AAIB Comment in Clued Up

[Sir Niall Dementia]

In the 2012 edition of Clued Up, the CAA GA safety magazine there is a quote from the AAIB, "Some of the more common, and preventable, incidents involve poor situational awareness, largely as a result of the overuse of GPS."

Discuss

SND

Hat, coat, TAXI!!:E

[Jan Olieslagers]

Define "overuse"

[Sir Niall Dementia]

AAIB statement, they're definition whatever it may be.

SND

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Unarguably true, surely.

"Some" means "more than none, but maybe less than all". So as long as you accept that that description applies to at least one incident you're agreeing with the statement.

[Fostex]

Was talking to an ATC recently and he made an interesting comment.

If he asks for a position report from a light aircraft and he gets a very precise answer of x.x nm on a bearing of y° from z, or even a lat/lon then he can guess the person on the other end of the radio is a GPS junkie. His comment was that GPS often means that the PIC becomes less dependent on visual navigation and more on a little dot on the screen. There are obviously exceptions to this rule but he is much more confident in the ability of someone who instantly gives him a rough, but accurate estimate of their position based on a visual lookout.

Situational awareness counts for a lot and it could be argued that GPS causes a reduction in that if relied on too closely.

[peterh337]

In the 2012 edition of Clued Up, the CAA GA safety magazine there is a quote from the AAIB, "Some of the more common, and preventable, incidents involve poor situational awareness, largely as a result of the overuse of GPS."

One loses the will to live. What century is this?

Was talking to an ATC recently and he made an interesting comment.

If he asks for a position report from a light aircraft and he gets a very precise answer of x.x nm on a bearing of y° from z, or even a lat/lon then he can guess the person on the other end of the radio is a GPS junkie. His comment was that GPS often means that the PIC becomes less dependent on visual navigation and more on a little dot on the screen. There are obviously exceptions to this rule but he is much more confident in the ability of someone who instantly gives him a rough, but accurate estimate of their position based on a visual lookout.

Situational awareness counts for a lot and it could be argued that GPS causes a reduction in that if relied on too closely.

He was pulling your leg. He's not an ATCO.

A GPS is not going to give you " a bearing of y° from z," and no pilot is ever going to read out lat/long (that's just stupid).

The rest of his comments........ one loses the will to live.

a rough, but accurate estimate of their position

I must remember to give rough but accurate position reports from now on :ugh:

Think about it :ugh:(how does the ATCO know it is accurate?)

[pudoc]

(how does the ATCO know it is accurate?)

Unless I get a DME reading, I always use the word approximately. But yes, I agree with what you're saying.

"...approximately 5 miles south of Grays..."

I think using a GPS does not equal poor situational awareness. As most of us know, it can actually increase situational awareness.

But using the GPS so much that it gets to the point that you cannot operate without it because of lack of confidence or you have no clue about your surroundings...then that's over use.

Never flown with a GPS though, usually just look out the window.

[Jan Olieslagers]

whatever it may be

So you are only up to one more pro/against gps argument?

One gets so tired, indeed.

[fisbangwollop]

Well if I had a pound for every aircraft that told me he was 6.7 nm south of DCS I would be a rich ATC person!!!...:cool:

[Pace]

Peter

A GPS is not going to give you " a bearing of y° from z,"

If you put it in OBS mode you should get a bearing of Y from Z

I think we are all guilty with GPS of just loading the points at the start of the flight and then blindly jumping from one point to the other without really following where we are!

When we had VORS you worked harder often out of range and getting bearings to position place from VOR/DME and even NDBs off track so there maybe some truth in the fact that pilots were more aware of their surroundings in the past as well as a lot more chart plotting and following!

Pace

[toptobottom]

...the overuse of GPS. :confused:

So, we should only use GPS for 50% of our trip and that will make us better/safer pilots?!!

Even if he meant 'reliance', I think it's a load of tosh. We all use technology extensively every day - nowt wrong with that :*

[Pace]

ToptoBottom

Maybe but on occasion it does do no harm to jump into an old girl! a bit worn around the edges with little working.
Does not half make you sweat a little! Good for the soul old boy!

I am of course only referring to old aircraft :E

Pace

[peterh337]

Pace - I realise one can get bearings to a navaid using a GPS but I think very few people know how to do that, and it is fairly pointless anyway since ATC almost never ask for a VOR relative position report. I've had Solent ask for such, maybe twice in 10 years.

it does do no harm to jump into an old girl!

Now, tell me... :E

Back to AAIB, I really thought those

http://www.toysandlearning.co.uk/prodimages/schleich-dilophosaurus-p.jpg

had retired by now, but maybe they have found a new reservoir from which to recruit, uncontaminated by any form of modern aviation :)

With the sky full of Cirruses slowly descending on their chutes, with the pilots desperately trying to reconfigure their GPS to see why their GS reading is so low, recruiting people loyal to The Great Cause must be their most challenging task these days.

[Fuji Abound]

I am totally with peterh on this one, and i know he is a long supporter of gps.

I dont know the exact context of the quote and therefore with caution it appears the sort of sound bite which you would hope such an august body would avoid without sound evidence.

Its a little like the already age old debate on chutes, they are and will be misused, just as gps will be misused and abused; doesnt mean its the devil work however, and more importantly fails to recognise just how far in advances flight safety.

[Pace]

Fuji

With all my Goading on the Chute thing :E Where am I best and cheapest renting 20 hrs on a Cirrus without someone wanting me to cough up £4200 for a conversion ;)
And no I do not need 10 hrs training to fly one 1 hr maybe :E No wait a minute with the chute 30 minutes will do.

Pace

[goldeneaglepilot]

I do wonder if in todays GPS reliant world we have become too reliant on GPS, with the Olympics weeks away are we going to see even more use of GPS jamming "trials" as have NOTAM'd recently?

Jamming includes spoofing to offset a real position by many miles

An interesting article:

Over-reliance on GPS poses security risk, warn experts | Infrastructure | ZDNet UK (http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/infrastructure/2011/03/08/over-reliance-on-gps-poses-security-risk-warn-experts-40092060/)

[Pace]

GEP

I am sure we have become too reliant on GPS to such an extent that many no longer flight plan but jump in and go.

Of course GPS has massive safety benefits and accuracy which was not around pre GPS.

We had the miracle of RNAV being able to drop a VOR right on your track meant we could fly direct to VORS rather than taking cross cuts to get a position.

Then there was the accuracy problem of VORS at a distance and getting cross cuts off NDB beacons and pure dead reckoning and wind compensation.

Pilots used charts far more and were more aware of where they were.
With GPS and the wonderful displays which go with them I know some who do not even bother with charts anymore! Get up and go!
Decca came out and then GPS. Originally warnings that the USA could switch us down at any time!

Now GPS is everywhere in our cars, on hiking expeditions, on boats and in aircraft.

Even mobile phones can place our position with accuracy.
No excuse to get lost nowadays but no challenge either :{
Now we have parachutes to lower us to the ground and even a button to recover the aircraft if we loose control.

What next? You want need pilots or not any with any skills just turn up to the airport and let the aircraft take you and yours for a tour of wherever automatically

Pace

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

It's analageous to GPS in cars. Some drivers rely on these devices to the extent that they have no situational awareness, and you get ludicrous situations like someone travelling between two Essex towns 20 miles apart finding themselves passing Northhampton on the M1 because they put the wrong data into the Sat Nav.

Hopefully, pilots aren't that daft, but the device if over-relyed on can and will reduce situational awareness. For VFR cross country flying the GPS is a very useful aid and I always carry one. But I also carry a chart with my track marked on it and that way I actually know where I am (most of the time!).

[mmgreve]

Using a GPS gives you much better capacity for visual look out and monitoring the performance of the airplane, in my experience.

Trying to follow a line on the map with a stop watch, I tend to spend most of the time staring at the map, trying to relate it to ground features.

I'd like to understand the background for the AAIB comment - what exactly are they getting at? Meanwhile NATS are promoting GPS use for safety.

[The500man]

The aware will give range and distance from the nearest aerodrome (or navaid as well? I haven't used it for ages). Thats supposed to be a feature to aid position reporting in an emergency. I can't see anything wrong with that. Maybe ATC would prefer "south east England" or "northern hemisphere" instead?

An over reliance on lift causes accidents as well. ;)

[peterh337]

RAIM is baro-aiding and works (in general) only if you are receiving only (IIRC) 3 satellites. If you are receiving "loads" then it doesn't do anything.

If they jam GPS then London will be jammed with lost drivers... that really will be fun.

One should not equate a lack of "gadget proficiency" with the use of GPS. You can suffer from the former with any piece of nontrivial avionics, if you don't read the manual and/or try to do something odd during the flight.

[24Carrot]

The wording is daft.

If they complained about "over-reliance on a single means of navigation" it would make more sense.

Taking any two out of map-crawling, VORs, NDBs, GPS and DR should allow the basic cross-checking you need for safe navigation. I can't understand why they single out GPS. Perhaps pilots over-rely on GPS more than the other things, but the error is to over-rely on any single thing.

[Anonystude]

Peter, didn't you learn anything trudging through the IR TK? ;)

It's a minimum of five satellites for a 3D fix and RAIM, six with the above and FDE.

[peterh337]

Oh well there you are :)

I did that stuff a year ago... Although without looking it up in the KLN94 manual I wouldnt be too sure.

Just read the Clued Up mag article. That comment is just a bit of a throwaway remark, out of surrounding context. Stupid all the same. Even NATS, fed up with hundreds of major CAS busts a year, sponsored that £150 GPS box...

[goldeneaglepilot]

GPS can be used for lots of legitimate functions. However it can also be used to guide things which might have more sinister intent. Remove the GPS or spoof its position and then you have plugged one hole. WHO cares about a driver getting lost, pilots are being warned to not be over reliant upon it. READ between the lines with respect to the Olympic months, it's not something that takes a rocket scientist to work out.

From a notam a few weeks ago (Plot the Arc out and see the extents)
Q) EGTT/QWELW/IV/BO/W/000/400/5112N00158W065
B) FROM: 12/05/07 07:00C) TO: 12/05/11 20:00
E) GPS JAMMING EXER. JAMMER BASED WI 8NM RADIUS OF 5112N 00158W(SALISBURY PLAIN, WILTSHIRE). COVERAGE WI 15NM RADIUS AND ARC 355AND 050 DEG TRUE UP TO MAX RANGE 65NM AND 40000FT AMSL. AIC P046/2012REFERS. OPS CTC 01980674xxx OR 07776482xxx. 12-05-0067/AS 2.LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 40000FT AMSL
SCHEDULE: 0700-2000

Peter - in the past you have argued it could not happen and would not be allowed to happen, it has and I suspect during the Olympic period will be used at random times and possibly (due to operational neccesity) will be deployed without warning

Last week there was a trial which radiated 75nm radius from Sennybridge...

GPS spoofing was the claimed method of interception of an American UAV last year - it went into landing mode because it thought it was 2000nm from its true position and was back at its home base and thus entered autonimous recovery mode (no pilot intervention)

[Miken100]

Not far off getting an iPad with Sky Demon (funds permitting)... but..

If I'm VFR I will still look out of the window and apart from looking for traffic will check that I am where I think I am from time to time..

If I'm IFR I will still have all the boxes on, tuned, idented and check that what they are telling me agrees with the GPS

If there seems to be a disagreement then I'll do something about it!

Why would I not use all of the information I have available?

[24Carrot]

Don't banks make use of GPS to timestamp transactions? I wonder if the jamming will affect payment systems?

Of course, I am sure every UK bank has taken the proper precautions.

:E

[goldeneaglepilot]

Meldex

ONLY via NOTAMS....... how much more official would you like, I presume you are not a pilot so do not understand the notam system?

[flybymike]

If I may presume to say so, I think that Meldex may be asking whether there has been any "general" pre-notam indication that GPS jamming will take place. I have not personally heard of any statements of that nature, and the effects of it anywhere near the restricted or prohibited zones would, I would have thought, led to infringement armageddon and carnage and aircraft wreckage all over the streets of London.

[peterh337]

GPS spoofing was the claimed method of interception of an American UAV last year

That would be quite clever since the UAV would be using military encrypted GPS signals... not the civilian signals.

[cessnapete]

I think the AAIB is infected with the same attitude against GPS as some in the CAA. Old retired airline pilots and ex Military navigators, with little operational knowledge of the subject.
Personally I would not stray far from my base in the London area without GPS, in anything other than good VMC, for the enhanced situational awareness it gives.
The recent advent of cheap, IPad based, GPS moving map displays is one of the greatest navigation airsafety advances in recent years.

[goldeneaglepilot]

That would be quite clever since the UAV would be using military encrypted GPS signals... not the civilian signals.

Thats quite an assumption Peter!!!

Can you tell us the actual details of the incident? To be helpful I will give you a clue, the UAV was not using M code data at the time of the incident.

[Piltdown Man]

We have touched some precious GPS nerves... I'll add some more petrol. GPS should be banned from light aircraft. A chart, clock and pencil is all that is required. Enhanced situational awareness - spare me! That's what the chart is for - and it doesn't require power. Just fly the (sensible) heading and time and you won't be far off.

Hopefully, pilots aren't that daft...

They bloody well are. When GPS first came out in the UK, it didn't take long for the first victims to arrive. I've shepherded a few out of the Luton zone when I was flying a tug out of LCG at Dunstable. One was due to flat batteries, the other was finger trouble. Both had charts and working radios, but wasn't enough for these two.

PM

[peterh337]

I think the AAIB is infected with the same attitude against GPS as some in the CAA. Old retired airline pilots and ex Military navigators, with little operational knowledge of the subject.

Evidently whoever wrote that one-liner is, but I would have seriously thought that the old guard would have moved on by now, retiring to their rightful fine china teacups at the Royal Institute of Navigation.

Let's face it - they must get more than adequate exposure to modern avionics in the wreckage which they pull the remains out of. They must wonder what all those LCD displays are showing.

Personally I would not stray far from my base in the London area without GPS, in anything other than good VMC, for the enhanced situational awareness it gives.
The recent advent of cheap, IPad based, GPS moving map displays is one of the greatest navigation airsafety advances in recent years.

Absolutely so.

