The Sad Loss of an Old Friend: LORAN

by Howard Deevers CFII, Arizona Pilots Association, FAASTeam Lead Representative, deeversjones@msn.com
 
I went out to fly on Monday February 15, 2010. In my usual pre flight, I set up my navigation radios. The Northstar Loran displayed “No Position Information Available.” What? Well, maybe I did something wrong. So I turned it off and then back on. The same message appeared again. Then I remembered that Loran was scheduled to be shut down in February.



Like the death of an old friend, your first reaction is shock, even though you might have known that the end was near. Then sadness sets in and will be with you for a long time.

As an electronics technician in the U S Navy, I worked on the Loran system on our ship. It was a big box, about 2.5 feet deep, 2 feet wide, and 2.5 feet high; weighed about 120 pounds, was full of tubes, and had a CRT display on the front. When I lined up the two “blips” on the ‘scope’ I could get latitude and longitude. Transfer that to a set of charts on the table and put a dot there. Repeat that in 5 minutes and again in another 5 minutes. Then I could plot our course and speed. That took 15 minutes to get an accurate plot. But on a ship at sea blasting along at 13 knots, it was better than a sextant.


Developed at the end of WWII, Loran had not changed much by the time I worked on them in 1962. But when transistors became microprocessors, technology took off and Loran receivers became much smaller and with a ton of information we did not have before. We could put them in our planes and they were wonderful. My instructor, “Woody” ferried planes around the world. He said that when they got Loran, they thought they were in heaven.


I used that Loran to navigate all over the East and West. I compared it to a hand held GPS, and later to a panel mounted IFR certified GPS, and it was never more than one tenth of a nautical mile different. I never lost the signal, and updated the receiver once a year. Of course, it was for VFR use only, but what a helper!


Alas, my old friend, Loran, had no champions to defend him. AOPA tried to justify the system, but not aggressively. Their attention is user fees for now. Even my letters to my Congresswoman went unanswered. So, the signals went silent on February 8. I said that I would keep my Loran for two weeks after they shut the system down. I guess it will have to come out of the plane in a couple of weeks.


The justification for shutting down the Loran is cost savings. The government will ‘save’ $190 million over 5 years by not having the Loran in use. In a time when words like “billions” and “trillions” are used for just about everything else, I find this “savings” offensive, compared to the good it provided.


We took the ADF out of the plane a few years ago. There are few NDB transmitters left, but there are some, and used for instrument approaches in most cases. I am regretting taking the ADF out, because it is an AM radio receiver. Just about every town in the U S has at least one AM radio station. The transmitter towers are usually close to the town. A book is available with the frequencies of all of those radio stations. If you can navigate to that, you should be able to find the town, and then the airport. VFR, of course.

First came the ADF, then the VOR, then the Loran, and then the GPS. Now, there is discussion about taking the VOR’s out of service also. That will leave us with only GPS for navigation. We have a GPS in the plane and use it on every flight and it is wonderful. I just don’t want to have only one system to rely on. Our government can “degrade” the GPS signals, or shut them down at will. That makes me nervous.


When I think of the loss of my Loran, I also think about the inscription above one of the graves at Boot Hill, in Tombstone, AZ. It reads:


“Here lies LORAN,* hung by mistake, (*name changed, of course)
He was right, We was wrong,
We strung him up, Now he’s gone.”


If you think that saving $190 million over 5 years will keep the government from imposing user fees on us, you are not paying attention. User fees are pushed back for now, but the next sad loss of a friend could be General Aviation it’s self.

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Thanks to Howard Deevers, CFII, FAAST Team Lead Rep, Arizona Pilots Association