I am at that state in my build that I am making the same decisions. He stated that one can get their IFR certification and fly GPS approaches with only a certified GPS installed in the aircraft.
Just to be clear, there is no such thing as IFR certification for the aircraft. Your OPLIMs should state your aircraft is to be flown VFR
unless equipped IAW with 91.205. Plus you need to comply with the 91.411 for the static system inspection, and although technically not required by regs for IFR flight, for practical reasons you also need a transponder and meet 91.413 for its inspection.
I am not well versed in the IFR lingo but their are two standard typical GPS approaches and to get your certification you have to fly three. The third is a GPS overlay on a VOR approach. They are not as common and he stated that I will have to take that into account when selecting an examiner. I will have to pick one that is in the general area to one of these approaches.
OK, To get your rating, you have to fly 3 approaches (1 precision and 2 non-precision), not 3 GPS approaches. The requirements are clearly spelled out in the PTS but here's the highlights:
-- The non-precision approaches
must use two different types of navigational aids.
-- Acceptable Nonprecision approaches include: VOR, LOC procedures on an ILS, LDA, RNAV (RNP) or RNAV (GPS) to LNAV, LNAV/VNAV or LPV line of minima as long as the LPV DA is greater than 300 feet HAT.
-- Acceptable precision approaches include ILS or (RNAV) GPS LPV line of minima as long as the LPV DA is less than 300 feet HAT.
The bottom line, as already mentioned, is you can't get your rating in an aircraft only equipped with an IFR GPS -- you have to have another means of radio navigation.
Finally, for those playing along, for IFR flight, to go GPS only the IFR GPS has to be a TSO 145/146 WAAS box. If it's a TSO 129/196 box then you have to have anther means of navigation suitable to the route flown, which in practical terms means a Nav radio.
I am not going to be a hard IFR pilot. If a VOR will get me 100' foot lower then I will have to postpone my flight. The way I understand it is that the VORs are slowing being attritioned out of service. If the GPS's are a military target and they are affected, the airspace will be shut down anyway just like they did in 2001. He also told me that more and more of the GPS overlay approaches will be installed at airports as the VOR's disappear.
The days of GPS overlays are over --the overlays were introduced as a quick way to get GPS approaches into the system (after all they are, or were, just existing VOR approaches flown with the GPS to the same MDA). The overlays are now disappearing as stand alone RNAV (GPS) approaches with TAAs and lower minimums replace the overlays.
For the foreseeable future at the minimum the FAA will retain a VOR network called the MON (Minimum Operational Network). There is also no wholesale movement to decommission ILS's that I'm aware of.