If one wanted to be useful one could say that a route should be planned as far as possible to be VOR/DME-navigable, flown 100% using a GPS, and then you have an instant drop-down backup. That is what I do when flying VFR (though often a VOR-radial route is not viable). But PPL training isn't like that. It is possible that a good IMCR instructor might suggest to a new IMCR holder that from now on, every flight is planned as "IFR"; that was suggested to me in 2002 and it's obviously a great idea.

[Jan Olieslagers]

Don't banks make use of GPS to timestamp transactions?

I don't think so. Bank transactions are generally handled by (or through?) computers, computers generally get their date and time information through an internet protocol called NTP. True, some NTP servers use GPS receivers as their source of information, but some are far away and some do not use GPS at all, like caesium clocks. And yes, these protocols do know how to deal with propagation delays.

[Johnm]

The AAIB and the CAA do actually have a point and they are NOT blamimg the spanner they are criticising the mechanic.

We have seen lots of people with road based GPS being "over reliant "or following it blindly resulting in cars in rivers, trucks where no truck should be and the like.

Airborne GPS is no different. If you follow the magenta line and have no idea where you are or what the surrounding terrain and airspace is like then you are a plonker.

[peterh337]

We have seen lots of people with road based GPS being "over reliant "or following it blindly resulting in cars in rivers, trucks where no truck should be and the like.That's true but driving is not a comparable situation to flying, for a whole pile of fairly obvious reasons. On the road, take your eyes off the road for a few seconds and you may be dead. The whole scenario is different. And yes a % of drivers are truly completely stupid and some evidently will drive a car into a river. But given the crap databases of many driving units, one can easily get led down the wrong street and then you get some d1ck who is tailgating you who knows the area well getting all hot under the collar :) Satnav is actually really crap; the other week I was in a hire car in Germany, in close to zero vis due to heavy rain, and the satnav just kept taking us back to the same road which was closed due to roadworks. Obviously the locals behind us were going nuts... I am sure every driver can relate to that. Serious commercial travellers have high-end solutions for that kind of thing and they aren't cheap. I was lucky; I had a passenger who was able to work out how to work the satnav.

There are certain specific things which are less than smart to be doing with an aviation GPS e.g. entering waypoint coordinates using lat/long numbers, or using user waypoints in a unit which is in a shared aircraft ;)

But any GPS with a moving map that depicts the general area makes it awfully hard to get lost.

OTOH the other day I did a search on Ebay for used Pooleys Guides (just as a joke, for a presentation I was doing, where I wanted to make a point about flying with current data) and I counted 17 of them, mostly several years old (which translates to several hundred UK PPLs flying with massively out of date Pooleys i.e. a few % of the pilot population) so I suppose there are people out there stupid enough to fly with a £50 GPS from Millets which gives you zero situational awareness.

In that case the issue isn't the GPS (which is prob99.99999 doing its job) but you just have a pretty good proof that common sense is not a requirement for getting a PPL.

I always tell people to buy a nice big GPS, not the little ones. With a decent big GPS it is virtually impossible to get lost.

But the whole training environment is pretty poor and carries on being pretty poor, and not everybody has the benefit of knowing somebody who can provide a bit of mentoring. When I did my IMCR (2002) we used 2 planes, both PA28s, one with a working ADF but a duff DME and the other with a good DME and a duff ADF. The instructor (a CPL/IR who later got a job flying commuter turboprops) was ever so proud of his £50 GPS which he got in the USA for £20 less than they were in the UK (and he told everybody about that) set the airport as a DCT and used the GPS as a "DME" and read out the numbers to me when I was learning NDB approaches. What is the moral of the story? In 2012, such a student should perhaps ask his school for a 50% refund :E

Loads of easy ammo for those looking for an example.

What they forget is that if you get the proverbial interview at Gatwick without tea and biscuits, they won't give you any credit for pulling out a CRAP-1 and a beautiful handwritten plog.

[Jan Olieslagers]

less than smart to be doing with an aviation GPS e.g. entering waypoint coordinates using lat/long numbers

????

My homebrew gps has ALL its waypoints defined as lat/long numbers and seems to work pretty fine. Or have I just been lucky to get to my VRP's and destinations time and again?

Come to think of it, what other better way is there to define waypoint coordinates, besides lat/long numbers?

[peterh337]

Buy a GPS with the waypoints in the database.

The only time I have used user defined waypoints for enroute data was in 2003 for the position of LEAX.

[Jan Olieslagers]

And how would you think the waypoints are defined in the database? Lat/long numbers, any chance? Or do you imply a database one paid for is more reliable because of the amount one paid for it? I'am afraid I am missing something somewhere.

[peterh337]

Or do you imply a database one paid for is more reliable because of the amount one paid for it?

In terms of risk management / quality control, yes, obviously, exactly that.

[hoodie]

That would be quite clever since the UAV would be using military encrypted GPS signals... not the civilian signals.

Is there such a thing as 'military GPS signals'? I had understood that civilian and military GPS was the same ever since the DoD switched off Selective Availability in 2000.

[mad_jock]

There is still a mil frequency which they use in conjunction with the civi one.

The civilain freq used to have a fudge factor built into it which knocked the timing off so it wasn't as accruate as the mil one. They can also switch it off if they so desire and leave the mil one on.

[flybymike]

And how would you think the waypoints are defined in the database? Lat/long numbers, any chance? Or do you imply a database one paid for is more reliable because of the amount one paid for it? I'am afraid I am missing something somewhere.
Entering waypoints on a moving map GPS is a simple matter of clicking the mouse or pressing the screen at the appropriate point. The way point must then be in the correct place on the route and map. If in doubt do a "simulated" flight of the route. Entering multiple digits and setting off blind and hoping for the best is simply asking for trouble. Reminds me of one time I entered "Bangor" into a route simply using a stored database of towns in the GPS. This was on a flight to Caernarfon in North Wales. I spotted that something might be wrong when it tried sending me off across the Irish Sea to Bangor in Northern Ireland. Someone later remarked that I was lucky not to have ended up in Bangor Maine in Canada (or wherever it is.)
If you can see the route on a map before you set off you can't
really go wrong.

[goldeneaglepilot]

MJ

Ten years ago you would have been right - now (roughly)three modes L, P or M, the L is roughly the old military standard of ten years ago, typical accuracy with 6 sats is about +/- 300mm (dependent on RX)

P is an encrypted signal version of L and more resiliant to blocking

M is much more complicated and from 2013 will become even better due to the deployment of beamed signals to a specific area.

L is what civilian aircraft use.

[peterh337]

What is L2?

[goldeneaglepilot]

L2 - a second frequency that can either be used alone (L2C) or in conjunction with the L1 frequency (often refered to as the coarse date frequency) to improve the overall accuracy of "L" for civilian use, which places the equipment outside the Wassenhar agreement for dual use technology

[mad_jock]

The mil encypted was always on a seperate frequency.

They did actually use the civi one as well to be able to adjust out atmospheric effects.


Mind you my knowledge is from being constripted due to knowledge of newtons laws and pocessing a scientific calculator on a gun position to the command post when the lay computer went tits up.

SMIG Badger Finnch and BSM Murphy I think there names were, after the intial "I don't care if your a sapper son" followed by a belt round the head with an A4 binder gave me a crash course in position fixing, firing out the errors, cresting and other such gun bunny perversions. Easy week with a rover full of survey gear out the window. Swapped for "confirm" "confirm" "down safety" "No 1 gun, 5 rounds fire for effect down safety fire!!" noisy bastards.

[topoverhaul]

L2 is 1227.60 MHz as opposed to L1 at 1575.42 MHz. Latest satellites will transmit both frequencies and allow a civil dual frequency receiver to correct for ionospheric delay, the largest source of error, without needing to rely on the WAAS signals.

[goldeneaglepilot]

We are going all techie on here - my crayons are struggling to keep up!!

[mad_jock]

Fair enough.

As I said I was conscripted due breaking the number two rule of letting on that you know something. They had been given doppler velocity measuring things for the guns and a drinking mate was a number one. Him being a gun bunny was thick, so I was explaining how doppler worked and how that if you had the speed you could relatively easily work out the fall of shot. Someone overheard and grassed me up.

[goldeneaglepilot]

Did the conversation go something along the lines of "you horrible little man, pin your ears back and remember I am your God and your father - now keep your mouth shut. 50 press ups on the spot!!"?

Gun Bunny's are as bad as Rock Apes, in fact they are just a genetic mutation of each other.

Saying that modern Rock Apes do a fantastic job as QRF

PS: My brother in law was a Rock Ape as part of a QRF - disgusting to go out with them for a drink!!

[mad_jock]

Nah its wasn't to bad, in fact after the second day when some stupid tart managed to burn out the alternator on the coms wagon "the belt was making an awfull noise so I tightened it" and then killed the batteries and I butchered a 4 tonner to get things going again. OC "Young man is that authorised" BSM "yes sir by me" Got one of the plant fitters from the tankies to drop one off and a tool box inside an hour and had it fixed between fire missions. The SMIG stopped the bollocking for getting oil on the mission sheets.

After that I had access to the BSM's private store of Brown Ale, bastard though wouldn't let me have the rugby on the radio though. Missed one of the rare Scottish victorys over England at Twickenham.

I was excempt from that running round the gun bollocks. Did have a shot of being number three though when on the last day the special battery/thing turned up. Which earned me a burnt boot toe cap and another belt round the ear for trying to see how much flame I could get out the back of the gun by releasing the breech at the back of the recoil.

The burning of the charge bags with the BSM was top fun as well.

So in the end a not to bad exercise. The other lads who went to Otterburn came back with trench foot and a sense of humour crisis.

[fattony]

I was conscripted due breaking the number two rule

What was the number one rule?

[mad_jock]

Never volunteer for anything.

This is vitally important when there is "otterburn" being mentioned anywhere in the building. Just typing the word makes me feel cold, wet and pissed off, makes Dartmoor feel tropical.

[Molesworth 1]

I was quite surprised to see this comment in Clued Up as I read the AAIB report every month but I don't remember ever seeing "overuse of GPS" mentioned as a factor in any accident.

[172driver]

"Some of the more common, and preventable, incidents involve poor situational awareness, largely as a result of the overuse of GPS."

At first I thought Sir Niall was confusing the date with April 1st. Had to check my copy of Clued Up first and yes, there it is.

Unbelievable.

I don't think I have ever read anything as idiotic about aviation as this comment.

Poor situational awareness is due to GPS? In which cave and which century do these people live? The REALLY scary thing about this comment is that it comes from someone professionally involved in aviation.

:ugh:

[Sir George Cayley]

Have you noticed how many thread wanderings are started by some of the more senior (ahem) forumites? :hmm:

Pressing GoTo for the OP here's another thing to consider. The FAA's NexGen plan for ATM is predicated on using technology that will dispense with whirly round radar heads.

If I understand things correctly, ADS Broadcast and Contract will be a major navigation platform for which a "GPS" box is required. Squittering out will show your position to ATS and eventually being able to take in other squitters will let you see other participating traffic around you. Although this is aimed primarily at commercial operators (who don't like the equipage costs) the benefit will be there for anyone to take advantage of.

One important driver is the enhanced situational awareness the technology brings - something I would have thought AAIB would know and support.

SGC

[Jan Olieslagers]

Poor situational awareness is due to GPS?

Negative, or, at least, that is not what I read.

[mad_jock]

Guilty as charged.

Maybe they were meaning that it is becoming more common that the go to function is being used more when people are uncertain of position, then that track is not getting cross referenced back to the chart to ensure that your not going to go somewhere that your not meant to. And people arn't ensuring they actually know where they are mid waypoint thus their SA is compromised.

Or maybe folk have there heads in to much trying to work out what the box of tricks is doing when what it is saying doesn't agree with thier mental model of where they should be.

Just a suggestion.

There is a marked difference between a instrument trained pilot and waypoint usage and a VFR pilots use if they haven't been trained for it. There is also a big difference between an airways only Instrument pilot and a bandit country instrument pilot.

[172driver]

There is a marked difference between a instrument trained pilot and waypoint usage and a VFR pilots use if they haven't been trained for it

Well, at least in FAA-land you DO get trained for it when doing the PPL.

[mad_jock]

I wasn't aware that a GPS was manditory equipment in a FAA ppl training aircraft.

I am sure its the same in the UK that if its fitted the student is taught how to use it (never flown a school machine with it fitted to be honest). But in both cases I should imagine that the standard of training and best practises is in the hands of the instructor.

In both cases an old hand hairy arsed GA pilot will give quality instruction which will guard against fixation and duff in equals duff out. And a zero to hero cluless wonder will be the blind leading the blind.

[Genghis the Engineer]

In FAAland a student on their PPL checkride is expected to be able to competently use everything in the aeroplane.

If it has a GPS, you're supposed to be able to use and integrate it into your flying.

If it hasn't, you don't.

G

[172driver]

MJ, I wasn't clear. GPS is not mandated in an FAA training a/c, although if it's there the examiner can (and will) check if you can operate it correctly. I also assume, given the evolution of US airspace and ATC structures, that GPS usage is an integral part of training today.

What I as referring to was radio navigation (VOR, NDB) which is part of the FAA PPL syllabus and you are most definitely tested on the use thereof. Guess I misread your 'waypoints', but in the US you do learn how to navigate to intersections (which are waypoints of a sort) using VORs during your PPL.

[mad_jock]

Nav aids is also taught in the UK as well. Its part of the required ICAO syllabus.

And there are several ways you can use a gps which arn't just direct to a way point.

For example if you are operating close to a boundary and don't have an airspace warning capability you can make a waypoint up and run a track from it (persudo VORTAC) so that you can always keep to the one side of that track to remain clear of the airspace. Handy if you taking photo's near CAS.

[24Carrot]

Quote: Don't banks make use of GPS to timestamp transactions?

(Jan Olieslagers)
I don't think so. Bank transactions are generally handled by (or through?) computers, computers generally get their date and time information through an internet protocol called NTP. True, some NTP servers use GPS receivers as their source of information, but some are far away and some do not use GPS at all, like caesium clocks. And yes, these protocols do know how to deal with propagation delays.


You may be right Jan. I have no special expertise here, I just keep on reading it (e.g. links below). Also, I would hope that secure banking systems would not place too much reliance on internet-based timing information. But given the current problems with some UK banks' payment systems, I could believe that too!

