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EVO,
I do actually understand perfectly how the box works and to be frank it is actually very simple. Or maybe I have a brain the size of a planet....:cool: :cool: |
I think I'm one of the option 4 candidates.
Until recently, when I started flying aircraft with the payload to carry a GPS, I'd never used one. So, line on a chart and cross-referencing it is too. About the reliability thing, I'm sure that it is a damn sight more reliable than a lot of other, quainter, navaids and in VMC I can't beat it for telling me how lost I am. I'm unlikely to become an IFR person but if I were, the other 23 hours in the day when you're not using GPS may be the times it has problems ? IO - I'm not "spreading an anti-GPS story", nor am I anti-GPS, merely trying to point out that 350 hours out of 8000 in a year isn't a big enough sample to convince me to rely totally on it - much the same as a lot of other people. |
Yes, I think training is the #1 problem. But the powers to be, as well as much of the old crowd, have dug themselves so deep that bringing it in formally is just about impossible. I guess you could add some GPS theory to the PPL Aircraft Technical exam, but why not have some kind of basic post-PPL "differences training" (coupled with an associated avionics-quality requirement) that allows you to use GPS as a primary navigation aid? That way there is a basic check that the user understands the kit well enough to avoid the most simple mistakes - and that IMHO is the real problem with GPS. As the price of a receiver drops below the price of an hour in the air I can't believe it will be ignored forever. We cannot fly IMC or tailwheel without demonstrating competence. Why not the same thing for GPS as a primary navaid? Those with decent kit and a sign-off can join the 21st Century, the rest of us can carry on with a Pilot III as backup. |
Quick word to the unwise: Don't do what I did... carry it in your pocket thinking eyeball one was the trick, then in the soup when you want it, realise you can't pick your way through the menus whilst trying to dodge the crud.
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The paper is concerned only with IFR operations and GPS. It is years behind what is happening in most other places in the world, and is only applicable to the UK.
We shall continue using our RAIM prediction service to help carry out safe non-precision GPS approach procedures, like we have for the past 10 years or so..... :zzz: |
I also go for Fly Stim's number 4. Devising a standard training component of the PPL (or add-on package: I like Evo's idea of a form of differences training) might be a bit tricky, because of the variations in available kit, but the problems would not be insurmountable. I expect that we shall see this emerging quite soon. I think that Irv Lee and others already offer post-PPL GPS-nav courses, emphasising the ancillary benefits of the technology in terms of fuel management and so forth.
Meanwhile, one of these days I really must learn properly how to use my GPS, instead of simply using it as an occasional backup, although I must confess that I'm one of those weirdos who obtains a perverse pleasure from flying by DR. |
I read the report as a PR exercise to justify Galileo.
US system = old, bad, unreliable US+EU system = sweetness and light I'm also an option 4 and until I get errors or loss of service, I will carry on using it as an integral part of my navigation. BS (who went to school in the days when you weren't allowed to use calculators) |
FNG
I read a writeup in some UK flying mag c. 1yr ago saying that AOPA were working on add-on modules for the PPL, and GPS nav was to be one of these. Crucially they said the pilot would get some sort useful piece of paper at the end. Heard no more about it. Once I went on a 1 day Honeywell GPS ground school, and I was the only one who turned up! One needs to give people something tangible. But what? GPS usage is unregulated so why attend any course? It's a catch-22. If every school plane had a nice big panel mounted (e.g. a KMD150, not the much more complicated GNSx30 etc) colour GPS but you had to attend 1 day's ground school to be allowed to use it, most people would go right away, I bet. Cost to properly fit one of these is c. £3000. To many people, loading a flight plan into a moving map GPS, either directly or from a PC (the latter is not possible with most panel mounted units), is trivial and takes only minutes to learn. These people are unlikely to ever get lost, basically because it is damn difficult to do when you've got a preprogrammed track in front of you, with pictures of towns, roads, railways, and CAS depicted around it. But others seem to really struggle. How did they get through their PPL exams? Is it just those people who get lost despite having a GPS? The people that do the most serious CAS busts get interviewed, and I am sure somebody has this data, and for some reason they aren't publicising it. My own belief is that those that get lost with a GPS are people who were using a non-moving map model and didn't understand it's rather obscure display (I know I wouldn't automatically). But what we get instead is a load of bunk (see CAA safety sense leaflet #25 for example) telling everybody about "terrain shielding" etc... The whole matter of GPS has been very badly mishandled, I think. |
The AOPA chit route could work. Consider the AOPA Aerobatics Certificate: this is unofficial, as no special licence or rating is required to fly aeros, but over the years the AOPA course has gained customer recognition as the standard intro to the discipline. A GPS course, sponsored by AOPA or someone else, could acquire similar kudos over time. I would expect to see GPS-nav being incorporated into the PPL syllabus within a few years in any event.
