GLS,
I understand that the UK CAA are unhappy with the thought of an inexperienced pilot pushing his luck too far by trying to let down to his farm strip in 8/8 with only a portable GPS on his lap.
The other concern is that GPS has no alerting system for the real time accuracy of the system, particularly in view of the fact that the whole system can be deliberately degraded. I think this is somewhat unreasonable in view of the well known inaccuracies of NDBs. As we know, these also have no warning of failure (apart from the cessation of the ident) but are still the only letdown aid at many UK airfields (beware that frozen ADF needle once you're inbound to the beacon
, although not a problem for me because I have never managed to peg that bloody needle yet....).
My own view is that we should move forward with GPS technology asap. In truth the CAA in some respects probably want to achieve this just as much as we do but the problem is that to do so costs money.
As we all know, the CAA are required by government to be self financing. Seems to me that perhaps (unfortunately) for now the cheaper option is to keep the status quo (or our medical and licensing costs will have to go up again
)
Having said all this, I would be very sorry to see NDBs ever removed for some of the (navigation) reasons already stated. Despite having an FMS to fly on I always tune to an appropriate one as a backup, even when using VFR. I can't say we ever get much chance to listen to the cricket scores though