From the Light squared debate (2012):
Coalition to Save Our GPS (http://www.saveourgps.org/Satellite_and_Terrestrial_Signal_Differences.aspx)

From the New Scientist (2011):
GPS chaos: How a $30 box can jam your life - tech - 06 March 2011 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20202-gps-chaos-how-a-30-box-can-jam-your-life.html?full=true)

[Pace]

Mad Jock

I ferried a beat up old Citation which was indian Registered and changed to N reg from New Delhi to the UK.
It was an awful aircraft! You didnt need sim training with that bird as you got it for real :)
Thing was it had an old Kingt 90B GPS. With a very late departure from New Delhi and a very green co pilot with me we departed at night and in a monsoon for Karatchi in Pakistan then routing to Dubai across Saudi to Alexandra,Malta Marseille UK.
Last minute I asked if the GPS had a worldwide database which I was assured it had but it had not.
Halfway up Saudi NOTHING. We had to load every single waypoint enroute by hand from lat Long all good for the soul as well as landing into a sandstorm in the middle of Saudi at a military base.
No moving maps flashing screens and pretty colours just hard work.

Pace

[patowalker]

What I as referring to was radio navigation (VOR, NDB) which is part of the FAA PPL syllabus and you are most definitely tested on the use thereof.Not so. I did my FAA PPL checkride in an LSA which had no radio navigation equipment.

[peterh337]

That's true but it is getting very hard now to avoid modern avionics when doing the FAA PPL, because most schools have modernised, and the examiner will request a demonstration of competence on all installed equipment (to the extent compatible with the license privileges i.e. no need to demonstrate GPS approaches when doing the PPL :) ).

Whereas in the UK, any installed GPS is turned off during the skills test, and probably during all the training (at most schools, anyway, even though a GPS can be used in most of the PPL syllabus).

Anyway, the length of this thread shows how much negative impact a silly little one-liner in what purports to be an official organ of the CAA can have.

[gasax]

Frankly I'm baffled. A gadget which eliminates all uncertainty over where you are 'decreases your situational awareness'. And how does that work?

You know courtesy of the not invented here, work of the devil, GPS - and that knowledge decreases your situation awareness - because the others are stiull using ADFs? Or it is a Yankee conspiracy to reduce the skill set which real aviators need?

Even if someone is doing a classic 'Darwin Award' they are unlikely to turn right onto a railway line or turn left into a canal. Even the poorest GPS will likely have a line indicating controlled airspace.

Even if it doesn't they still do know where they are - which would not have been the situation previously (pre-GPS)..

A bit more thought would have been appropriate - particularly from a body like the AAIB. Or are they heading back into G-styx terriority?

[mad_jock]

Singing "this the road to ha'il" pace ;)

Long live the mighty trimble. And a slow painfull dose of D&V to those that jam GPS when there is sod all on the ground.

[mad_jock]

There is actually another possibilty which your not going to like.

That is that they have statistical data to back up that cockups with GPS are a major factor in loosing SA and busting airspace.

It all comes down to what the pilot says after they get thier collar felt post event.

Do these box's with airspace warnings take into account altitude when they give a warning?

[peterh337]

If they jam GPS over a wide area, they will have a lot of fun with all the aircraft which

- are flying IFR
- are flying in CAS
- are required to be BRNAV compliant
- have an IFR GPS as the only possible/practical means of BRNAV compliance
- have been given a nice 200nm DCT by ATC :)

That includes everything meeting the above scenario, right up to big business jets. Very very few bizjets have INS or IRS; GPS-based RNAV FMS is the standard fit.

According to a Eurocontrol nav conference I went to a while ago, the planned fallback for loss of GPS is ATC (radar) vectoring, which is fair enough but the ATC workload will go way up if they jam GPS over a wide area and they do it from a reasonable altitude so that airborne aircraft (with proper roof-mounted GPS aerials) are affected too.

[mad_jock]

I suggest you don't fly in Scotland then Peter. Last year it came up in parlament that the fishermen were knackard and could the mil please turn it off.

And most planes FMS has DME/DME as the primary and VOR/DME or VOR/VOR as the fall back for position fixing. So I doud't even 1% of the big stuff would even notice that the GPS was out. They would just press the msg button twice to stop it flashing.

And the area that I was commenting on you don't get 200nm directs you get 500Nm directs with no VHF coverage and just miles and miles of sand with the occasional rocky out crop and some polo shaped fields of green.

[mad_jock]

Meldex they have a standing instruction that anywhere in the UK there maybe GPS jamming without warning.

I suspect that the first sign that something is kicking off will be the GPS going off line.

I doudt very much they will have time to put a NOTAM out. And it will have zero effect on commercial flights in the area. If they turned off all the DME and VOR's as well it would be chaos.

[goldeneaglepilot]

Meldex, I'm sorry but if you looked at the notam I posted it had a much more significant area than just Sailsbury. I was surprised for a pilot to ask the question you did, especially one who is used to reading a notam? It extended 65nm surface to FL400. Good fun for any airliner enroute to Birmingham from the south on the day, but no one complained, no airliners came crashing down.

As you will be aware notams can be issued on the day. Also in the event of an "incident" at the Olympics we may not get any notice...

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Do these box's with airspace warnings take into account altitude when they give a warning?
One that I fly (G1000) is pretty well always saying "warning airspace within ten minutes". Guess whether I take any notice of these warnings.

Maybe this "feature" is designed for the American mid west, not the south east of England.

Also unhelpful is when it says "within airspace" when you're not inside anything that matters, or that you're interested in, or that you can find on the map.

[mad_jock]

Thanks Wombat.

The airspace warning is turned off on all the work machines for obvious reasons.

I did suspect down south it would be going off all the time. My thoughts were that alot of these busts were underneith steps in airspace and if the box of tricks took into account vertical as well as horizontal position. Sounds like it doesn't if its saying you are in it when you have an airway overhead below 10k

[patowalker]

Even the £159 Aware gps has "Visual Airspace warning, intelligent to your current height".

[Contacttower]

What annoyed me about the article that after having mentioned these causes of accidents/incidents it did not substantiate or even attempt to explain/give examples of this "over-use" of GPS...

If the guy who wrote it had actually given an explanation for the assertion we might actually have been able to comment on it. I appreciate the CAA sending out a magazine from time to time but many of the articles in it (including this one) had absolutely no substance to them or said anything of worth.

[soaringhigh650]

Isn't it true that GPS is REQUIRED for navigation when flying IFR in Europe? Could one ever OVER-USE it?

If not, then you can't OVER-USE the GPS when flying VFR, except if that makes you forget to look out the window.

[mad_jock]

Isn't it true that GPS is REQUIRED for navigation when flying IFR in Europe?

Nope but you are very restricted if you are not BRNAV and a complete pain to ATC unless your in a very low traffic area or class G when they don't care anyway. Some countries it maybe true.

Its would be interesting to see where this comment comes from. I can't believe that the AAIB would come out with such a statement without some form of foundation for it. It just not they way they operate.

Mind you it will more than likely be taken the same way as spin training. Doesn't matter what the facts are about accidents a large minority will just say its a load of rubbish anyway because it disagrees with what they think.

[Pace]

In the 2012 edition of Clued Up, the CAA GA safety magazine there is a quote from the AAIB, "Some of the more common, and preventable, incidents involve poor situational awareness, largely as a result of the overuse of GPS."

if we go back to the original it refers to overuse of GPS which I read as over reliance on GPS to the total neglect of your surroundings, other navaids, charts etc.
I have flown trips where it is easy to get in that mode direct X direct Y direct Z. Pax states where are we?
42 miles to run to X! Yes but where are we?
Ahhh hang on I will get the chart out of my bag and have a look oh yes about 5 miles from Exeter.
There is always the danger of using home made points which are not in the right place!
How many pilots make home made let downs and come very low on those approaches?
Without back up with conventional fixes its a dangerous way to go reliant on GPS and GPS distance alone without checking and double checking what it is telling you.
That is all I can think they are getting at with the above comment!

Pace

[peterh337]

Isn't it true that GPS is REQUIRED for navigation when flying IFR in Europe?Yes; correct, for enroute IFR in CAS.

You don't need BRNAV compliance for just crossing a small piece of Class D.

However many/most European countries don't have a concept of IFR OCAS anyway, so we come back to the Yes answer.

It's a stupid thing to be debating this in 2012.

Yes but where are we?Why don't you look at the moving map - it tells you your location :)

I know some old (non GA) planes have GPSs without moving maps but they are very rare in light GA. Nobody should be flying with a non moving map GPS. The situational awareness comes from having the map. I am pretty sure that most of the anti GPS comments from the usual places come from flying old AOC heaps with ancient 1980s Trimbles.

How many pilots make home made let downs and come very low on those approaches?There is virtually no evidence of pilots getting killed doing what appears to be DIY letdowns. I can recall one accident from c. 10 years ago. I am sure there are others but they are obviously very rare. That doesn't suprise me, as most pilots don't want to kill themselves, and going down to what the map shows plus say 500ft is hardly going to kill somebody (in the southern UK where most GA is; not sure about say Switzerland ;) ).

many of the articles in it (including this one) had absolutely no substance to them or said anything of worth.

Sadly I agree, but that is the nature of mags from the CAA and related bodies - GASIL, GASCO, etc. You have somebody called Phil Space who is given the task of writing "something".

[goldeneaglepilot]

Peter,

I dont think its about the need for GPS - its about the practicalities of VFR pilots being reliant upon it and not being completly aware of whats going on around them. Garmin have had huge issues in the states following a mid air due to exactly this.

A good place to look at info on this is:

FindACase™ | American Winds Flight Academy v. Garmin International (http://oh.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20100917_0001391.NOH.htm/qx)

[peterh337]

I don't agree; assuming a moving map GPS is being used, the GPS cannot reduce what one knows is "going on around" one, which itself is limited to what can be seen visually.

Even taking the extreme case of the pilot fiddling with knobs head-down, he is going to crash pretty soon doing that.

I've been flying with all sorts of methods for 12 years and have never been in a situation where one knows less about what is going on outside as a result of more information in the cockpit.

What exactly is supposed to be going on outside, anyway? Mid-airs are so extremely rare, even more so when enroute, and given the circumstances of a mid-air (the target being on a constant bearing in 3D, usually) the fact that you may have been looking down for a few seconds is not going to increase the probability of getting one in any meaningful manner. Most midairs happen around airfields anyway (in the circuit, etc). One can be looking down on a map instead - is that somehow "better"?

Flying a wind corrected plog in the WW1 manner is vastly more time consuming (and vastly more error prone) than flying with a GPS, even if the GPS is being used is a well sub-optimal manner. There are people who say it is easy but they are invariably people who are very good at it - because they do it in their local area all day long.

[Pace]

Peter

I agree here with GEP! For a start not everyone has flat screen state of the art equiptment showing terrain bla bla bla!
Some use handhelds trying to get a good signal others do use old syle GPS units.
I rode shotgun to another pilot flying IFR. There had been problems with the GPS switching itself off and then back on again.
All appeared to be working and we were routing to a point 90 degrees to our destination. The distance to the point and the track miles to the destination were not adding up although the PIC believed what it was saying.
I punched a direct to destination and he still didnt click.
The distance was the same the heading was the same to both points.
The unit died a week later and was replaced with an exchange.

Pilots are getting lazy and complacent and in many ways loosing their skills.
I flew the latest Cirrus 22 which had everything going. Somehow I stopped flying the aircraft and had the strong impression of being behind a home MSFS.
I even got the impression that if I crashed a notice on the screen would come up saying you have crashed flight reset:{
My whole focus was on the televison screen in fron of me not the real world outside.
Technology is not the answer to everything and certainly not to adding to pilot skills and I stress the word SKILLS!

Does GPS make you situationally aware absolutely! But are you the pilot more situationally aware? NO and there is a subtle difference.
GPS gives an artificial situation awareness not an inner one!

Pace

[peterh337]

That's probably because you only just got into the plane which was decently equipped.

One can't just do that.

[Pace]

Peter

I am not a great lover of full screen displays I prefer a mix of conventional and displays.
One of the Seneca fives a flew had Garmin 530/430 and Avidyne with a full set of conventional nav.
For me that was the best mix.
You can over tech

Pace

[peterh337]

I don't have an issue with either but prefer the older stuff (separate avionics)

http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/kithira/final-panel.jpg

because it's easier to manage maintenance on it without having to fly back to an authorised dealer for everything that crops up. Also an upgrade to a G500 or similar would be around £40k by the time everything else was sorted for 100% compatibility in all modes (ripping out the MFD etc).

I guess there are pilots still flying with something like this

http://cf.mp-cdn.net/eb/75/749f3e78a44132a00aa3f0428c1e.jpg

but common sense might suggest that is not much good.

So.... how does one regulate common sense?

[POBJOY]

Never had my P8 compass fail in a certain aeroplane,but did have a chart take a walk when trying to 'turn the fold' it then whirled away south of Salisbury.Anyway the A30 was going my way so not a problem.Of course not having a radio prevented all sorts of unnecessary chit chat.

[peterh337]

... plus you were flying in a well familiar area.

I don't wish to score points but you were lucky in where it happened.

I strongly suspect that most anti GPS comments come from people who only fly locally. I meet loads of them myself. It's easy for such pilots to fall into the trap of not understanding why e.g. somebody from abroad is unable to find a VRP called Nokia Factory. They probably mutter to themselves something like "idiot, head down fiddling with his GPS".

Thankfully the regulators take a wider view and do not regulate equipment usage on private flights. The worst thing for GA would be being regulated by other pilots.

[mad_jock]

http://www.freeflightsystems.com/images/2101_head.jpg

You proberly think this is dangerous Peter.

But half the northsea fleet of helicopters use it and more than a few older commercial aircraft do as well.

[peterh337]

Yes; belongs in here

http://www.froom.co.uk/images/skip.jpg

It explains much of your comments, MJ.

[goldeneaglepilot]

Peter - It's not very nice to put pictures up of the contents of MJ's leftovers from his lunch box!!

