NDBs on the way out

MikeD

MikeD

Administrator
Staff member
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Say Goodbye to Hundreds of NDB Approaches

Starting today, 216 NDB approaches will be decommissioned. Although the FAA has yet to actually switch them off the air, the decommissioned NDB stations will no longer be flight-checked, maintained, approved for use or shown on updated charts, according to AOPA. “The FAA decommissioned them after careful coordination with AOPA and the aviation community,” said Randy Kenagy, AOPA director of advanced technology. This means that the FAA “can stop spending money on something few use and will have more funds for GPS-WAAS approaches to general aviation airports,” he added. The FAA has proposed decommissioning a total of 479 NDB procedures, with the final set of procedures scheduled to be eliminated in September. AOPA told the agency that 60 NDB approaches should be saved because they provided the lowest minimums. However, the FAA retained just 35 of the 60, according to AOPA.

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Damn. When I retire, FNG pilots will think I'm a dinosaur because I flew NDB approaches. They'll look at me in the same way (when I was an FNG) I looked at guys who knew how to fly A/N range approaches, and navigated via fan markers.....or even remembered flying with civilian Flight Navigators in airline cockpits. Last A/N Range approach was shut down in Mexico in the 1980s.

Getting older each day....
 
When flying today I heard the local flight school practicing NDB approaches for their students......

Funny, knowing the school I wonder if they knew about it and was trying to milk it.

EFS want to comment, you know the school.
 
Well, not ALL of the NDBs are going away right now, just a fair few. I think the NDB at ORL escaped this round of cuts, but you can barely pick that one up some days anyway. So, the NDB approach at ORL is still active. Pretty sure the NDB approaches at SFB are still around, so the poor DCA guys will still have to fly them. None of the planes I fly now have ADFs, so it's a moot point for me currently.
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Other than training, I've never flown one. The only thing we ever use them for in the airline world is as another way to verify the final fix.
 
When I was doing my primary training, know what one of my instructors told me about the ADF?

He said, watch this, Tony. The only thing the ADF is good for is this -- and he proceeded to tune in a baseball game.
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I always really like doing ndb approaches, always seemed like you really had to be on the ball to fly em perfect. Actually I was kinda angry the ADF in my plane didn't work when I got it and not just for the radio feature.
 
Don't get me wrong, I think that knowing how to fly an NDB approach is important, especially in the situation like the one SteveC mentioned.

But, if I've got other options, I'm choosing those approaches.
 
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Well, not ALL of the NDBs are going away right now, just a fair few. I think the NDB at ORL escaped this round of cuts, but you can barely pick that one up some days anyway. So, the NDB approach at ORL is still active. Pretty sure the NDB approaches at SFB are still around, so the poor DCA guys will still have to fly them. None of the planes I fly now have ADFs, so it's a moot point for me currently.
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Yep, that NDB at SFB will probably never go away. I had to shoot one into there fo real once due to the ILS being out. Had to go missed becuase it was overcast at 400 or something. Had to divert down to ORL as our and it was clear blue and a million, did the visual. Florida WX, what can I say.
 
Same here. We are certified to fly them but have never done it with pax onboard. The only time we seem to fly them is when the the guy running the box wants to be cruel during our pc's. My last one was single engine to mins then a single engine missed. I can't wait till they are all gone.
 
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I just flew a for-real NDB approach a week or two ago into KOEO (Osceola, WI). The plane is slant India, and the only approaches into OEO are GPS and NDB.

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This may just be my fuzzy memory, but it seemed like every NDB approach I ever flew was down to or near mins. Including my first week on the DC-9! Got to admit it's not as sporty flying approaches where you know when and where to look for the runway! Flew a couple on the glass cockpit jets, but it's just not right having a magenta line to follow. (I did cross check with the RMI, really, I swear.)
 
One of my instructors in flight school showed me that if tuned to an unused freq, the ADF makes a decent "poor man's" strike finder.
 
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I just flew a for-real NDB approach a week or two ago into KOEO (Osceola, WI). The plane is slant India, and the only approaches into OEO are GPS and NDB.

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This may just be my fuzzy memory, but it seemed like every NDB approach I ever flew was down to or near mins. Including my first week on the DC-9! Got to admit it's not as sporty flying approaches where you know when and where to look for the runway! Flew a couple on the glass cockpit jets, but it's just not right having a magenta line to follow. (I did cross check with the RMI, really, I swear.)

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This NDB approach ended up being kind of interesting. Weather was actually pretty good (unusual not to be at min's when doing one of these, ala flyover's comments) with a fairly high ceiling, but we needed to do the approach because the approach controller's MVA in that area was too high to get underneath. What made it a little more sporty was hearing a plane (on CTAF) in the pattern doing touch and goes. I made contact with the Cessna CFI, and the timing worked that they were coming around the pattern just as I was getting close to the field (4 miles out, maybe). I broke out and it took a minute to locate the field because it was not right in front of me (it's an NDB approach after all!) and the runway was asphalt which doesn't show up as well in green fields as a cement runway. I stayed just underneath the overcast while locating the field, then locating the Cessna in the pattern who turned out to be just ahead of me and I was catching him fast, but higher than him. Worked out fine since I just stayed high, entered the pattern overhead the field and made an uneventful landing. The CFI in the Cessna made my job much easier with good communication and position reports which I appreciated. The decision to stay high even after finding the field was a good one since I didn't have the Cessna in sight yet, and it turns out the potential for conflict would have been pretty high. To add to the workload I was unable to get approach to hear me on the radio so I was switching radios for transmission while monitoring both frequencies. After the second or third attempt to cancel IFR with approach control, I abandonded talking to them to concentrate on finding the Cessna and coordinating landing. I called FSS after landing to cancel.

Gotta love single pilot 135!
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Hell, I shot an NDB into KBUF a few nights ago.

Worked like a charm!
 
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Hell, I shot an NDB into KBUF a few nights ago.

Worked like a charm!

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You did, or the A/P did?
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Can't LNAV an NDB!
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Actually I did, it's a lot easier to hand-fly it rather than constantly tinker with the heading select knob constantly.

One of those cases where turning everything off, going into ARC mode and overlaying the ADF needle over the expanded HSI is the best method.
 
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