I'm not an engineer either but certainly on the 777 GPS timing is used by the airplane information management system (AIMS). Even the flight deck clocks/chronos are effectively "slaved" to the GPS timing signal via AIMS.
( Source is the 777 FCOM 2)
Thanks for looking this up, I appreciate it.
I've never flown the Triple but have operated several other Airbus and Boeing glass products over the years.
I quite understand that on a professional pilots' forum, there is going to be considerable opposition to the idea that an apparently distinguished professional pilot might choose to down his plane. And I note this forum is deeply distrustful of journalism, which can be sensationalist and inaccurate in its reporting of civil aviation.
Yet pilot suicide has happened before (Egyptair 990) so it is not surprising that it is a major avenue of inquiry for MH370. In this case, it is 'the butler did it' scenario. So the moderators who deleted all the posts following yesterday's Sunday Times article are, it seems to me, in the same state of denial as the Egyptians who continue to blame a CIA conspiracy or mechanical failure for the demise of Egyptair 990.
I agree, not sure why these arcane technical posts about GPS timing survive but any discussion of possible human factors seems to be taboo in the modern commercial incarnation of PPRuNe.
I remember reading of the likely cause of the Silkair 185 crash here on PPRuNe a few days after the mishap from a poster with good sources and, sadly, family members on the plane. I also remember the healthy debate on the Egyptair 990 mishap.
Rumor in U.S. federal law enforcement circles has it that an FBI report on MH 370 is in limited distribution with analysis from the BRIU and computer forensics folks at Quantico. Perhaps some of the recent news reports stem from this alleged document which may be very speculative.