[david viewing]

Never had my P8 compass fail in a certain aeroplane

I've had 3 compass failures on long trips: one when I climbed to 10,000' and noticed a warm trickly sensation down my leg which turned out to be compass oil: one where the thing just stuck solid and my daughter produced her iPhone with a compass rose app on it and we continued to San Diego with that: and one recently where the bezel with the datum on it rotated round and round in tune with the engine vibrations - I flew 2000' miles with it like that (and an iPad).

My point is that all this steam technology has far higher failure rates, and a much greater ability to produce perplexing data, than modern GPS equipment. Actually I'm in favour of mandating the affixing of velcro to the front of the traditional instruments in UK GA aircraft and sticking an iPad (running Skydemon at this moment in time) there instead.

However, there is another point not yet mentioned.

Situational awareness is not a natural gift for all humans - setting aside supposed differences between the sexes, I'm sure we all know of car drivers who have never mastered the technology of maps and cannot tell you if Brighton is North or South of London. To them, GPS is a gift. Doubtless there are PPL's like that as well, people probably not helped by the arcane PPL training with it's perplexing abstract concepts.

There might be scope for a bit of research on how people acquire situational awareness and how the use, or not, of technology affects that. As an example, I suspect many PPL's take a very long time to gain awareness of the position of other traffic from listening to radio exchanges. I know I did.

I'm convinced that focussing on situational awareness in PPL training using all the technology available would have a significant effect on the infringement statistics. Of course modern moving map GPS should be the primary tool, but the underlying issue of whether the pilot can easily form a mental map of his surroundings from the information available seems to be more important to me. Not everyone can do that easily, even when presented with a large colour moving map and a magenta line. Such people could be identified (easily, IMHO) and given specialist training in mental imagery.

Just a thought.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I have used GPS for hourly position checks over open ocean.

If you need it for anything else VFR, stay on the ground!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Need or want?

Over-reliance on any single system is poor practice. Regular use is great.


Here's a real example taxing me at work at the moment. I have to put an INS in a research aeroplane for polar operations; it provides a substantial safety benefit, and a certain amount of utility.

Will we use it for primary navigation? Like hell we will - using an INS that drifts by a mile+ per hour, versus GPS with 15m or better accuracy is daft for our primary purpose. So GPS will be primary. But we still will not get airborne without the INS (but nor will we without having run a GPS model to confirm it'll work throughout the flight in our operating area).

And then we'll run some old steam navaids as a third backup.

But GPS will remain our primary navigation tool.



A more prosaic example - I fly as an instructor with a GPS in my pocket with an audible terrain and airspace warning turned on. Do I rely upon it?, no - I know my training area, and am teaching and showing my student to do the same. But I'm not infallible, and the GPS's polite warnings when I get close to some class D are a valuable addition to my SA. In that case, GPS is firmly secondary.

Cross-country, I tend to use GPS in full view but also as secondary. Why? it's less reliable, but much more accurate so allows me to fine tune positioning and make little grass airfields, but I don't let myself become dependent upon it.


Just to annoy Peter, I entered a multi-day nav competition not long ago. In my class, I had a choice of gold (without navaids) or silver (with GPS) category. I entered gold and won my class achieving more than double the points of anybody using a GPS. Yes, I was working my balls off, but I did it. Good DR still works, and I know it'll still work when every bit of electronics in the aeroplane goes tits-up.

G

[peterh337]

If you need it for anything else VFR, stay on the ground!Come to the UK then and have a little play in the airspace system here :ugh:

Better still, do it from 16th July when your license gets instantly pulled on any CAS bust, and is not returned until the event has been investigated (if it is returned at all).

I think David Viewing has a very good point in that SA comes differently to different people. For example, when flying, I find it very helpful to first look at the compass rose on the HSI when told to turn onto some heading, so I can quickly see which way to turn. Another person might do the mental arithmetic on the present and desired headings... Also a new PPL pilot has very little SA, unless he did a lot of sim flying in the area beforehand. For my skills test I had to plan a flight to Panshanger, via Lydd, and I had no idea where Panshanger was... never heard of it.

Just to annoy Peter, I entered a multi-day nav competition not long ago. In my class, I had a choice of gold (without navaids) or silver (with GPS) category. I entered gold and won my class achieving more than double the points of anybody using a GPS. Yes, I was working my balls off, but I did it. Good DR still works, and I know it'll still work when every bit of electronics in the aeroplane goes tits-up.I want to know how you manage to edit your posts after initially posting them, without the "edited" message showing :)

Your post doesn't annoy me because I NEVER SAID that GPS is necessary for navigation (**). I don't know why some people constantly keep equating "using the best tools" with "no other tool works" etc etc etc. :ugh:

Of course DR works, but as you say you are working your bollox off to do it right, and when you are doing that you are inevitably paying less attention to other stuff.... like looking out for traffic, monitoring engine parameters, etc.

You are also a high-hour pilot. Let me guess... 100+ hrs/year? The UK average is probably about 20 and most of them are really struggling, and due to the poor currency they stick to specially non-challenging mission profiles (the local burger run in excellent wx). I do 100-150hrs/year and yes I can do DR too, but I choose not to because it is a rubbish tool when one is after a low stress low workload flight.

(**) try it above an ovecast next time (legal for VFR for JAA PPL holders from 8th April 2012) or in 1500m visibility (legal for VFR for JAA PPL holders from 8th April 2012).

[riverrock83]

My point is that all this steam technology has far higher failure rates, and a much greater ability to produce perplexing data, than modern GPS equipment. Actually I'm in favour of mandating the affixing of velcro to the front of the traditional instruments in UK GA aircraft and sticking an iPad (running Skydemon at this moment in time) there instead.


I haven't used Skydemon in a plane, but I would expect that it isn't going to give you airspeed, and altitude wont be at the correct pressure setting (which will matter depending on whether the airspace boundaries are based on flight level or QNH). It also wont give you attitude / turn / slip or any engine or system monitoring.
Covering over instruments with a portable GPS sounds to me a bit like a suicide attempt if you happen to become inadvertently IMC.
Use each for what its designed to do!

To say that modern GPS equipment has lower failure rates means that you firstly need to define "modern" and whether you mean panel mounted or portable GPS.
Is out of date data a fail? Is the signal being Jammed / intentionally manipulated a fail? Is running out of battery a fail when the power supply isn't working / available / plugged in or they weren't charged? Is losing signal for several minutes for some unknown reason (as has been reported by others on here) a fail? Do you include the GPS failing when bright sunlight hits it directly and it becomes unreadable a fail? What about when it falls off due to a poor mount? What about crashes due to the cheap Chinese import via eBay that you are using? I understand from on here that some devices crash if you fly over the North Pole - is that a fail or just something the programmers didn't think about and wasn't tested?

Anecdotally there is loads of evidence of portable and panel mounted units failing for lots of reasons but I've never heard any statistics. Strangely enough I suspect that manufacturers don't broadcast them (and if they are portable, they wouldn't be reported anyway).
Can you substantiate your statement?

Not sure how relevant this is to the rest of the debate anyway...

[Pace]

There might be scope for a bit of research on how people acquire situational awareness and how the use, or not, of technology affects that. As an example, I suspect many PPL's take a very long time to gain awareness of the position of other traffic from listening to radio exchanges. I know I did.

There was an RAF study carried out on fast jet pilots. Basically we all have different minds best described as a computer. Some computers have high powered Graphic cards with a lot of onboard memory for dealing with fast high graphic games others do not have fast Graphic cards but may have more storage ability in the computer.
Like the computer load the system too much and it falters and stalls while the fast computer can take a lot more visual information coming in.
How does the pilot with a low powered visual card improve? He has to make sure he has more information stored in the main memory banks freeing up the Graphic Card to deal with purely visual information.
The pilot with the fast Graphic card can work that card harder with loads of visual information.
its how we are put together do you have a recollective or visual brain?
You would never make some pilots into fast jet pilots and you wont make some fast jet pilots into brain of britain but you can train yourself to do better in either area.

There are tests which can be carried out to see how much visual information your brain can take in and there is a vast difference between people.
I am sure we have all experienced driving a car and being deep in thought about something on your mind and then realising you have driven several miles and do not remember one corner you have driven through? 2 parts of your mind running different functions.
Your Graphics card takes over driving the car while your thoughts are deep in the memory banks of your brain.

Pace

[peterh337]

To say that modern GPS equipment has lower failure rates means that you firstly need to define "modern" and whether you mean panel mounted or portable GPS. ......

Let me give you my stats, which speak for themselves. From memory of these extremely rare events....

2004 - all three GPSs lost for ~1-3 mins, when flying down the middle of the Adriatic at ~1000ft. Solution: continue the current heading.

2006 - KLN94 lost its constellation data (apparently) at startup at Padova (Italy) and did not recover until I was halfway across the Alps, so say 30 mins. Other units were fine. Solution: none was required but anyway I asked ATC for a VOR route, which lifted the MEA from FL140 to FL160, so no issue.

Total airborne time on this aircraft is ~1100hrs over 10 years.

Anecdotally there is loads of evidence of portable and panel mounted units failing for lots of reasons but I've never heard any statistics

That is true (about the anecdotal reports) but it seems that a lot of people are

- using crappy old units (like MJ above, though his one was hardly cheap, and he gets away with it because it is AOC flying on an IFR clearance so CAS doesn't matter, and there is little terrain above the N Sea)

- using handhelds with integral aerials in metal cockpits, resulting in marginal reception (I can show you anytime how crap the GPS in my Ipad2 is when flying; only an external XGPS150 bluetooth unit makes it work properly)

- using GPSs which may be modern but they have never opened the user manual (which is not suprising since the unit pretty well works straight out of the box as a moving map with obvious map-zoom controls) and one day they decide to learn the other functionality when up in the air :ugh:

A GPS is a fantastic tool for the job. It has totally revolutionised navigation, to the extent that one can go all over the place (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/) and have totally uneventful flights, whereas previously one would be working one's bollox off starting/stopping/winding up the stopwatch and looking for terrain features to match those expected at around the waypoint time - all while trying to fly an accurate heading which is itself variously fictional because your wind corrected plog is based on forecast wind, and anyway the whole edifice hangs on selecting waypoints cunningly for a lack of ambiguity, which is sometimes trivial and sometimes not...

I have a workshop at home, with a 3 axis turret mill, with a DRO and ball guides (0.005mm) on all 3 axes. I want to make something of a funny shape. If I worked for the AAIB, seemingly, I would file it out by hand :ugh:

I have no issue with somebody pretending to be like their grandfather. It's easy. Go to your pilot shop, buy a £500 leather jacket, the leather cap, goggles, even a jump suit. Run your Jag over your map a few times so it looks well creased (and over the jacket too). Read the Flypast magazine. I have absolutely no issue with that. Traditional aviation is absolutely fine. Like plane spotters, it has its place. WW2 pilots even sometimes managed to find Berlin from the UK (unsuprisingly most couldn't though; only the really good ones could so they got them to fly ahead). But don't tell me it is the best way to navigate to places in which you don't know the sheep by their first names, because it isn't. It's a crap error-prone high-workload way to do it, and the "establishment position" is without doubt largely responsible for why most new PPL holders are totally sh*t scared of flying further than down the coast, and chuck away the £10k they paid for that piece of paper without ever really using it.

There was an RAF study carried out on fast jet pilots.

When I applied to the RAF (don't laugh; they wouldn't have me because of my presumed KGB connections; in fact even an engineering apprenticeship was totally out and I reckon they sent my application straight to MI6 without even answering it) in 1973, they has literally 100 applicants for every flying position. They can pick and choose. I am not suprised their jet pilots are very good.

But I also think the RAF is jolly lucky WW3 never broke out, because for decades the Russians only needed to invade in IMC and have some improvised means of radio nav :)

[flybymike]

I have no issue with somebody pretending to be like their grandfather. It's easy. Go to your pilot shop, buy a £500 leather jacket, the leather cap, goggles, even a jump suit. Run your Jag over your map a few times so it looks well creased (and over the jacket too). Read the Flypast magazine. I have absolutely no issue with that. Traditional aviation is absolutely fine. Like plane spotters, it has its place. WW2 pilots even sometimes managed to find Berlin from the UK (unsuprisingly most couldn't though; only the really good ones could so they got them to fly ahead). But don't tell me it is the best way to navigate to places in which you don't know the sheep by their first names, because it isn't. It's a crap error-prone high-workload way to do it, and the "establishment position" is without doubt largely responsible for why most new PPL holders are totally sh*t scared of flying further than down the coast, and chuck away the £10k they paid for that piece of paper without ever really using it.


This has to be Peter at his most amusingly irascible and finest. These Russki spies can be most entertaining.;)

[mm_flynn]

Peter,

I dont think its about the need for GPS - its about the practicalities of VFR pilots being reliant upon it and not being completly aware of whats going on around them. Garmin have had huge issues in the states following a mid air due to exactly this.

A good place to look at info on this is:

FindACase™ | American Winds Flight Academy v. Garmin International (http://oh.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20100917_0001391.NOH.htm/qx)
That would seem to be a bad place to look for confirmation or Garmin having a huge issue - - - As the link shows a summary judgement in Garmin's favour and that the plaintiff's claims were 'rubbish'.

[Anonystude]

This has to be Peter at his most amusingly irascible and finest. These Russki spies can be most entertaining.

And would you care to engage with the content, rather than a weak ad hominem? I happen to agree with him entirely...

[mm_flynn]

To say that modern GPS equipment has lower failure rates means that you firstly need to define "modern" and whether you mean panel mounted or portable GPS.
A very important comment.

I suspect a lot of the 'Pro' camp have a view that a GPS is

TSOed
Panel Mounted
Powered from the main aircraft power system
Connected to an external antenna
Updated monthly with commercially provided data
Has a moving map display of airspace


and a lot of the 'Con' camp have a view that a GPS is

Handheld
Battery Powered
Internal antenna only
Has no/old/limited navigation database
A general purpose unit
May be interfaced to shareware moving map programs



Ones view of reliability and impact on situational awareness would be substantially different depending on which piece of equipment one had in mind when someone says GPS.

