eLORAN

ah LORAN, one of the old 172's I learned it had it, didn't work but it had it.

To my understanding LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) was originally developed for Ship navigation that made its way into aircraft. It requires only a few stations and are cheap (or used to be) to maintain.
 
Probably just add a blended sensor to present gps units, or just start including sensors in the next product cycle of GPS units. I'm sure it wouldn't take much to add a secondary sensor input in some of those advanced avionics (maybe in lieu of the MLS).

The old junk fmcs from the 80's and whatnot have been doing this for sometime.

This is pure speculation on my part. Hopefully an avionics guru will learn us.
 
This seems like good sense if you want to have performance-based RNP approaches in your country where your own government controls the facilities, but don't have a need to re-invent the wheel and launch your own GNSS constellation. (Or WASS/LASS if you're the FAA and won't rely on the DoD for availability)
 
Looks like the US may be considering it too though? Or is there enough redundancy between GPS and WAAS?
 
The USCG was not allowed the mothball the LORAN system when the great leader ordered it shutdown. Equipment was removed, towers destroyed etc.. So the US would have to fund the replacement of all the infrastructure and rebuild large portions of the LORAN network.

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Capt. Chaos said:
The USCG was not allowed the mothball the LORAN system when the great leader ordered it shutdown. Equipment was removed, towers destroyed etc.. So the US would have to fund the replacement of all the infrastructure and rebuild large portions of the LORAN network.

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How many navigation systems should the US be maintaining? I see a reincarnated version of LORAN as just a back-up that would be expensive to keep alive.
 
I've flown a Bonanza with a LORAN with GPS backup. Every time you fire it up it tries for a couple minutes to calculate its position then gives up and says "LORAN error, switching to GPS navigation" or something similar.

How times have changed.
 
ahw01 said:
I though LORAN was long gone, but it seems to be making a comeback...

http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/news_...ut_eloran_stations_backup_vulnerable_gps.html

Having had no idea about the old-LORAN I could find next to no training material for how to use the unit, maybe we'll all have to relearn...

Alex.
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Hey, thanks for sharing! I have read about this too, for the United States. From what I have read, the rationale is in lock step with the first sentence of the article, "The UK’s pursuit of technology to counter the threat of GPS jamming... " If LORAN were really developed and well maintained, I think it could be a decent back up system. I did a bit of GA flying in a couple aircraft with LORAN. They worked well, even though their data bases were a decade plus old!! Using them was an interesting history lesson though...."So ABC airport used to be called 1A2, and the VOR used to located over there, not here....interesting"
 
I like the principle, it seems amazing how fast it has dropped away, finding charts is even tough, maybe it never caught on as much. I have a pre-2010 FAR-AIM, this is about the best source I guess.
 
I flew a Cessna with a small panel mounted Loran unit, back 20'ish years ago. It was great, in fact it behaved almost identically to any GPS unit I've used today (minus the moving map). Hit Direct to, dial in an identifer, and it shows you range, GS, ETA, and CDI... simple. As I recall I think the precision was somewhere around 1/3 mile back then.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Loran was running on the order of 35 million a year, IIRC. That's pennies compared to what GPS costs
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GPS, for all the launch and support costs, has become so much more than just a navigation source. Fields are plowed and harvested using differential GPS, heavy equipment can build roads with automatic positioning, and the ability to track an item in a logistics train down to the meter has enabled "Just in time" logistics to flourish. Not to mention all the mobile technologies that use GPS.

Loran is ok... but its just an antiquated navigation scheme. It's like saying "let's bring back A-N beacons!" If we felt we needed a back-up navigational network, a mesh network using cell towers would be cheaper and just as effective at this point.
 
hook_dupin said:
GPS, for all the launch and support costs, has become so much more than just a navigation source. Fields are plowed and harvested using differential GPS, heavy equipment can build roads with automatic positioning, and the ability to track an item in a logistics train down to the meter has enabled "Just in time" logistics to flourish. Not to mention all the mobile technologies that use GPS.

Loran is ok... but its just an antiquated navigation scheme. It's like saying "let's bring back A-N beacons!" If we felt we needed a back-up navigational network, a mesh network using cell towers would be cheaper and just as effective at this point.
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I'm not saying this to be richard, but how do you know that?
 
block30 said:
I'm not saying this to be richard, but how do you know that?
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Let's just say the last 10 years have been a really amazing ride. I never thought I'd build an integrated GPS/INS nav system that could be bolted on to a F-16 in my garage... but that's what I did for my Master's thesis. We were getting centimeter-level accuracy horizontally from components we purchased commercially using a credit card.
 
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