AAIB Comment in Clued Up
 

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

Define "overuse"

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

SND

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.

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.

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

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.

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?)

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.

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

One gets so tired, indeed.

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:

Peter

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

: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 :*

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

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.

Now, tell me... :E

Back to AAIB, I really thought those

http://www.toysandlearning.co.uk/pro...hosaurus-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.

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.

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

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

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

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!).

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.

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. ;)