Re Mad Jocks picture, there have been some very substantial errors made (at least one with c. 100 fatalities) due to the lack of real situational awareness using devices as pictured. It is very easy to mis-key an identifier and navigate precisely to the wrong point (through some terrain for example)

[cumulusrider]

Slightly off topic. A glider pilot landed safetly in a field near Northampton , about 60 miles from base and phoned in at about 5pm. His crew hitched up the trailer told us he had the Lat and long, and departed. About 3 1/2 hrs later we phoned the crew to find out if he had found the pilot. He said his GPS said he was about 5 miles away. An hour later when it was dark we phoned him again. He still he hadnt found the pilot but could see a signpost to Diss.
A few moments of confusion followed before we realised that he must have entered the coordinates as degrees E instead of W and was 60 miles off course.
The pilot slept in his glider and the crew slept in the car. They met up eventually at 7.30am the next morning:rolleyes:

[peterh337]

That doesn't suprise me at all.

Over the years I have calibrated various scanned maps for Oziexplorer, and this involves entering a number of coordinate sets. The program then displays a lat/long grid which (if you have done it right) aligns well with the grid printed on the map itself.

On almost every map I do, I get at least one point wrong.... Would I take more care if flying with it, and if there was no easy way of checking the calibration? Probably yes, but am I actually less likely to make a mistake? No. When commercial pilots are entering lat/long values, the other pilot is supposed to be checking every digit. Yeah, right, this is 100% safe, too :ugh:

In modern flying (VFR or IFR) there is virtually no need to enter coordinates. If somebody is doing that, they are doing something very weird.

[FullWings]

I'm still having difficulty with the assertion that having a GPS somehow makes things worse than not having one? Using anything remotely modern is like having the best navigator in the world sitting next to you and putting his finger on the map saying "we're here and going in this direction; oh, and watch out for the airspace over there".

Given the price of something like Skydemon on an iPad, compared with the hourly cost of even the lightest of light aircraft, there isn't really much excuse for not having the latest tech. Old Garmins from the nineties just don't cut it any more.

We are fast approaching the time where there won't be any NDBs or VORs. AFAIK the major charting companies like Jeppesen are planning to go all electronic in the very near future: no more paper charts, even if you want them.

I totally agree with Peter that GPS has initiated a huge positive change in the way we fly. No longer do we need to wrestle with maps, congregate like flies around ground-based navaids and take fright when we mistake Little Snoring for Little Gransden. There's more capacity for looking out, checking the aircraft state and (gasp!) actually having fun!

Slightly off topic, as per the last post but one:

I've been soaring for a long time and you would not believe the crap we had to go through to get our gliding badges and prove what we had done in competitions. It started with ground observers at every turning point, then graduated to barographs (to prove you hadn't landed and taken off again) and cameras (to prove you been to wherever you were meant to go). The aerobatics and near accidents that went on when 50+ gliders, all coming from slightly different directions, tried to take pictures of somewhere they'd never been to before, as close to vertically overhead as they could make it... Blimey, I don't know how I survived.

Now, it's secure GPS data-loggers integrated with moving maps, FLARM (TCAS for gliders), ADS-B, you name it. It's all about soaring skill now rather than photography, compass navigation, map reading, etc. Not that these aren't skilled endeavours in their own right but they are peripheral to the sport itself and not, IMHO, an integral part of it. Same goes for power flying.

[mad_jock]

If somebody is doing that, they are doing something very weird

Not if your flying transatlantic track system where the routes are changing every day.

You do have some awfully wierd ideas about how commercial pilots work Peter.

[peterh337]

Not if your flying transatlantic track system where the routes are changing every day.

and the name of this forum is?

[mad_jock]

Private I was just commenting on your comment that Commercial pilots build routes using lat/long's which is complete and utter bollocks apart from certain situations one of which being the the North atlantic track system.

As I said you have some awfully weird ideas about what commercial pilots do, the equipment we use, and they way we do things.

Yes GPS is a tool as Genghis has pointed out but its a tool in suite of tools and the lack of it is no great hardship. Most pilots wouldn't even have a clue it wasn't working for inter europe trips.

[Jan Olieslagers]

If somebody is doing that, they are doing something very weird.

And I will gladly accept I am doing weird things, as many people (and I have no reason to doubt their wisdom) consider me a weird person - but all of my GPS navigation has been based on coordinates I typed into spreadsheet software by hand, or, in rare cases, found on the Internet (basulm.fr is one such source)

OTOH it is of course clean daft to depart on a route, GPS or not, whether flying or driving or snorkeling or whatever, without having checked it against every possible reference. But I have at least as much mistrust/reserve/caution against commercially bought stuff as against my own typing.

Even the official VFR charts for my own country, published by our famous National Geographic Institute, have a strong tradition of containing at least one error - I feel slightly uncomfortable for not having located any in this year's edition, as yet.

[peterh337]

but all of my GPS navigation has been based on coordinates I typed into spreadsheet software by hand, or, in rare cases, found on the Internet (basulm.fr is one such source)

I have no issue with you doing that in the privacy of your cockpit but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody else :)

[Jan Olieslagers]

The typing is actually done at home. More comfortable, and more resources for the absolutely essential verification.

[mad_jock]

mm_flynn have you got some links please?

Its not to argue about it, its so I can use them as case studys.

I don't doud't there have been at some point. I would reckon though there have been just as many with all the bells and whistles. On european machines we have EGWPS which gives some protection as long as the crew listens to it.

The fact is though that installation is about $10k and only requires one update subscription to be BRNAV compliant. The Garmin 530 option is two units two subscriptions and a mod to get the radio stacks changed and most planes just don't have room to shoe horn the units into the instrument panel where they can be used and seen without a major rework. I would imagine its even more of issue with rotary.

[ShyTorque]

A few moments of confusion followed before we realised that he must have entered the coordinates as degrees E instead of W and was 60 miles off course.

But this was a human error, not a GPS error. Hopefully the glider pilot learned about "gross error" checks from that episode. Rubbish in = rubbish out.

If anyone glibly follows a GPS (or any other form of aviation calculation) without checking that the plan looks perfectly sensible, then it's not at all surprising if he/she gets lost at some time.

[ShyTorque]

In modern flying (VFR or IFR) there is virtually no need to enter coordinates. If somebody is doing that, they are doing something very weird.

Definitely not so! My "OE" GPS units (GNS 530 and 430 combination) have a 1,000 user waypoint memory bank. Many of these are used and I very often create new ones.

[mad_jock]

I can see rotary needing many more none defined waypoints by there very nature.

Fixed wing though its usually Nav aid/bearing/range that we use not lat/long for making centerfixes and the like.

[peterh337]

Definitely not so! My "OE" GPS units (GNS 530 and 430 combination) have a 1,000 user waypoint memory bank. Many of these are used and I very often create new ones.

Presumably you fly to private heli sites, or do some specialist work (electricity pylon inspection)?

There are people posting here who do specific types of commercial work, not relevant to fixed wing GA. You may as well be talking about surveying GPS units...

I just cannot identify any aspect of private flying in Europe with that sort of thing. There is simply no need for such bizzare procedures. The aviation GPS databases are packed with countless thousands of waypoints and it is generally trivial to knock up any desired route using wholly predefined waypoints. Sometimes one ends up a few miles off the shortest route but the actual impact on the ETE is barely noticeable so it is not worth putting effort into an inherently error-prone procedure.

[172driver]

Quote:
In modern flying (VFR or IFR) there is virtually no need to enter coordinates. If somebody is doing that, they are doing something very weird.

Definitely not so! My "OE" GPS units (GNS 530 and 430 combination) have a 1,000 user waypoint memory bank. Many of these are used and I very often create new ones.

Agree. The 'official' databases often down't show local VRPs, although these are charted. Also, it depends where you are flying. I've flown quite a bit in parts of the world where the official databases are somewhat lacking, to put it charitably. As an example in parts of southern Africa I had to input ALL waypoints and most airstrips manually, the database only has the main airports.

Of course, you don't do this by sitting in the cockpit trying not to make too many mistakes with the rocker switch! Input them at leisure into Garmin MapSource and upload to the unit. MapSource, btw, allows you to cross-check the input against an - admittedly crappy - map. At least this throws up gross errors like the one cumulusrider refers to.

[peterh337]

Yes; I did say "Europe".

I bet there is a lot of DIY waypoint stuff going on in Africa. No real aviation charts for most of it, too.

[mm_flynn]

Mad Jock,

The specific one I was thinking of was American Airlines into Cali. Here are a couple of quick summaries.

NSTB summary (http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/0lswjbzlxgf03j45cw2xm4rw1/W07022012120000.pdf)

Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_965)

A more detailed analysis (http://sunnyday.mit.edu/accidents/calirep.html)

In reviewing them, I must admit I may need to take back my comment. While the first two links suggest a system similar to yours, that is a text list of waypoints bearings and distances, the third link implies they did have a moving map and didnt notice the wrong R entry showing a line zooming off to Bogota to the North East.

I can easily see how entering the wrong R NDB into a text based FMS can get you, I do struggle with not noticing that the magenta line takes yoz 150 miles behind and to the left of where you are going.

[POBJOY]

I did say 'MY P8 Compass' not those 'standby types' as fitted to most GA aircraft.
Actually never had a magnetic compass fail in anything in over 40 years,even though some were hard to read they were so old.
As a very experienced BA Concorde pilot once stated to me:-
You are either VMC, and can see where you are and where you are going, or your IMC and should be operating as such (with the required equipment)
Its the bit in-between that causes the problems.
I happen to think that a simple GPS is quite a useful aid to flying in the UK,but only if those using them understand the limitations, and are 'trained' to plan accordingly.

[ShyTorque]

Quote:
Presumably you fly to private heli sites, or do some specialist work (electricity pylon inspection)?

There are people posting here who do specific types of commercial work, not relevant to fixed wing GA. You may as well be talking about surveying GPS units...

I just cannot identify any aspect of private flying in Europe with that sort of thing. There is simply no need for such bizzare procedures. The aviation GPS databases are packed with countless thousands of waypoints and it is generally trivial to knock up any desired route using wholly predefined waypoints. Sometimes one ends up a few miles off the shortest route but the actual impact on the ETE is barely noticeable so it is not worth putting effort into an inherently error-prone procedure.

Peter337, your depth of knowledge or experience is often somewhat lacking. Yes, I do fly a helicopter; why do you always try to dismiss this form of aviation? Is it because you have no knowledge and it doesn't fit in with your blinkered proclamations?

My job has absolutely nothing to do with surveying or powerline inspections (what bizarre ideas). Where did I say I was flying commercially? I correctly and legally write "P" for PRIVATE in the tech log for every sector.

I also use the same "standard" nav kit as fitted to fixed wing aircraft, possibly the same kit as you do, to go from A to B. I am simply required to use it in more depth than you obviously do. As far as errors are concerned, I have a system in place to minimise the chance of an input error being made and to correct it immediately if required. Beforedeparture, that is.

Btw, did anyone tell you that you have the same style as IO540?

[mad_jock]

It was a 757-223

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5288/5227712984_2230f82859_z.jpg

It only had a GPWS system not a EGPWS which is manditory in Europe now which is quite a different beastie.

It did have a moving map but not quite whats being discussed here as I would doudt there would be any topographical information on it.

I do struggle with not noticing that the magenta line takes yoz 150 miles behind and to the left of where you are going.

You and me both. Its quite a common problem though with DCT waypoints getting put in off route and then getting executed without a "am I being a dick" check to make sure its not in Japan or some other stupid place (presumeing of course your not flying in Japan)

Its this whole going below MSA milarky and having a situational awarness to even know that your below it while adding in you factors for wind speed and temprature etc which are commonly forgotten about.

[24Carrot]

I often use "user waypoints" fixed wing.

To avoid airspace, or just to simplify a visual approach to somewhere, I often fly a radial towards one VOR/DME, and then at a certain distance from it I turn onto the next leg. Situational awareness can only be helped if that turning point is also on the GPS moving map, but it won't be in the database.

So long as you cross-check the user waypoints (plotting them and checking visually is best, pre-flight) I don't see this as any more dangerous than entering the wrong "Bangor", or even mistaking one town for another on a chart!

To err is human, that's why we cross-check.

[peterh337]

As a very experienced BA Concorde pilot once stated to me:-
You are either VMC, and can see where you are and where you are going, or your IMC and should be operating as such (with the required equipment)He's right of course but Concorde ops are a world away from light FW GA. They took off, in CAS, under vectors (or own nav) all the way to the far end where they got more vectors to the ILS, and auto land (or hand land if VMC using the flight director).

I can do that too (except the auto land :) ) with the same predetermined flight characteristics which make navigation a no-brainer. Most IFR flights around Europe are like that, if you file a fairly standard route in CAS and are going between instrument airports.

ShyTorque

I am commenting from the perspective of this forum, which is a) FW and b) GA.

Other ops will have different regimes. I am sure the space shuttle works differently, too. Let's wait for one of their pilots to pitch in :)

BTW I never failed any checkride in my life, FAA or JAA, so get this right before attacking me personally. In fact my FAA CPL checkride was quite a pleasant experience. What you are no doubt referring to is that I once "failed" a 170A which is a bogus UK-only concept which has not been valid since 1999 but very few people know that, and the FTOs love it because they can get another grand out of everybody even after they are ready for the IRT. You can book the IRT directly with the CAA regardless of the outcome of any "170A flight test". The FTO is obliged to give you the 170A course completion certificate when you have completed the approved course and you can book the IRT with that. The 170A "examiner" I had did various antics like trying to break the nosegear; he thought it was the same as a Cessna, apparently... (spring-connected), and failing me for doing the power checks with the wind behind, for filing an alternate which he didn't like, etc. But it wasn't a checkride; it was a standard revenue raising exercise for the FTO.

[mad_jock]

I have had 3 standby type compasses go tits up.

1 fell off mid flight and I was more concerned about it jamming the rudder pedals.

1 decided to piss fluid everywhere (reckon the FO belted it with his knee board)

And the last one started omitting smoke during the cruise when we turned the panel lights on. I presume because folk had been using it to jam charts behind for a glare shield screwing with the power supply wires.

And I use user waypoints for center fixes and cross check the lat/long with the plate to make sure its reasonable.

He's right of course but Concorde ops are a world away from light FW GA

There really not you know Peter although concorde is proberly the furthest away from GA aircraft in the civilain world 99% of the stuff that the pro's do is exactly the same as if you were flying privately. Hence why there is no distinction between a pro IR and a private one.