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GPS Courses
So what sort of format would be taught in a GPS course.
Would it require everyone to use, say a specific model, say a 196 or a panel-mounted, roof-aerialled and with runway and approach capability?? GPS's vary enormously in terms of display and capability, as well as the depth of wallet of the pilot. That would all have to be taken into account Looking at previous GPS correspondence you'd never agree a course to fit all users, from the PFA and gliding fraternity to the heavy-duty IFR users. There is a useful little manual produced by the BGA on basic GPS use - but I think that is based on an early Garmin - the 12 I think. It gives the basic principles but won't go as far as modern equipment will permit. In my career to date, the hardest problems I have had have been getting to know the radio kit in each new plane. No standardisation, lots of switches and knobs in different places on the panel etc. Now we have different GPS types to add to my confusion ........ |
A GPS course, sponsored by AOPA or someone else, could acquire similar kudos over time. The AOPA radio-nav course is very good for those who would like to use radio navaids to help fly themselves around, and would arguably be more sensible than an IMCR for many people who take an IMC with no real intention of using it "for real". However, few people seem to do it and I would suspect that an AOPA GPS course would suffer a similar fate. I think any GPS "rating" would need to be more official; remember though that I'm talking about something that would allow you to use a Garmin 530 as a primary navaid (in the same way that you could use a VOR), rather than a blanket requirement for every PPL with a pocket GPS. So what sort of format would be taught in a GPS course. |
Went to an interesting Royal Institute of Navigation lecture on SatNav for General Aviation some years ago. Got lost in Helmert Transformations and Molodenski Formula, which was ironic, but a very interesting chap called Huw Baumgartner from CAA/NATs summarised the CAA’s position on technical issues.
He made 3 navigational equipment system definitions. A Sole Means Air Navigation System – approved for specific phases of operations. VOR/DME is an example. A Stand Alone Air Navigation System – is not combined with other navigational sensors or systems. It gets no help from another source such as when an IRS is updated by multi DME - DME. A Supplemental Air Navigation System – is an approved system that can be used in conjunction with a Sole Means System. The GA community is looking for an approved Stand Alone – Sole Means – cleared for enroute and approaches- viz. GPS. The difficulty here is that the signal is weak and subject to in band interference and out of band interference. The former relates to problems at or near the propagated signals spectrum – satellite comms systems for example and in the latter case, transmissions on apparently remote frequencies that interfere with the signal. Harmonics on VHF frequencies such as the thirteenth harmonic of Gatwick Approach falls in the middle of GPS spread. Arc welders also have an interesting effect! The CAA’s position is that GPS is a Supplemental System when approved. Wilful interference is a key topic that is no doubt being addressed by security agencies. An ice cream van fitted with a jammer the size of a shoebox could, if sited on Hog’s Back in Surrey, could render all GNSS approaches inoperative, at all South East UK airports. These are the times we live in. The conclusion was that CAA is supportive of satellite based navigation but it has to be conducted at an appropriate level of safety. Safety in a security context seems to be a moving and political target. The provision of a dedicated European satellite in the near future to provide a form of WAAS is eagerly anticipated. I use a B-RNAV approved GPS for enroute navigation. I get at least one RAIM failure per flight on average. They don’t last for long and other non approved GPS installations in the A/C give no indications other than they are fat and happy – whilst the main GPS is red flagging the HSI and beeping away like a good ‘un. Came away from the lecture committed to always fly a Sole Means Air Navigation System side by side with GPS. |
No matter what one does, GPS can always be jammed eventually.
