GPS Jamming Trials 10-21 July 2011
 

Just received this from Ofcom and thought it would be interest to fellow Ppruners:



"The MoD has informed Ofcom of the following GPS jamming exercise:

Dates: Jamming will be conducted on a maximum of 3 week-days in the period 10-21 July 2011.Times: 0900 -1730 BST.

Location: Jamming aircraft will orbit at 10,000ft above mean sea-level (AMSL) along a 50nm flightpath on a heading of 270°T from Kirkwall, starting 10nm to the west of Kirkwall and ending 60nm to the west of Kirkwall

Possible areas affected: The GPS jamming is likely to affect civilian Standard Positioning Service (SPS) receivers over a large area. A minimum jammer to signal vulnerability of 30dB has been assumed for a civilian receiver. Signal theory suggests that a SPS civilian receiver should have approximately 32dB of jamming resistance.

Safety of Life Operations: Safety of life operations will take precedence over exercise activities at all times. To this end, the AWC is open to further discussion with any official recipient on the potential implications of this jamming exercise.

Contact point: During the exercise, any official recipient (or their delegated representative) and any member of the Emergency Services may terminate the jamming for safety reasons by calling the contact numbers below:

(1) Primary: Duty Controller Flying (TLT), RAF Kinloss - Tel: 01309 617857.

(2) Backup: Duty Controller Flying (TLT), RAF Lossiemouth - Tel: 01343 817428.

(3) Tertiary: Duty Air Surveillance Officer, National Air and Space Operations Centre – Tel: 01494 494812. "

If you call "unsure of position due to GPS RAIM error", would that be a sufficient emergency to stop the trials?:rolleyes:

If you can't navigate without relying on GPS then you shouldn't be allowed to fly out of sight of your home airfield.:rolleyes:

Of course, there will be an exemption for the mandatory FL095+ BRNAV capability within the affected area.

Times have moved on.

The Battle of Britain is over.

The Spitfire is a museum piece.

No exemption for airliners IO540. INS, IRS, VOR, DME, ADF, Position fix from D&D cell, radar vectors, dead reckoning, traditional VFR nav techniques, etc, etc.

Pretty much anything in the air should be able to use at least a couple of the above. Loss of GPS signal should never, as implied by post 2, be a 'safety of life' issue. The Spitfire may be a museum piece but its nav techniques still work, and always will, and every PPL holder and above should be fluent in them.

This maybe a silly question but why? why is the MOD jamming GPS? so russian migs can't sneak in under the radar? they realise its not 1982 right.

Presumably trialling equipment and tactics to deny the use of GPS to our enemies in conflicts such as Afghanistan et al. Your question wasn't silly until the last two sentances.;)

So the next time enemy aircraft are sent inbound, they think they will get in by filing a flight plan via VORs. But all the system has to do is to turn off the VORs, reject the flight plans and Bob's your uncle, defence plan complete, on the cheap as usual. :ok:

yeah i can see it now..

ATC: Mig 1 Standby, Remain Clear, Mig 2 Standby, Remain Clear!

MIGS: bugger.

No, they will just delete the MIG aircraft type from the Eurocontrol database. Then the enemy will not be able to even file an IFR flight plan. And there is no way to fly all the way from Russia to Norwich under 100% legal VFR. Problem solved.

It is not for no reason they are doing the jamming trials in Scotland. Hell would break loose if they did it in the south.