[dublinpilot]

Btw, did anyone tell you that you have the same style as that bloke IO540 who failed his commercial check ride a while back..?

What a nasty thing to say.

I think it's fair to say that when people get nasty there is either something wrong with their position or something wrong with their ability to express it.

In any case if I remember correctly Peter passed his cpl first time; and it was some unnecessary per exam assessment that he didn't pass.

If you have any decency, having had an opportunity to consider your comment, you would apologise for it. It's uncalled for and quite nasty and certainly won't encourage new users here to be open to sharing their experiences.

[ShyTorque]

ShyTorque
I am commenting from the perspective of this forum, which is a) FW and b) GA. Other ops will have different regimes. I am sure the space shuttle works differently, too. Let's wait for one of their pilots to pitch in

I do also hold a CPLA and would use the GNS GPS in a very similar way, if fitted to any fixed wing I might fly.

Why do you claim that rotary wing isn't GA?

Dublin Pilot, I certainly will apologise. Providing that Peter337 assures me he isn't the same person as IO540.

[peterh337]

Why do you claim that rotary wing isn't GA?

Only because there is a forum here called Rotorheads, so it would be natural to assume that heli pilots go there and FW pilots come here.

The AAIB remark was squarely in the FW GA context.

Actually my GF just reminded me of something. Shouldn't somebody ask the AAIB for data supporting that assertion? Such a respected body must have supporting data for everything, surely.

[mad_jock]

Would it matter if they had Peter?

You will just say that they are wrong just like you do with anyone else that posts an opinion thats contrary to yours.

Personally I do hope they expand on the subject and also give examples of where things have gone wrong. Might give instructors a chance to pre-warn students of common pit falls and experenced pilots a moment of thought about there own personal procedures.

[ShyTorque]

Only because there is a forum here called Rotorheads, so it would be natural to assume that heli pilots go there and FW pilots come here.

So as a rotary pilot, you would wish to moderate me off this forum altogether? But as a fairly experienced fixed wing pilot, by the same rule, it's surely also inappropriate for me to go to Rotorheads.

Btw, I'm waiting to apologise, if you would be so kind. I've already removed the comment seen as "nasty".

[Pace]

Peter

I for one realise that GPS is probably one of the biggest if not the biggest advancement in navigation this century so what Are my concerns.
It worries me somewhat when pilots become too dependent on technology to cover gaps in their own flying skills.

We had a longish thread on the Cirrus shute system and relying on the chute technology to cover pilots inabilities to make a successful forced landing in the event of engine failure.

The same aircraft has a panic button to recover the aircraft automatically if the pilot looses control.
We now have GPS and all manner of terrain depiction.
All these things are good as a compliment to strong piloting skills and procedures but not so if a pilot is relying on automated systems to counter a lack of skills.

What worried me with the chute is that pilots could be drawn into out of their depth situations through confidence of having the chute.
The same goes with advanced GPS systems.

I do know of pilots in such machines who no longer take or look at charts or even flight plan. Its just punch in and blindly go.
Do these excellent safety advancements add to piloting skills NO NO NO! They encourage pilots to loose those skills by over reliance on the systems as well as becoming shoddy in their airmanship.

As with the chute treated with respect and as an extra tool to the other tools available to them then these new advancements become truly safety advancements.

I have seen pilots here advocate flying on top by saying to just punch in the autopilot to climb through cloud. Great if you have the skills to handle anything thrown at you in cloud! not so great if you do not and the autopilot fails. Take my word for it i have had numerous autopilot failures of one kind or another.

Abused to the extent of getting lazy with basic flying skills or used to cover up deficiences in those skills and the pilot is enroute to waypoint called trouble.

Pace

[mad_jock]

That pretty much is my view as well Pace.

Also as well that practise is the only way you bed the skills in for periods when you don't use them.

Which is why I think its all very good teaching students to use a GPS but until they have the other skill sets to the level of "changing gear in a car" they have nothing to fall back on.

[peterh337]

I don't disagree with you Pace in absolute terms but might differ as to the extent to which you perhaps portray TAA (tech advanced aircraft) pilots as morons :)

I do know some who do stupid things but the vast majority are clued-up people who took the time to get clued-up on their systems (to the extent possible in the rather crappy UK private flying training environment) and they fly safely. Most are successful business/prof people who are not stupid to start with.

The accident reports do not support any special high rate of prangs of people in nice shiny planes. In the USA there has always been a fairly obvious level of such, but then the GA scene out there is a lot more affluent and their GA infrastructure supports a level of utility flying which we don't have in Europe.

Most accident reports that show clear pilot error followed by a death show a pilot flying something fairly basic, who made a series of stupid decisions, possibly never got the wx, and ended up doing an "impossible" flight. Or the usual loss of control in IMC, or stall/spin stuff.

Straight CFITs are very very rare, as are accidents in "classical IFR" i.e. takeoff, sid, enroute, star, approach. The last CFIT I recall reading about was a PPL night instructional flight where deliberately no GPS was used, they did some dodgy (hurried) navaid fixes, some dead reckoning, and flew into slowly rising ground, at a small angle so amazingly both survived.

So as I say I don't see a pattern of muppets sticking the key into their G1000 equipped plane, taking off without a plan and crashing etc. Or if they do, they don't seem to have any trouble.

The biggest problem is a lack of training on nontrivial aircraft systems in the PPL but due to massive industry resistance this will never be addressed until a) the present GA fleet is largely scrapped and b) the CAA gets FEs to require a demo of competence on everything installed (like the FAA does). 20 years?

Ultimately this discussion leads to a call for a "TAA type rating" and I would say be careful what you wish for because you might get it. It isn't an ICAO requirement, probably because ICAO is still in the 1970s and GA systems have become very powerful in the last 10-20 years. The 1990s gear I fly behind is better than what a 747 had 30 years ago (INS, auto throttle and autoland excepted). Concorde looks positively jurrasic. Current gear (G1000 etc) is way better, with LPV (when that comes, ahem) etc. In the USA, the insurers have de facto forced this (mandatory type training) but the UK lags behind. In the CAT business this is dealt with in the TR so somebody with the TR maybe can't hand fly too well but he should know what the knobs in the 737 do.

So I just can't get excited about TAA pilots doing crazy things.

[ShyTorque]

My thoughts about the correct use of GPS is that a plan should be made first, i.e. by drawing lines on the relevant chart/s. GPS should be subsequently used to make the route easier to fly. The GPS route should be checked against that plan. If there is any discrepancy, the flight must not go until it's resolved.

After all, it's by no means unknown for a "traditional" paper PLOG/flight plan to have errors on it, too, such as an incorrect track or distance written down, or a total time added up incorrectly.

One plan is used to cross check the other. I'm fortunate enough to have a moving map display, albeit a very basic one, which can usually be zoomed out to show the whole flight.. If the moving map track lines don't match the chart lines, that's an instant "stop" signal.

Once the route is in the GPS and checked, I often save it if required, for a later date. The "box" is subsequently highly unlikely to make an error in that plan.

[peterh337]

Yes, obviously.

[mad_jock]

So as I say I don't see a pattern of muppets sticking the key into their G1000 equipped plane, taking off without a plan and crashing

They might not be crashing but they may be busting airspace.

TR maybe can't hand fly too well but he should know what the knobs in the 737 do.

Not every aircraft has a servicable AP Peter, will admit the swept wing operators are more adverse to going without it compared to the turboprop pilots. Everyday in europe there must 100's of aircraft flying with U/S AP's.

You really don't have a clue what happens in commercial aircraft what we can operate with and without and how much hand flying goes on.

Some cabin crew would say the knobs fly it ;)

[Pace]

I do know some who do stupid things but the vast majority are clued-up people who took the time to get clued-up on their systems (to the extent possible in the rather crappy UK private flying training environment) and they fly safely. Most are successful business/prof people who are not stupid to start with

Peter

In the Cirrus thread where the aircraft carry all the advanced GPS, Chutes and automated systems where i questioned why the chute should be used as a standard engine failure recovery system as standard the argument was placed that Cirrus pilots only flew 12 hrs a year and did not have the experience to pull off an off field landing hence it was safer to pull the chute?

I am perplexed ;)

I am all for advanced systems and navigation where they are tools to add to the array of tools avialable to a current and well trained and experienced pilot! I am not for such systems and nav where they are used to plug pilot deficiencies, lack of currency or inexperience.

I do not agree with MJ on many things but I do agree that in commercial flying we have a lot of failures and workarounds including autopilots.
Using any of these advanced systems to plug holes in pilot capability is a very dangerous approach to take

Pace

[flybymike]

Quote:
This has to be Peter at his most amusingly irascible and finest. These Russki spies can be most entertaining.

And would you care to engage with the content, rather than a weak ad hominem? I happen to agree with him entirely...
There was no sarcasm intended my Latin friend, and you have evidently completely misunderstood my post. I also agree with him entirely.:hmm:

[patowalker]

Clued Up 2012 Issue

Erratum: On page 65 "largely as a result of overuse of GPS" should read "largely as a result of over reliance on GPS"

[goldeneaglepilot]

The actual wording can be viewed on line at

FLYER Magazine - the fastest growing general aviation magazine in the UK (http://www.flyer.co.uk/cluedup/mag/)

Page 65

[peterh337]

They might not be crashing but they may be busting airspace.

and the statistical evidence for the above claim is... exactly where?

Prejudices die hard.

I have read various UK stats in the past and could never see this.

Yes there are some TAAs doing busts but not any significant figure.

Human factors can always make it possible. I busted a piece of the LTMA near Farnborough, for some 20-30 seconds, as a result of talking to a passenger and forgetting to descend under the next stepdown (4400ft to 3400ft or whatever). One solution to that is to fly the whole lot at 2400ft but then you increase the risk of a mid-air, which at > 3000ft is very much lower.

There are other ways for "serious" pilots for busting CAS. For example the old chestnut of flying from France to the UK, where you were nicely cruising along at FL100 (on a Eurocontrol IFR flight plan) and the French handed you over to "London 124.6". Those born and bred in Brigh'on will know that 124.6 means their IFR clearance has just been unilaterally and quietly destroyed and now (in breach of ICAO) they are VFR traffic but a foreigner will just carry on. London Info have radar (though they are not allowed to say so) so if you call them up in good time they will tell you to descend below FL075 (etc) but if you delay, or the handover occurs later, you will bust the Worthing CTA. Not that there is any CAT in there at FL100 that far out over water, but a bust is a bust.

This went on for years... because the only French unit with a "handover deal" with London Control was Paris Control, and PC didn't do traffic below FL120, so to continue your IFR clearance you had to be on oxygen :ugh:

Much more recently, this issue has been somewhat fixed. I have had a handover from Brest to LC (from Cherbourg) at FL090, and been handled by PC at FL100 and handed over to LC at FL100. So evidently some heads were banged together, but this is relevant if reading old CAS bust stats as a large % of these will be well equipped planes.

On page 65 "largely as a result of overuse of GPS" should read "largely as a result of over reliance on GPS"

I don't think they have evidence for either.

Remember the AAIB gets involved only in crashes, and ask yourself how the over-use of a GPS can cause a crash.

You would have to be fiddling with knobs all the way through a spiral dive into the ground. I'd love to know how they established the cause there :E

Or mis-program a GPS and do a CFIT, but these are very rare in the UK. The hallmark of a CFIT due to a basic nav c0ckup is a long straight line into a hill, but that isn't a GPS issue; it is caused by a shortage of obstacle clearance :) You can do a CFIT while VOR tracking just as well, and hundreds if not thousands have done over the decades, around the world.

So I think the statement is just simple bollocks.

[BackPacker]

One plan is used to cross check the other. I'm fortunate enough to have a moving map display, albeit a very basic one, which can usually be zoomed out to show the whole flight.. If the moving map track lines don't match the chart lines, that's an instant "stop" signal.

In the IT world, whenever we make available, or transfer a large file, some form of checksumming is used. Heck, even the smallest Ethernet frames use them. Because we know, from experience, that various electromagnetic influences, from somebody turning on the vacuum cleaner to cosmic rays, can flip a bit.

So we add up all the bits in the file or transmission, either using a simple addition, or using advanced cryptographic algorithms, and transmit the result of that calculation as well. The receiver does the same thing and can thus be reasonably sure that the information was transmitted correctly.

Other stuff like International Standard Book Numbers, Bar codes, SSNs and such, all have some form of an internal checksum built-in as well.

I find it amazing that flight plans, when transferred from one device to another, or even lat/long positions, don't have something like that. Obviously when hand-calculating lat/long positions or a plog, this will be a very hard to solve problem. But I've seen loads of pilots that create a plog on their PC using some navigation program, then hand-input it in the GNS430 mounted in the plane. If the PC navigation program would calculate a checksum over the individual waypoints and the complete route, and the GNS430 would do the same thing, the pilot couild then simply compare these numbers and be pretty sure that the plan is in the system without errors.

Likewise, airline pilots still get their plog as a paper printout from dispatch, and need to input it in the FMS manually. At least, that was the case last time I sat in the jumpseat of a 737. No checksumming used whatsoever, as far as I can see, so the P2 needs to check manually that the P1 inputted each digit exactly as intended. Not that much of a problem when flying airways within Europe (lots of checks inherent in the naming of airways, navaids and intersections) but it might be a big problem when flying North Atlantic Tracks.

At the moment I'm not even aware of a standard for doing checksumming in the aviation world. Let alone of an actual usage.

Not every aircraft has a servicable AP Peter, will admit the swept wing operators are more adverse to going without it compared to the turboprop pilots. Everyday in europe there must 100's of aircraft flying with U/S AP's.

Isn't a serviceable AP a requirement to enter RVSM airspace?

[Genghis the Engineer]

I've not read this latest Clued Up yet, but is it perhaps more accurate to say "somebody who works for AAIB expressed", rather than "AAIB expressed". There are a lot of good people who work there, and some of them don't mind expressing opinions about broader safety issues from time to time.

By and large, those opinions are worth listening to, but they aren't necessarily the official view of the branch.

G

[mad_jock]

and the statistical evidence for the above claim is... exactly where?


What that it may be?

