IO540

Your explanation of why some of us are so passionate about GPS is very well put.

GA needs new blood, it needs new pilots, it needs to embrace new tecnology otherwise GA will cease to exist.

That does not mean there isnt a place for "traditional" skills and traditional aircraft. I enjoy flying Tigers and I have enjoyed the precsion navigation competitions in which I have taken part (in which incidentally you carry a GPS without a display to verify your performance).

However we are increasingly accustom to "satnav" in our cars, electronic ignition, fuel efficient engines etc etc. Todays children will expect "satnav" in their aircraft, will be bemused that we dont have GPS approaches and will demand aircraft that dont appear to be from the dark ages. I am not a todays child but I remember well when I learnt my first flight in an ageing PA28. It was damp in side, the carpet falling to bits, not much of the kit seemed to work - was I really going flying in this?

We need a vibrant GA community if we are going to continue enjoying flying attracting more new pilots who are prepared to keep and use their license.

Rant over :\

IO540,
I was thinking that when writing hence the "arguably" :D Point taken, but if nobody assumes accountability or underwrites the setup then the revenue stream is right out of the window and so is the motivation to do anything.

So Fuji Flyer, where did ATC tell you to divert 60NM .... mmm, they didn't. Or did you mean a different post ??

Maybe I am wierd, but as a pilot I accept my own responsibilities and make my own decisions. Sometimes that means I have to think on the hoof .... such is the life of an aviator.

If I make a mistake, I live with the consequences :ok:

As I said earlier ... GPS is a good thing if training is given and used properly. For anyone who uses it as an excuse for their own shortcomings .... that's their lookout :ok:

PR

The point I was seeking to illustrate is that GPS is a very powerful tool for providing a pilot with the information he needs when having to think on the hoof. It provides a means of navigating that is far less error prone and far quicker than traditional navigation in these type of circumstances.

As I am sure you realised my point was to wonder how many traditional navigators could accurately and quickly complete a diversion of this type if asked to, never mind if they had to.

What your shortcomings and consequences of mistakes have to do with anything leaves me struggling.

The reality is sometimes a diversion over some distance is necessary for all sorts of reasons and I can think of numerous reasons which do not remotely have anything to do with pilot shortcomings. A true traditionalist of course would use nothing but the equipment in a Tiger Moth. GPS provides another way of going about it which is far more sophisticated.

If you prefer to do mental arithmetic rather than use a calculator then good for you. As I think IO540 said it doesnt matter to me how you navigate.

HWD,

The future EU system you describe will be no better than the US one, and who do you think invented WAAS? You can already fly your magical GPS flight in the States.

The US system is backed by the US government, it's hard to think an operation run by private companies could be more solid than that. The US understand certification requirements, they probably wrote the book on aviation certification, and GPS is certified as safe over there. I can see why the EU might want their own system for political reasons, but I simply don't accept it will be better than the US one technically or operationally.

It's all down to money, IMO. Another example of rip off Britain???

The case for Galileo is put here

http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy...q/index_en.htm

The only conclusion one can reach from the language used is that the reader is supposed to be completely brainless.

There is not a shred of solid (or logical) substance in it. Just a load of the standard "us Europeans are morally superior to the Americans, so we can't trust them and their military motives" stuff.

It beggars belief that billions of OUR money is being spent by an organisation employing such morons in their marketing dept. Yet, if they really do have a good (presumably covert) reason for it, what could it be?

One suggested use has been wide (Europe-wide) implementation of road tolls, where a vehicle-borne device records the road(s) used at various times, and occassionally uploads the data (using GSM/GPRS) to a central billing agency. Not only are there difficult anti-tampering issues to overcome there but also I am not aware of any such wide-ranging road charging proposal being made; we already have road tax for that...

Galileo will have a more powerful and more receivable signal than present-day Navstar, but the Americans are doing the same thing with theirs.

Ah, Galileo will have SA! What a backward step.

It won't be the Pre-Clinton 200-metre SA; it will be more like the existing Navstar accuracy.

The plan is to charge for a "guaranteed availability" (gosh how will they ensure that, by putting up a website with a statement from J Chirac with a sample of his sperm attached for DNA identification?) signal which you will have to pay for, and which will have a bit more accuracy too, AIUI.

The way to get real accuracy from GPS (below 1m) is to decode the signal which contains the atmospheric dispersion data. The US military encrypt that just for themselves. Galileo appears to plan to provide that to civilian users who pay for it; this appears to be really upsetting the Americans who have put out that famous (if completely unnecessary and obvious) statement that they reserve the right to put Galileo out of action if necessary.