But one can make it very hard to do. Rooftop aerials (essential for a decent reliable signal, anyway) help a lot from ground-based sources and also with interfering sources on the same metal aircraft (e.g. DME aerials being on the bottom). Anybody can do this, and everybody should. If I was the CAA, and I wanted to formalise GPS somehow, I would make rooftop aerials mandatory. It's relatively cheap. Anyone using a handheld with an integral aerial, inside an all-metal cockpit, is asking for trouble. Unfortunately these units do work 99% of the time :O Introducing IRS data into the GPS receiver enables one to make it far more resistant to jamming - even if the IRS gyro has poor long term accuracy. Reasonably priced FOG-gyro attitude instruments already exist so this isn't far away. Aerial polarisation is another technology not yet available to civilian users. Other anti-jam technologies require more processing power but you bet the military have them. It's pretty easy to work out how to do that, too. One essential point is that if a modern GPS is unable to compute a good solution, it says so. Identing a VOR or NDB or DME just tells you you've got the right frequency tuned; it says nothing about the instrument being useful. I've flown with VOR and DME kit which could be made to read anything, and yes they were within the DOC. But I bet ILS will be with us for decades to come :O What I don't get is why so many people keep assuming that GPS usage implies using it as a sole nav reference.... |
Sorry for bringing this one back from the dead
IO540 wrote: You can always find these stories from somebody. Was it an ancient GPS with an internal aerial, used below deck perhaps?? Or did they enter a user waypoint and got a couple of digits transposed? The article goes on to point some of the other problems with GPS, including weak signals, interference and jamming. It is interesting to note that the European Maritime Safety Agency is looking at the use of LORAN C for back up to GPS. GPS is great and should become part of the nav part of the ppl, but you should always be able to tell when it is telling porkies, in other words, be able to gross error check your position using the chart or other nav aids. |
GPS is great and should become part of the nav part of the ppl, but you should always be able to tell when it is telling porkies, in other words, be able to gross error check your position using the chart or other nav aids. |
CAA over reaction
As far as I can see it the knee jerk reaction from the CAA has always been anti GPS and when the first hand held units showed up with power from the cigar lighter socket , the anttena stuck on to the windsheild with a suction cap and lots of wires to trip over in the cockpit I could see the point of this attitude.
Move on ten years and B-RNAV is mandatory above FL100 and 99% of the B-RNAV units are TSO GPS units , the rest of the world is doing GPS NP aproches and still they are sticking to the GPS is not 100% safe line !. First let me tell you no machine is 100% safe but with the way the leagal system works in the USA do you think that the FAA could afford to approve such a system if they did not think that it was safe for every day use .........I think not !. The USA is the biggest user of GPS on the planet and do we see the States littered with aircraft that have crashed on GPS approches ?. I would also like to know What the GPS vs NDB approach accident rate is as I suspect that the numbers would show that the CAA attitude to GPS is increasing the risk of an accident. The problem is political not technical the CAA have dug themselfs into a hole and cant find a way to crawl out just like when they over reacted to the Lycoming crankshaft corrosion problem costing people tens of thousands of pounds , I see that they have quietly withdrawn that AD in favour of the much more sensable FAA AD now that no one is lightly to take leagal action. The lycoming engine problem is a simple one involving a lump of metal and a lot of data that the CAA could no longer argue aganst and belatedly when all danger of the legal action was passed they conceded to the hard facts , the GPS debate is far more complcated and they can sit in the Gatwick glasshouse for years to come ignoring this the GPS reality and thinking that they are the world power in aviation legislation but they have supervised over the compleat demise of the Brithsh aircraft construction industry I just wonder how long it will be before no airliner in the UK carries a "G" plate because of the obsticals that the CAA places in the way of progress. |
But if they did a report looking at VFR navigation the old way, I wonder which would be least prone to failure? FWIW, I seldom use our GPS (a Skypmap IIIc) and still I have seen it twice place the aircraft a few miles from where it actually was. |
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