A small Michigan airport will stop using 1960s navigation beacons

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to update the flight rules around Iron Mountain/Kingsford, Michigan. This change removes reliance on an old radio beacon system, bringing the local airspace rules up to modern standards.

For decades, air traffic control relied on ground-based radio beacons called VORs to guide planes. The FAA is slowly decommissioning these older systems as planes increasingly use GPS for navigation. This small change in Michigan is one tiny piece of a larger, quiet shift in how air travel works across the country.