Shall we make that the 21st :ok:

Seriously - I think it's about time the lovers of steam gauges got real. GPS navigation and glass cockpits are the way fwd, both for private and commercial aviation.

I, for one, am sick and tired of the 'look out the window' school of thought that would like to forbid even the use of VORs and NDBs

Can a GPS go wrong ? Sure can. So can a signal from a VOR and an NDB and every other technical gizmo hitherto invented.

In fact, I venture to say that GPS makes everyone, and PPLs especially, safer and it's totally idiotic not to train the use of it.

Why? Simple - because you get more time to actually look out the window and scan for traffic ! More situational awareness, more time to actually 'fly' the airplane. Better than burying your head in the cockpit and trying to figure out where you are on a hopelessly cluttered chart. It also reduces workload - and the less workload you have in the cockpit, the more spare capacity (both mental and time) you have for other tasks. Not to mention the NRST function in an emergency.....

Rant over, tin hat on, awaiting low flying steam gauges or parts thereof.

Slim,
I would call having 50-80 better than just 24 - simplistic I know :) Assuming of course Galileo succeeds in integrating the three systems.
It is rather immoral that tax money (I assume) is being used to fund an entrepenurial (sp?) enterprise. But if there isn't any money in it, it will never happen and it needs to happen.

"But if there isn't any money in it, it will never happen "

That's is entirely inaccurate, unfortunately :O

Once politics gets stuck in, particularly anti-American politics, and the heads of EADS (a.k.a. France Inc.), Alenia (a.k.a. Italy Inc.) and the other usual suspects can smell a number of Euro billions in govt contracts, the financial case falls by the wayside.

Not that I would complain about more satellites, of course. But will they work with the existing receivers? Will there be an upgrade path for the few thousand KLN89, KLN94, GNSx30 etc owners around Europe? Not to mention the higher number of various handhelds? I don't know.

The last I've heard is that it will be possible to develop GPS receiver chipsets which receive both systems, but that certainly rules out any upgrades short of ripping out the complete PCB. Nobody is going to bother, because with a decent rooftop aerial I already get twice as many satellites than I need for a 3D fix, probably 90% of the time, and I've never lost reception in 500hrs. Apart from a 2-minute bit near Italy when both my GPSs went, and that was clearly jamming.

Jamming, for military practice or for real national security reasons, will jam both systems, and it would be naive to believe otherwise. Likewise for GPS being turned off; there is no plausible national security scenario in which private aviation would still be permitted.

I wouldn't pay any money at all to receive more satellites. In aviation ownership, there are always bigger and more important fish to pay for :O

The real benefits of a more powerful signal will be in more reliable road navigation (anyone using TomTom etc will know what I mean) and various spinoffs from that. But not aviation. As I've said before, we can have GPS approaches into [insert your favourite GA airfield] right now. Why not? Because of the CAA charges and the CAA requirement for full ATC. Most of the relevant airfields couldn't wait to get shot of the higher-paid ATC staff fast enough.

"Most of the relevant airfields couldn't wait to get shot of the higher-paid ATC staff fast enough."

A small word of caution.

In my experience for the competent pilot ATC on the whole is a pain whether you are joining VFR or IFR for an approach.

However, there are occasions when the pilot is clearly struggling, (perhaps joing in visual conditions which are below his personal limits or the approach is going horribly wrong). In these circumstances it is noteworthy how professional SOME controllers can be and usually the more experienced approach controllers. I can think of a recent occasiosn when clearly the guy should not have neen flying and the levels of panic were rising listening to his voice over the RT. It was noteworthy how the senior controller "suddenly" took over proceedings, took "control" of the pilot and carm was restored. I thought to myself well done chap - a real professional - thank you.

Sorry all a bit off topic I know.

I agree; I prefer ATC, myself. I find the hardest airfields to visit are ones like Stapleford or Wellesbourne, where on a nice Sunday it's a total free for all and one wonders if anybody (including the instructors) actually have a PPL.

Obviously the locals there think it's great and they wouldn't have it any other way.

I was just reminding that we could have GPS approaches right now, but nobody wants to pay for the process which the CAA has put in the way.

