Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
No - I think we both shared our feelings of the gov't shutdown in the previous threads.
If you are saying that I read to much into YOUR felings about NAVAID certification, then that is possible. We all know how hard it is to distiguish intent over the internet sometimes, but your quote of "Oh yeah, those VORs need testing.", I took that as you saying that it wasn't very important that that piece of *old* technology needed to be tested/certified or that it was worth the effort - especially in light of your follow on statements/questions about what is the use of them in the light of NEW NAS technologies.
I've written about the the future of the NAS as it is revelvant to our operations in other posts, but as I said above - oarts of the OLD NAS will be along for as long as I am in this job I'd be willing to wager. You can google MON (Minimum Operational Network) and read a little something about it if you are interested. I'll link just one of the many studies/papers out there on it:
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...ll/VOR_MON.pdf
NDBs? Decommissioning them as we speak and others are being powered down to increase th life of the station/facility.
ILSs? Around for a long time to come. Procedures is putting out aroud 500 new RNAV procedures per year - and these are just the approaches I think - not even those new RNAV SIDs/STARs or DME/DME procedures. ADS-B is taking up most of the Lear60 fleets time right now because they are the only airframe with the equipment mods.
Now - back to digital NOTAMs and our desire to see more of this technology - no matter how many airports you may see in a single day whether you fly ETOPS/International/Atlantic/Pacific or a flight between KOKC and KICT.
Seriously, my comment wasn't meant like that. I was confused as to why one would need so many NOTAMs. I'll probably never convince you of that. But it's ok, life goes on.
But I do think, even in keeping back on thread topic, the government must become as lean and as efficient as the commercial side of aviation. To be blunt, it's the government side that's slowing everyone down.
There's no reason in the datalinked world that we live in the NOTAM system couldn't be automated and beamed directly into the cockpit/EFBs and towers.
We're in interesting times. We have all of this new technology, but we're paying for and clinging onto the past. The government must make the obvious decision or we're just wasting money away.
Another interesting observation. Whenever I fly overseas, we're always flying an NADP1 departure. But it's very rare in the USA. I'd imagine that if the noise sensitive communities in the USA found out that pilots weren't flying the most advantageous takeoffs from a noise perspective, they'd be angry. But we don't fly them because we're not required to. Which goes back to the theme, our government is slow to make the necessary changes.