Avionics
FAA Plans Cuts to VOR Network

The FAA has issued a proposed plan to transition the national airspace system (NAS) to a performance-based navigation system that relies on GPS and “area navigation everywhere and required navigation performance where beneficial,” instead of defining airways, routes and procedures using VORs and other legacy navaids. A minimum operational network of VORs and an “optimized network” of DMEs would be retained, and this drawdown would be complete by Jan. 1, 2020.

According to the FAA, 80 percent of the 967 VORs in the NAS are past their service life, and “replacement parts are becoming more difficult to obtain. The replacement of all the VORs would cost over $1 billion.”

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