Every now and then, rumors swirl about the decommissioning of certain NAVAIDS. It usually happens when new equipment or procedures are announced. Ever since the FAA went crazy with announcements of GPS and ADS-B, people have been convinced that they'll do away with VORs.
I'm sure the same thing happened when VORs were introduced in 1960s. People probably sat around talking about how NDBs were a thing of the past. Today, there are still many ADFs installed in aircraft and although there have been some NDBs taken out of service, those that are flying without fancy glass cockpits might find NDBs handy to have still.
With the announcement that new LPV procedures will be in place at all appropriate runways by 2016 has people once again debating the decommissioning of the VOR system.
Personally, I love the VOR. And call me traditional, but I also like to have a back-up system in place for when GPS crashes. So I don't believe that VORs are a thing of the past...yet. If GPS continues to prove consistently reliable and hack-proof over the next ten years, then I'll try to accept the fact that VORs are ancient. But it'll be a difficult acknowledgement to make.
What do you think? Are VORs already a thing of the past?
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