AAIB Comment in Clued Up

[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

[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)



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



but common sense might suggest that is not much good.

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

[POBJOY]

CAA comments

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]

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



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

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.

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]

Originally Posted by david viewing

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...