Well hopefully the AAIB will expand on there statement.

But even if they do I presume you will know better than the AAIB. Just as you know better than the CAA and military when it comes to all things GPS.

And you know better than all instructors in how to teach.

And you know better how to fly than all commercial pilots.

Yes you are correct Backpacker, it is but you need to be quite high to be in that you can quite happily cruise around under I think it is FL295 (My service ceiling is below it anyway at FL250) then you don't need to be RVSM.

[peterh337]

You are just buttering me up so you can get a free flight in my TB20, MJ.

I don't fall for transparent trickery like that.

[mad_jock]

Nah your ok 25 sectors a week is quite enough flying for me and bombing around europe slower than I go already isn't my idea of a day off.

And thankfully my days of single engine IFR and night are over.

[patowalker]

In the 2012 edition of Clued Up, the CAA GA safety magazine there is a quote from the AAIB, "Some of the more common, and preventable, incidents involve poor situational awareness, largely as a result of the overuse of GPS."

There is no quote from the AAIB. The article by Richard Taylor, of the CAA's Corporate Communications Department (?), reads: "Some of the more common, and preventable incidents that the AAIB deals with include:


...



poor situational awareness - largely as result of overuse of GBP.

[Fuji Abound]

I do know of pilots in such machines who no longer take or look at charts or even flight plan.

That would be me then. ;)

Seriously, I guess I find it a little easier to get the chart out when I first sit in the cockpit and decide on a route. Its then a matter of plugging the route into the FMS check it agrees with the chart and off we go. I reckon I can plug a route in to any where in the UK in 5 minutes without the need for any more planning. (That is assuming I expect it to be VFR, a little more work otherwise I concede).

Of course for outside the UK a pesky FP must be filed so inevitably there is a little more planning otherwise it wouldn't make a great deal of difference.

Yes I worry about high ground and NOTAMS - I can honestly say I always do a NOTAM brief before and I will take a quick look at the route and have a mental plan of what I will do if the weather doesn't behave.

I will often set off in a direction, decide to go somewhere else or drop into X so its all done on the fly, planning by the seat of the pants I guess.

Do I get the chart out on route? - well frankly not very often. I think the one thing glass avionics lack is painting the airspace limits all that well, so outside CAS I do find I usually aim to be as high as I can and am often looking for the next step up. For me I often find it quick to glance at the chart to work out the next step up or required step downs but that's about it.

It is always an education flying with commercial pilots who spend most/all their time in CAS. My good mate is a BA training captain so I guess he knows his business. He struggles on cross countries outside CAS nipping round, through and under CAS so I wouldn't be too concerned about how our commercial brethren go about it - as he says we are streaks ahead with some of the kit we are lucky enough to have, but then again they as soon as you are on an IFR flight plan its handed to you on a plate.

So in short why oh why do we have to make it so complicated? It really isn't.

When I started flying the planning use to take several hours - everyone soon got fed up with that, including me, but it was necessary at the time. In the end it makes getting from A to B and epic and most of us have better things to do.

I would go about things differently without a moving map and if my backup moving map both quit on me I would go about things differently but I am pretty comfortable with the mark one eyeball and the other radio navionics.

Large scale color moving maps with topography, weather, airspace and traffic all painted on the map give you unsurpassed situational aware - why wouldn't you want it. Of course the more kit you have the more head down time you can be lulled into, but actually AS LONG as you are comfortable with the technology it translates into less head in time that PLOGing your way across the country side.

[peterh337]

VFR actually hasn't been "complicated" since I started flying solo in 2001.

All you needed back then was the VFR map, Navbox, a few clicks and you have the plog, 2 more clicks to reverse the route, few more clicks and you have the reversed plog, a few more clicks and you have a brief but nice enough A4 map of the whole route.

Notams didn't "exist" back then. Only in 2003 everybody started going berserk because suddenly they were on the internet so everybody started to pack the system with their "kite flying" garbage.

Weather was on the internet back then.

I remember doing PPL lessons and seeing somebody in the corner with a laptop.. I wondered what he was doing. It was something one didn't talk about...

What has changed now? Only that the printed chart is left on the back seat; the route can be planned using an electronic copy of it running on a PC - or some other presentation if you are happy with that (e.g. Skydemon).

What has not changed is flight training, which remains like it was in the 1960s, with a bit of VOR, no DME IIRC.

It is perfectly possible to not do any planning before getting into the cockpit - so long as you have an assured mobile internet connection, and have a backup for flying with electronic-only (non-printed) data. Plus you take a chance that your bimble will be clobbered by a TRA down the road. That's why I usually plan at home (or at work) so I know what I will be doing before I get in the car. But in safety terms it is not necessary.

Where I draw the line is having backups for electronic data, in case of a failure in the aircraft, or a failure of whatever other display device one is using.

Some people now use the Ipad but I bet most don't have a backup for its failure. Also, getting stuff into an Ipad is quite tacky - Itunes, or some other method (Iexplorer) whose functionality is limited to specific apps. Some copy the stuff into an Iphone so that is the backup then.

That's why I print out stuff. No backups needed then :)

Sounds like the CAA's Corporate Communications Department needs to re-educate Phil Space :)

[david viewing]

I'm concerned that there seems to be an implicit assumption in this whole discussion that somehow the technology is a static thing: either you have GPS, or you don't.

IMHO nothing could be further from the truth. There have been some improvements in some paper maps over the last 3 years but the GPS of today (Skydemon/Foreflight/iPad) bears no resemblance to the GPS of 2009 (430 et al.) If anything, that trend is accelerating.

Right now, we are at a pivotal moment for VFR cross country flying because the utility of today's GPS is just exceeding that of the paper maps. The ability to zoom into detail and to see automated airspace warnings on electonic charts (that are always up to date) just exceeds the ability of paper maps to display essential information. Only just, though: some paper maps still have critical information (like bird sanctuaries) that is lacking from GPS displays.

In a short time all that will have changed, and the idea of trying to conduct a safety of life critical operation like flying a plane using a pre-printed, uncorrectable, one way resource like a paper map will seem ludicrously negligent. That transition is actually occurring right now, which is why some of us get quite worked up about it.

I've flown almost 50 Hrs in 3 continents in the last 8 weeks and have had an iPad balanced on my knee the whole time. Have I thrown away my paper maps? Not yet, because they still carry essential safety of flight information that has yet to appear on iPad. And I only carry one iPad because I have not yet reached the stage of velcroing over all those old steam gauges (like the 430!) with several more. But that day will come, and soon.

What's on offer is a way to enormously improve the utility of GA as a means of transport for a whole range of pilots who actually want to go somewhere, and to do it with almost no negative safety implications. It might be the biggest innovation in private flying since the Wright Brothers. All of us, everyone contributing here, should be behind this revolution and looking for ways to make it better, not half of us sniping at the other half.

[goldeneaglepilot]

It is a legal requirement to have a paper chart for a flight in the UK - ANO 2009, SCHEDULE 4 Articles 12(6) and 14(2).

Frankly GPS nav is great and the way forward, however it should never be taken for granted that it will work. Reading a paper chart is very reliable, difficult to disrupt and not prone to external jamming or equipment failiure

It will be interesting to see if the CAA take kindly to anyone who says something along the lines of:



My GPS stopped working whilst enroute, that's why I infringed the Olympic Zone
I don't carry a chart anymore, my IPAD has replaced that
I always do my planning on the GPS and it should not have gone off - it's not my fault

[peterh337]

It is a legal requirement to have a paper chart for a flight in the UK - ANO 2009, SCHEDULE 4 Articles 12(6) and 14(2).

[my bold]

No it isn't :ugh:

[Heston]

Hurrah! Peter337 has at last posted something I entirely agree with.

It is not a legal requirement to carry a paper chart. You are responsible as commander for selecting the "charts or codes" appropriate for the flight.

H

[goldeneaglepilot]

To quote the ANO

"Maps, charts, codes and other documents and navigational equipment necessary, in addition to any other equipment required under this Order, for the intended flight of the aircraft including any diversion which may reasonably be expected".

[mary meagher]

I've been away from my nightly visit to PPRuNe for nine days, organising a gliding competition. We will not mention how many days of cross country gliding weather we enjoyed last week....

So have read the entire thread at one sitting. Peterh337 is a true gem, his discourse witty and knowlegable.

Basically the whole discussion turns on a remark attributed to a government funded body to the effect that undue reliance on GPS can lead to "poor situational awareness"

Well, there is situational awareness, and situational awareness. I invested a LOT of money a long time ago in a Garmin 55, and it was absolutely liberating.
No more wrestling with refolding charts in a cramped glider cockpit.
Crossing the Irish Sea in my Supercub, I simply velcroed the little darling on top of the instrument panel. Even used it sailing my boat in Tampa Bay.
( typed in EAST instead of WEST only the once, but if you have the basic notion in your brain that the sun should be setting in THAT direction, the suspicion soon arises that your trusty GPS is a bit confused....)

Situational awareness, or location, is one thing. Situational awareness or looking out the window carefully in VFR conditions, is something else entirely. The lucid discussion by David Dowd, US District Court Judge, says
it all, in the case mentioned by a previous poster, where a flying school tried to blame a midair on the temptation to fly staring at your handy moving map display. Said the judge, throwing out the case against the Garmin folks, "The evidence remains undisputed that all pilots flying under VFR conditions KNOW they have an unflinching duty to maintain vigilance in scanning for traffic by looking through the windscreen"

Getting fixated on instruments, gadgets, or a paper map does not absolve the VFR pilot of that unflinching duty.

[Jan Olieslagers]

the basic notion in your brain that the sun should be setting in THAT direction

This seems a nice wording of some concerns about over-use of and over-reliance on GPS.

PS West, it was, I seem to remember?

[overstress]

Felt I had to comment on some of the stuff that being peddled on here.

Remember the AAIB gets involved only in crashes, and ask yourself how the over-use of a GPS can cause a crash.

Peter, you must have read some of the AAIB's bulletins to be such an expert on them, in which case you will have forgotten that the AAIB regularly investigates all manner of incidents, including crashes, as you put it, but also many other incidents as well where not a scratch is put on anything.

This is not a personal attack on you but I cringe at some of your comments as you obviously have no idea of some of the methods of the AAIB, or the expertise and skill of its investigators, all of whom (the pilot ones) are current and experienced pilots with varied backgrounds.

This following quote from a US aviation site is probably close to what they are getting at:

I was climbing out of XXX; had switched from XXX tower frequency to YYY ATC to pick up flight following. In the climb out phase; while in communication with YYY ATC; my GPS crashed. While recycling my GPS; I inadvertently wandered. I took a wide climb out under an unplanned sector class B airspace; which a ceiling of 4;000; instead of 5;000. Moments later; ATC informed me I was climbing into class B airspace. I made an immediate descent and turn to the left. My GPS rebooted and I continued my flight. The lesson learned is how important it is to be ready with back up navigation. Also; since ATC is there to help; I should have asked for vectors.

On the subject - task fixation leads to disorientation and this applies to GPS more than anything else.

I fly heavy metal for a living (and regularly enter LAT/LONGs!) but when I go up in the club aircraft it is with a half-mill chart and the Mk1, the GPS may be switched on but I don't use it for simple VFR flying - prefer looking out of the window. If anything, knowing the background of some of the AAIB guys, they will be commenting on incidents which highlight the lack of situational awareness of some who yet simultaneously know their lat/long to fraction of a minute of arc.

[FullWings]

I think the quote above has little to do with GPS. The crucial bit is:
The lesson learned is how important it is to be ready with back up navigation. Also; since ATC is there to help; I should have asked for vectors.
He could have been tracking a VOR or NDB when the receiver or ground station failed. Same result. No back-up plan(s). THAT is the real issue behind many incidents/accidents. Loss of situational awareness.

Today's GA terrain/airspace/weather/fuel/airport aware 2 & 3D navigation kit is superb. Far in advance of anything you'll find in a commercial airliner and in my experience, probably more reliable! You still have to have options for when the screen goes blank, though, whether you're straight back to DR or have a pocket GPS or lower grade stuff in the panel. ATC are there to help, plus if you've had multiple failures, D&D on 121.5 is available. Handheld radio, just in case? Cellphone and squawk? Etc.

As I pointed out a few pages ago, in the not-too-distant future, most conventional ground-based navaids will have been withdrawn from service and navigation/charting information will only be available in electronic format. Time to get with the program, as they say...

[goldeneaglepilot]

I have seen no evidence (from a body such as the CAA - or proposals to amend Statute) that paper based charts and information is going to disappear.

It's true that companies are moving towards paperless methods of disseminating information - however I think the burden for quite some time to come will be upon us as pilots having to print out for ourselves the paper copy that we need (to comply with the ANO) on the day.


It would (at present) be very hard to argue that a defence to an offence under an ANO was due to the electronic systems having failed and no paper back up was available

[overstress]

You are right about the distraction, could have been any heads-in reason, but fiddling with the GPS cost him an infringement.

I'll stick with my map for VFR, thanks - but what do I know? :}

Far in advance of anything you'll find in a commercial airliner and in my experience, probably more reliable!

Have flown about 9000 hours with two FMC/FMGC and never (touch wood) had a double failure, nor on 1000 hours with twin INS, map has never failed in flight either although I have spilled my coffee once or twice.

[Pace]

Technology which reduces work load has to be good. We all know the pain of keeping numerous bulky and heavy aerads up to date hence being able to download updates and have all the data on a couple of I pads is a huge time and effort benefit.

What I think they maybe getting at with the GPS comment is twofold! Firstly that any technology has to be a positive addition to pilot skills not used to cover up a lack of piloting skills.

Secondly that technology can make for lazy pilots and lull pilots into forgetting or ignoring those skills ie do not put your eggs in one basket scenario. Use everything that is available and trust nothing.

Well that is how I would interpret the caution.

[Cobalt]

GEP,

I agree that it is the responsibility of the PIC to carry charts, and if he/she relies on an electronic chart, that includes a suitable back-up since losing the chart in the middle of the flight is not acceptable.

But where do you take it from that the chart must be in paper form? How does the ANO imply this - perhaps in another section?

And if it relies on the interpretation of the word chart, is there any precedent?

