Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Procedure
IFR flight plan to T85 to conduct an instrument proficiency check for a pilot who owns his own aircraft.The plan was to use the NDB at T85 (Yaokum; TX - radio aid identifier OKT). Houston ARTCC cleared us for the NDB Runway 31 approach.During initiation of approach in VMC I noted the NDB was not transmitting a Morse Code identifier nor were we receiving any course guidance. Houston ARTCC was advised that we suspected that NDB OKT at T85 was out of operation and that we were continuing a simulated NDB approach using GPS under VMC conditions. If this had been in IMC conditions we would have declared a missed and requested radar vectors.After landing I contacted Ft. Worth FSS to see if they had any outage of NDB OKT as we were told it was in operation when we filed our IFR flight plan.FSS said that because it is in an unmonitored status we should only be able to use that NDB if we have radar coverage from Houston ARTCC. This is in conflict with what the Airport Facility Directory says about a radio aid that is unmonitored. Also; if this were true then I believe the approach plate would require radar. It doesn't.I was left with the impression that the Ft. Worth FSS didn't want to take the trouble to report this outage and was blowing smoke up my tail pipe. I am also concerned that Houston ARTCC has taken no action to report the T85 NDB out of service.
C172 pilot reported finding the NDB at T85 out of service and advised ATC who still showed it in service.