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no shortcuts. After loading the flight plan into the GPS navigation unit, review it and take note of any VORs on your route. Set up your NAV radios with the pertinent ground-based NAVAIDs for that flight. Try to keep up with the NAV frequency changes enroute. If you can display a bearing pointer, use that to verify the VOR course. It is interesting to see the difference between GPS and VOR course. When the controller gives you a clearance “direct to ...” you can reply that you would like to stay on the filed route. If you don’t have a bearing pointer, try navigating using VORs only. Obviously this would be a flight in which you were not in a hurry to get to your destination.
I have experienced the dreaded LOI and DR messages. There was panic at first but then the relief of knowing I was already set up with the VORs in the background. I continued using the VORs almost seamlessly. I didn’t have to scramble to find the proper VORs, frequencies or courses. Since I had been keeping up with the flight, situational awareness was already in place. I was lucky the outage happened while I was on a Victor airway.
As VORs are being decommissioned, more and more Victor airways are disappearing. They are being replaced with GPS-based RNAV routes called “T” routes (low-altitude RNAV routes). Jet routes are being replaced with “Q” routes (high-altitude RNAV routes). Remember, the MON system will retain enough conventional routes to cover GPS outages.
If my outage happened during a flight when I was off airway, I would have had to ask for a vector, possibly to the closest VOR. Maybe surveillance was out; I would now have to fly directly to a VOR and navigate using a Victor airway from then on. I may have had to shoot a VOR approach because the closest MON airport with an ILS was too far away.
When was the last time you intercepted and tracked a VOR radial, entered a holding pattern without the GPS or shot a VOR approach not using GPS? Asking your training provider to cover some of these topics in your next recurrent visit is another good way to stay proficient with conventional navigation.
The FAA’s plan to reduce ground-based navigation equipment is happening now. The MON system and our training to be proficient in conventional navigation gives us the knowledge, confidence and reassurance that we will need to be able to navigate our King Air in the event of a GPS disruption. KA
Pete Marx has more than 30 years of experience in the aviation industry, from flying as a captain and first officer on Beech 1900s, Jetstream 42s and Dash 8s for commuter airlines to flying cargo as a flight engineer and check airman in the Airbus 300 and DC-8 for DHL. He has been instructing in King Airs for the past 13 years and is currently an instructor at King Air Academy in Phoenix, Arizona.
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JANUARY 2025
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 19