What happens without WAAS

The ramblings of our community of aviators.

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Rich
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What happens without WAAS

Post by Rich »

Right now we have in our area an object lesson in the weakness of relying on ILS, even for training. Redmond’s sole ILS is NOTAM’d out of service for the next several weeks. It’s the only ILS within 100 nm this side of the Cascades. So without WAAS approach capability there is no nearby vertical guidance approach available for training (lots of that around here) or real-need approaches, such as today’s weather.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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TimS
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Re: What happens without WAAS

Post by TimS »

You become a blue sky flyer. :)
Not the answer you want to hear. But that is the basic reality.

Tim
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Charles K
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Re: What happens without WAAS

Post by Charles K »

You perform the non precision RNAV step down approach. Unfortunately those tend to have much higher minima.
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Rich
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Re: What happens without WAAS

Post by Rich »

I’m considering two scenarios, both of which I know to exist within the community:

1. Training. Right now it looks like 6 weeks or so without the ability to train or retrain the process of navigating a glide path if you lack WAAS without traveling a fair piece to have the appropriate facilities.
2. There are those out there interested in getting an IR (or already have an IR) in their own planes that lack even GPS. (I see active encouragement to do so instead of relying on the “crutch of the magenta line”.) There are lots of airports around here where that means VOR approaches only, if there is even one available. That definitely doesn’t cut it for training or check rides.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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