ATC
FAA plan calls for ILS phaseout starting in 2015
Released last month, the 2005 Federal Radionavigation Plan (FRP)–a joint production of the DOT, DOD and the Department of Homeland Security–provides a usef

Released last month, the 2005 Federal Radionavigation Plan (FRP)–a joint production of the DOT, DOD and the Department of Homeland Security–provides a useful guide to what air navigation will be like between now and 2020. Of course, federal crystal balls occasionally can be cloudy, especially when they peer 14 years into the future. Nevertheless, since its first publication in 1980, the biennial FRP has given aviators a reasonable picture of what the future will bring, provided they accept that nothing that far ahead is cast in concrete.

The basic tenet of the plan is that in the near future the airspace environment will be satellite-dominated because GPS works well and a satellite system would allow the federal government–primarily the FAA–to gradually divest itself of the heavy financial burden of the thousands of terrestrial navaids it operates today.