ATC
Loran-C shutdown plan worries Satnav watchers
The U.S.

The U.S. Coast Guard and its parent, the Department of Homeland Security, on January 7 announced that U.S. loran-C stations will be progressively shut down between February and October, since everyone now uses GPS for navigation. The banks and the communications industry also moved from loran to the slightly more accurate GPS for split-second transaction timing for our ATMs and our cellphones.

But timing users have retained their lorans for backup, because GPS isn’t always 100-percent accurate, which is why the FAA doesn’t permit GPS-only IFR in the continental U.S.