oldcrow16

I am a consultant and former military pilot working on Next Generation Air Transportation and am interested in finding out who still uses LORAN, and how often? Should we keep LORAN?

Are your aircrafts' receivers and boxes still maintained?

I remember during flight school being told that no uses it anymore or at that, very minimally.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated?

Thanks!

HSLD

While some aviation departments still might use Loran, I think the real question is what is the benefit to the taxpayer to subsidize a "dead" technology infrastructure when cheaper, more accurate, and more reliable alternatives are available?

What can Loran do that INS/GPS can't?

oldcrow16

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to sink my teeth into. It seems the Coast Guard uses it for ships. Do you know of any airlines that still use it?

Would there be a case for it in the event of a major war where GPS was jammed or knocked out or as a integrity check for automated GPS routing, etc? E-LORAN has a reported accuracy of 8 meters.

Thanks for your response.

HSLD

I'm not aware of any airline that uses Loran in the US. Because dead reckoning and celestial navigation are no long practiced - I assume that all long distance navigation would cease in the event of GPS jamming

IC ALL

Airlines don't use it and you see it very rarely in GA airplanes. GPS is so cheap everyone has gone that route, both panel mounts legal for IFR and handhelds.

SkiBum112

I agree. I've worked for several companies where Loran is hardly even mentioned, let alone used. I don't even think they're really teaching how to use it in flight schools anymore.

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fiveninerzero

Thank goodness for INS

oldcrow16

Thanks for the replies. Are there any strong arguments for keeping it? I'm curious to know if there are any pilots that still want it?

jared4271987

I don't even recall ever learning about LORAN in any of my training and have only found a receiver box in an old Arrow IV I used to fly. It never even came up on any of my practicals. Aside from it being another nifty little box in the A/C, I think that I'd rather have a G430 in that space. I think it would be good to teach my students how to use it just so they know another system should they come across it someday but in my 600 hours I've hardly seen it. Good for situational awareness but I personally think GPS is a much better and more user friendly system.

GauleyPilot

The Northstar M1 ruled the sky from 1988-1991. I loved that box. It was very user friendly.
Although they sometimes acted up when you changed grids, or there was a lot of precip or moisture. Thus, it was VFR only.

However, I can't make a strong argument for keeping LORAN. The FAA worked on making it IFR, including approaches, but GPS came on too quick, and is far superior.