[mm_flynn]

..., you must have read some of the AAIB's bulletins to be such an expert on them, in which case you will have forgotten that the AAIB regularly investigates all manner of incidents, including crashes, as you put it, but also many other incidents as well where not a scratch is put on anything.

Overstress,

I am not a compulsive reader of AAIB bulletins or safety progress reports, but do read a reasonable number, including the totality of the 2010 report. I can not remember any bulletin where over use of GPS featured as a material aspect of the report. Further, in the 2010 report I can not see a single recommendation related to over use of GPS.

With your greater familiarity with the material, I would be grateful for some links to the AAIB substance behind the original comment.

GE,

I am pretty sure you are both right and wrong on your paper chart comments.

Right, in that if a failure of your single source of navigation data (your electronic chart) resulted in an infringement - the CAA would certainly not say 'that's alright cause your laptop/iPad failed '. And they would seem to have a prima-facie that you did not have all necessary.... .

Wrong, in that you are not required to have a specific brand, source, or format of the necessary charts and information. So an upto date 530 and an iPad with digitised charts for the planned route would be all necessary charts, codes, data and would arguably be sufficiently resilient to be reasonably confident that you will have access to the information when required.

[goldeneaglepilot]

Gent's - I agree, there is no formal definition of map or chart or the method of displaying it (be that on a screen or in paper format). However it does say it must be carried. Thats fine if its a stand alone system and you have made provisions in case it fails. The real issue here is the intergration with GPS and the potential for GPS to not work.

Equally consideration should be given to (the very unlikely) scenario where no electrical devices are working. To me the simple answer is a paper backup. In my own aircraft approach plates are stored in the database (which is frequently updated) however that does not stop me having paper copies and maps (which I print out before the flight) in my flight bag as a backup, in much the same way as I carry a torch for flight at night.

[Cobalt]

GEP, that sounds reasonable (the need for backup, that is), although paper backup for some things can be excesive. You have to carry charts for any diversion that might be expected. On an IFR flight to, say, Biggin-Berlin, that includes Southend, Manston, most Belgian IFR fields, Maasticht, several German ones... do you print all these?

Personally, I use paper charts for departure, arrival, and alternate; carry the electronic charts for the possible en-route diversion, and a paper airways chart (the last time I opened one was during the ATPL theory exam).

I still find flying an approach using a chart displayed on the MFD inferior to the chart on my kneeboard (EFB or paper) [other than SID and STAR, which in my mind are best flown with the route in the FMS and the map - not chart - on the MFD]

[patowalker]

Equally consideration should be given to (the very unlikely) scenario where no electrical devices are working.

Wouldn't that be where you the battery powered iPad comes in?

[goldeneaglepilot]

Hi,

I tend to print off paperback ups for the alternates on my flight plan. I do have some extras that I carry anyway (for example - Manston, Shawbury, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester) I know that in reality if I have failiure of the MFD then I can fly onto my destination, If it's more serious (such as MFD not working plus smoke) then it's the nearest suitable airfield and on the balance of probabilities will be vectored in. I also have paper airways charts in my flight case.

[Jan Olieslagers]

most Belgian IFR fields As we have just six of them (not counting the military) one could change "most" to "all". And the hardship would be quite bearable - literally!

[overstress]

mm flynn, I am not here to do your background reading for you, I was merely pointing out to another poster that the AAIB do more than investigate crashes.

I can recommend reading their site more thoroughly as there is always something to be learned from each accident or major incident.

There have been recent fatal mid air collisions between light aircraft equipped with GPS. It is feasible that over-concentration on the display may have prevented an effective lookout. In VFR flying one's eyes should be mostly outside, GPS encourages the pilot to stare inside.

[peterh337]

Not wishing to drive this one into the ground even further but a law that required the carriage of paper charts would be meaningless unless it specified the exact type.

So................. which type?

For the UK you have
- CAA 250k
- CAA 500k
- Jepp 500k
- the new 1M (Transair - hey that one alone has got to be worth another 100GB of proon bandwidth; who is going to kick it off while I am away in the gym+yoga?)
- the French ones below show parts of the southern UK :) :)
- ONC/TPC charts :E
- Jepp airways charts (low level assumed) :E:E
- Aerad airways charts (unreadable)

For France you have
- IGN (various)
- SIA 1M
- Cartabossy 1M
- Jepp 500k
- the above CAA ones show parts of N France :) :)
- ONC/TPC charts :E
- Jepp airways charts (low level assumed) http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/evil.gifhttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/evil.gif
- Aerad airways charts (unreadable)

Zee message should be obvious by now :)

Flying all-electronic has to be 100% legal, notwithstanding the countless recent banal press releases about the FAA etc "approving" the use of the Ipad in the cockpit. There is nothing to approve for private flight (Part 91 in N-reg speak).

Anybody flying all-electronic without a backup is going to get bitten in the bum one day :) In a VFR-Europe presentation I did recently I suggested people plan and fly with the printed paper charts; got some criticism for it but I am sticking with it. There is a lot going for it. But it's not a legal requirement (in Europe, as far as anybody knows).

I cannot see how a moving map GPS reduces SA. SA is all about knowing where you are in 3D relative to relevant airspace etc around you. A moving map delivers that on a plate - which is why so many old geezers (esp. in the flight training business) hate it; it takes away all the "precious old skills". The truth is that Columbus would have instantly traded half his crew for the crappiest old GPS :)

There have been recent fatal mid air collisions between light aircraft equipped with GPS. You mean the one with ~1000kt closing speeds over Brazil? :)

Yes that one would be blamed squarely on the superb accuracy of GPS (laterally) and good baro accuracy of RVSM (vertically) but the solution is to fly slightly to one side of the track - as I believe Virgin and BA do over Africa.

Also, it would not suprise me that 99% of pilots who died in mid-airs had milk for breakfast. Ergo.......

It is feasible that over-concentration on the display may have prevented an effective lookout. In VFR flying one's eyes should be mostly outside, GPS encourages the pilot to stare inside. No it doesn't. That is flat wrong. You are flogging the same old prejudice. GPS delivers you SA on a plate so you do very little work to navigate, leaving you to look outside much more - for traffic, instead of looking out for that little lake with a roundabout next to it, or whatever. Frankly I don't think you are aware of anything made since about year 2000 because what you write just doesn't stack up alongside reality.

[toptobottom]

I'm guessing the ANO rule that requires a current chart to be carried, was originally drafted a looooong time before the current generation of sophisticated, hand-held GPS devices were even conceived. Like many rules, it simply hasn't kept up with the ever accelerating world of technology. No doubt there will be an amendment in the future, which will be obsolete before it hits the [metaphoric] press... :E

In the meantime, i don't see how, say, an iPad with SkyDemon could be more distracting than a 1/4 mill map supporting a cross country track crawl? The great thing about modern GPS is that a quick glance is all that is needed to confirm you're still on course :confused:

[peterh337]

I'm guessing the ANO rule that requires a current chart to be carried

Exactly.

I am not aware of any case law regarding this, anyway. Is there any?

One hears of cases in Germany over various odd stuff (like pilots getting done for making incorrect radio calls).

ISTM that carrying a current chart means little anyway, because you buy them once a year but almost immediately updates start to appear on some CAA website which 99% of pilots have never heard of.

So, together with the ICAO-compliant aviation data promulgation system (the AIP which contains e.g. CAS outlines as lat/long and I believe overrides the printed chart no matter how current the latter is, the notam system, and any NATS/CAA/Eurocontrol website carrying updates) the prosecution can always show that you flew with out of date data. I bet 100% of pilots fly with out of date data in some way - including 100% of BA crew departing LHR today.

A good lawyer would make a mockery of the CAA in a criminal court if they tried to nail you on some technicality to do with the "latest chart" because their is no "latest chart".

The only way to get the "latest chart" or "current chart" is

1 - buy the current chart
2 - go to the CAA amendments website and mark up any changes against 1.
3 - check all CAS etc coordinates in the AIP against 2. and mark up any discrepancies onto the chart
4 - get the notams and do the same on 3.

You would never get off the ground...

An approximation to the above is to fly with an AIRAC-updated electronic product (Jepp Flitedeck, Skydemon, PocketFMS, etc) but that only gets you 28 day updates which may not be good enough (see below).

Practically everybody just flies with the chart, and usually it will be the current one. Usually that is good enough, but not always: e.g. the change in transition altitude to 6000ft changed the FL055 LTMA to 5500ft, which is bad news if you fly at FL054 with a QNH of 1036 and didn't get around buying the new chart for a couple of weeks (how do I know that?) ;)

[Pace]

To clarify yes have two I pads but do use trip kits ie printed charts for departure destination and alternatives as well as using conventional enroute charts keeping the I pads for any reason that you are forced to land enroute etc.
That works pretty well!

Pace

[Cobalt]

[quote]most Belgian IFR fields[\quote]As we have just six of them (not counting the military) one could change "most" to "all". And the hardship would be quite bearable - literally!

:}

If you are using electronic charts, printing charts is a bit of an effort, though, because you have to cut the paper, sort them properly, and put them into a folder... and it is still 100 pages or so, unless you start to waste time by picking the charts you might actually need. I rather take an EFB, thank you very much.

[FullWings]

I have seen no evidence (from a body such as the CAA - or proposals to amend Statute) that paper based charts and information is going to disappear.
That's because there isn't a legal requirement for them. See the last ten posts!
It's true that companies are moving towards paperless methods of disseminating information - however I think the burden for quite some time to come will be upon us as pilots having to print out for ourselves the paper copy that we need (to comply with the ANO) on the day.
See above!
It would (at present) be very hard to argue that a defence to an offence under an ANO was due to the electronic systems having failed and no paper back up was available
That's a more relevant point. However, if all your electronic systems have failed and you deem them necessary for the further safe and legal conduct of the flight, maybe it's time to start asking for help? Supposing your paper map ends up on the parcel shelf or under the seat in turbulence and there's no-one to go and get it for you? What then?
Have flown about 9000 hours with two FMC/FMGC and never (touch wood) had a double failure, nor on 1000 hours with twin INS, map has never failed in flight either although I have spilled my coffee once or twice.
About the same time with me, only have had several double failures (recovered eventually). The software that runs on these things has *known* bugs from 20-odd years ago that still haven't been fixed (or the airlines are too cheap to bother). Our manuals have a section devoted to possible anomalies... :ugh:

[peterh337]

Sounds like you might want to avoid crossing the 180 longitude (or whatever it is called; never been there, but it was a well known FMS bug) or one of the poles :)

[mm_flynn]

mm flynn, I am not here to do your background reading for you, I was merely pointing out to another poster that the AAIB do more than investigate crashes.

I can recommend reading their site more thoroughly as there is always something to be learned from each accident or major incident.

Thank you for your comment. I do actually read those that are published on line, understand that they include Crashes and Incidents (summarised as accidents), recognise they do not normally publish reports on infringements and Airproxs (as those are reported elsewhere). As such, all of the data I have (and from your answer you have as well) shows that 'loss of situational awareness as a result of excessive GPS usage' is virtually never mentioned by the AAIB. So to include that statement as part of a list of 'common' findings is factually incorrect on the author's part.


PS
My original question was an honest effort to establish if I was missing some information that the AAIBnmay have published in a location of which I was unaware.

[niceday2700classic]

I know what you mean about genuine spacial awareness and knowledge of the terrain over which you're flying as opposed to just reading back a piece of information when requested..... but.....

If I ever suffer an engine failure in a single over the channel, I hope to God that I have the opportunity to include something precise (preferably lat-long) in my Mayday call rather than "about 15 miles south of Brighton".

[overstress]

Yes that came over a bit tetchy, flynn, sorry about that. No, I can't see anything in their pubs specifically, but knowing the way they think they must have something in mind, I'll try and dig a little... :)

GPSs have certainly been of use to the Branch as if they survive the impact they can provide useful information...

[peterh337]

GPSs have certainly been of use to the Branch as if they survive the impact they can provide useful information...

Must have been a particularly painful thing to concede that, overstress.

I would suggest a GPS has other uses but I think I've done those to death already.

From your uppercase "B" in "Branch", do I take it you work for the AAIB?

[overstress]

Not at all, I have no problems admitting if I am in the wrong - a CRM skill not shared by all, some get quite defensive, apparently!

You don't have to explain the advantages of GPS, the subject was its disadvantages, quite a subtle difference, but you can't see any...

No, I am not employed by the AAIB and hope to never require their attentions! (They do read PPRuNe occasionally I believe)

I did visit Farnborough a long time ago on the RAF Flight Safety Course.

[flybymike]

Peter, some of us still spell God with a capital G but I am no angel...:)

[peterh337]

I think oil analysis is more useful :)

[flybymike]

One can never have too many back ups.

[Cobalt]

One can never have too many back ups.

One aircraft I rented had the entire set of maintenance manuals in the back. Was useful to keep the CoG witin limits if only flying two up, but could be a problem if trying to get two more occupants into the air safely...

[peterh337]

You may also find its market value affected if it got crashed and the maintenance records got burnt... hmmm perhaps I got that wrong... if it got crashed then the market value would be zero anyway :E

overstress - I thought I had fairly extensively listed pitfalls of GPS previously, but the anti GPS crowd is "anti" on principle. Their approach is usually along the lines of

VFR = visual nav

...which as I said, is fine, if that floats your boat:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/02/images/109042437514325482666_1.jpg

[overstress]

Sorry, didn't have time to go through all 1720 of your postings from the last 18 months! Too busy aviating! Bye! ;)

[Pace]

Overstress

Peter contributes a huge amount of superb detail to the forums. He is a techno freak ;) all fine if your an excellent pilot as I know for a fact he is.
Not so fine if you use technology to cover holes in a pilots abilities. The same goes for any other technology.

The argument is not about for GPS or against GPS but using it to add to your piloting skills not prop them up :E

Some of us post from I phones or handling agent computers so while aviating
Crazy addiction pprune

Pace

[paulp]

I see GPS much like other advancements such as the AI. They all encourage longer and more challenging flights and may have some downside. However, overall I see it as a big positive. GPS in particular is a huge help in today's TFR environment as is down linked data. Combining the two makes navigating in todays's political climate much easier. Airspace is much more complex today than 50 years ago when my cousin was flying her Luscomb cross country.