> So any guess how long it would take to convert all current approaches to
> either GPS overlay or GPS WAAS so that we could decommission all the other
> navaids?

The ILS will be around for a long time to come because of international
agreements for one, and the fact the airlines are broke and have already spent a
bundle for ILS autoland for much of the fleet.

As to your airport not having a GPS approach, the FAA staffing for approach
design is wholly inadequate to achieve the goals of the headline grabbers. And,
where an airport does not already have at least one IAP the environmental hoops
those designers have to jump through are almost a show-stopper. The EPA is a
big factor in that one, and they aren't in love with airplanes at that agency.

18th July 2003, 03:18 AM	#1 (permalink)
joe Guest Posts: n/a Classified Rating: % ()	Suppose We Really Do Have Only GPS Approaches Richard Kaplan wrote: > Suppose the FAA truly does plan to decommission all navaids except GPS. > > How long do you think it would take to design, test, and publish replacement > WAAS GPS approaches to replace every ILS, LOC, or other approach in > existence today which does not meet the criteria for a straight GPS overlay > approach? > > As food for thought, one of the advantages of even non-WAAS GPS is supposed > to be the ability to publish approaches to any airport in the U.S. Well, > years after the introduction of GPS my own home airport (KWAY) still does > not have an instrument approach of any type at all; a request is pending, > but I have been told it could be a long wait. > > So any guess how long it would take to convert all current approaches to > either GPS overlay or GPS WAAS so that we could decommission all the other > navaids? The ILS will be around for a long time to come because of international agreements for one, and the fact the airlines are broke and have already spent a bundle for ILS autoland for much of the fleet. As to your airport not having a GPS approach, the FAA staffing for approach design is wholly inadequate to achieve the goals of the headline grabbers. And, where an airport does not already have at least one IAP the environmental hoops those designers have to jump through are almost a show-stopper. The EPA is a big factor in that one, and they aren't in love with airplanes at that agency.