Navigation: GPS v VOR?

Hi all, hope this is an appropriate forum to post this question. Apologies, it has become a bit long. As a semi-permanent fs newbie for 20 years, only recently have I "manned up" and decided to "get into it" with more discipline. (Have explored various environments over the years, e.g. VATSIM.) Have old legacy software, FS2002, on a WinXP PC, works fine, suits my needs. (I monitor the forums FS2002 and FS2004, given that I presume 04 isn't too far advanced from 02 so some compatibility. I posted yesterday in FS2002 "FS2002 "out of the box" experience." #6 re ATC AI aircraft and nav). This question is generic to flying, real world (RW) and simming, and I presume the "way we do it" is not dependent on the software or version one is using.

 

My self-discipline is to follow the built-in training (Rod Machado flight school) and work my way up through the Private Pilot etc. ratings. Am sticking with the stock-standard Cessna 172, am practising improving my circuits, fairly OK with them now. Starting to explore cross-country flying, and using the built-in ATC calls with AI traffic around me (especially from Brisbane International, YBBN). All good, interesting, fun stuff. (Boy, the Microsoft family of Flight Simulator is rich and deep, the deeper you go the deeper it gets, as with all the flight sim world!) Have done a couple of short hops from my local YLIS to the next country airport YBNA, 30 km by road. Did simple nav, without nav instruments, just headed out east and I could see YBNA. I know I could nav north by following the coastline visually up to Brisbane. (I don't have any add-on scenery etc., am interested in the flight model moreso than scenery realism, so not much scenery to use to be able to nav visually.) I know I can simply follow a straight line bearing course and will get to my destination.

 

I explored the built-in Flight Planner yesterday and saw that when I put in my destination in that, VFR type, the GPS shows the route. Very handy. I had wanted to learn GPS. I also have FS2000 and have read the hardcopy book that came with that, cover to cover many times, including the VOR nav methodology, but haven't ever started to train in it.

 

So here's the question: I was wondering if GPS is slowly replacing VOR nav methodology in RW and sim. Am thinking to not bother learning the somewhat arcane VOR methods and just teach myself GPS. I did some net searches and found as suspected, that it seems that VOR is being phased out, at least partially, in favour of GPS, worldwide and in Australia (this article is old, 2013): "On 4 February 2016, GNSS will become mandatory for all aircraft operating IFR. From this date about 200 ground-based navigation aids (VOR, NDB, DME) will be decommissioned. The remaining navaids will form the Back-Up Navigation Network, which is intended to run until 2025". My local Lismore YLIS had a NDB but it was closed down some years ago.

 

Q1: So where is the world headed re nav?

Q2: Is it worth my while to learn VOR or just go with GPS only?

Q3: Re Approach/Departure, and the charts, I see that VORs are integral, so would they be simply replaced with GPS waypoints?

You gurus will know the answers. Thanks in advance, cheers, MAD1.

I can't specifically answer for Australia, but in the U.S.:

 

1. GPS with moving map is the current trend, but VOR and NDB are still in use in many places, and will be for a while, even though the FAA is decommissioning some of them -- apparently Australia did a lot of that a few years ago, since you referenced a 2016 GPS requirement for all IFR.
    
   
2. In the sim, that depends on what you want to do. Some folks like working with older means of navigation, while some prefer to stick with the newer, "easier" style. In the real world, of course, you'd need to learn what is used where you fly and what is required for your license.
    
   
3. When the approach charts you use are including VORs to negotiate the approach, then you'll need to know how to use VORs. I suspect that points currently defined by NDB/VOR will eventually be replaced by GPS waypoints, OR that they'll completely redesign the approach(es) to use GPS.
   

But the above being said, it's ultimately up to you which methods/equipment you use in the sim, and it's usually even possible to use the GPS to navigate via any named waypoints/intersections that are defined via VOR, since the GPS map should depict those too.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks Larry for the response. All understood and as I expected. My thinking is to, at least in my early learning, as I'll be flying VFR all the way, to put the VOR location coordinates into the GPS as waypoints, and then do the transition from pure cross country into the airport's approach via the Approach chart, and either fly the IFR approach corridor, or fly straight in to the active runway, under inbuilt ATC vectoring (albeit even if that's a bit primitive and unrealistic in e.g. FS2002), join the circuit and then land. Will try this at a controlled airport e.g. Brisbane YBBN. (I have often sat in a pub's beer garden in Brisbane and watched the afternoon airliner traffic coming in, I know the approach paths visually, and where the actual VORs are located in the landscape.) I also would like to learn the VOR-only method, but all the above will occupy me for some months of fun. This familiarisation will then set me up well for the migration into IFR and airliner work. Onwards and upwards!