I'm surprised to see that primary students are still flying VOR
radials. I thought that had gone the way of ADFs and light beacons,

And what way have those gone?
NDB's are still in widespread use, and impetus to decommission them has slowed
in recent years. They're also very handy in many situations.
As for VOR's, and VOR/DME airways,they still represent the backbone of the IFR
route system, and cannot be supplanted by random/direct routes anytime soon.
There's even talk of bringing LORAN-C back into the picture . . .

Amazing. When I did my primary training in '94, the talk was all
about phasing out VORs and ADFs "soon". That was one of the primary
reasons that I didn't proceed directly to the instrument rating at the
time -- I didn't want to be saddled with an obsolete knowledge-base,
given that everything was moving to GPS.

Here we are, 13 years later, and apparently little has changed. We've
got a navigation system (GPS) that is accurate to within a meter, and
yet the entire system is still built around VORs, which is accurate to
within...a lot. (Anyone know how accurate it is to be flying a VOR
radial say, 30 miles from the VOR station? Is it a mile? A half
mile? 1000 feet? I have no idea...)

But I do know this: In the real world of (relatively unregulated) VFR
flying, GPS rules. The fact that the IFR system hasn't completed the
change-over in a decade is just another example of how glacial
progress can be in aviation.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"