IO540,
GPS approaches would be great and I agree that the CAA should wake up to the 21st century. BUT, some form of protection would be needed for IFR traffic going into Class G aerodromes on GPS approaches. Would you be happy to make approaches to such places with no traffic separation? Hence ATC. Fine. Who would pay for that? Is it reasonable to expect the VFRers to pay extra just so that the few of us who would use GPS approaches can have ATC? The reason places like Stapleford etc thrive is because they are "cheap".
The solution of course is to embrace technology - GPS, Gallileo, Mode S, TCAS etc and make it affordable. But that will require a quantum leap in thinking. Hey presto we would all be flying like airliners. How dull. Just look at how many commercial pilots enjoy the freedom of gliding.

Droopystop,

Make calls on the Air/Ground frequency - even blind calls if necessary. Separate yourself from anyone who has recently called up in the same position as you are shortly going to be in.

In VMC, there is no need for any additional protection because your primary means of separation is lookout. In IMC, no one will be flying unless they are IFR. So prohibit IFR flight in an ATZ in IMC without making the correct radio calls, and the problem is solved.

After all, the US has plenty of instrument approaches outside controlled airspace, and aircraft don't fly into each other too regularly.

Incidentally, this could apply to any (approved) form of instrument approach, it doesn't have to be a GPS approach.

FFF
---------------

Yes, lots of untowered fields have IAPs with Class G at the surface, Class E above 700ft AGL. Centre will separate IFR planes procedurally. Only one on the approach and nobody else cleared until the first one cancels IFR, no departures either until IFR inbounds have cancel. Also when clearance void times are used a lot.

If its VMC then it's see and avoid. Everybody talks on the common frequency. There are untowered fields with IFR wide bodied jets coming in with VFR spamcans in the pattern, all talking on common frequency, avoiding each other visually. I am sure the jet is grateful almost everybody in the States squawks mode C.

I think it's a non-issue because when the weather is such that somebody might want to use an IAP to get into a place like Stapleford or Wellesbourne, the place would be like a graveyard.

Today was a super flying day, and I was up for a few hours, but with 20-30kt surface winds it was very quiet indeed. Anytime vis is below say 7k, I am happy as a pig in s**t but there is hardly anybody about.

So you would never actually have a "Stapleford" with six in the circuit (plus another three doing "real man circuits" i.e. inside the other six, cutting them up as they feel free) PLUS somebody doing an instrument approach, under conditions where there would be a separation problem between IFR traffic and VFR traffic - because the IFR traffic would be in VMC and would have to look out.

Actually Stapleford and Wellesbourne and probably poor examples; with Welshpool and others they have an on-site navaid and without a doubt have unofficial instrument approaches already, CAA-authorised for certain based operators. So............ how do THOSE work, on a field with no ATC? I reckon they work exactly as I describe; they get used only when the place is like a graveyard.

I considered the common frequency and yes it would certainly work in an ideal world. But there are too many old and bolds who quite simply switch off their radio when flying in class G. On top of that there are those who refuse to have radios and those who are too busy to be for ever changing frequency. Class E above 700feet agl - good idea. As for traffic separation based on the weather turning airfields into graveyards......

I am all for GPS, maybe approaches if they can be protected. But I think it is wrong make private VFR aviation more complicated or expensive. I would love to be able to jump into an aircraft and fly where I want, when I want and talk to who I want. That is the essence of aviation - freedom.

"Class E above 700feet agl - good idea"

That doesn't square up with UK's ability to fly in IMC anywhere. With the above proposal, you would need ATC clearance to enter IMC. Where is all this ATC, and who is going to pay their salary?

You can't have it both ways.

It would also catch a lot of planes in en route IFR charges; something else they haven't got in the USA. They also haven't got Europe's vastly and completely intellectually superior (and inaccessible to most pilots) IR.

"I think it is wrong make private VFR aviation more complicated or expensive"

Exactly! :O

I think the UK airspace system is OK, given the IMC Rating, the ability to fly in IMC in Class G, the ability to fly just about anywhere in Class G. It's easily possible to do serious cross country trips in the UK, at low level (say below 3000ft), mixing VFR and IFR as required.

In comparison, say France, IFR is impossible without an ATC clearance (and requires the full JAA IR which most people will never be able to get) but VFR is freely doable but only at higher levels, FL065-FL105 mostly, and most PPLs don't like going that high, or can't because they'd in the clouds (which needs an IR to penetrate, even though they can fly VMC on top). Below that, you are stuck in masses of prohibited military airspace which takes ages to just look up in the SIA book. It's no wonder that most GA in France is VFR and sticks to very short excursions.

So one can't mix different airspace systems, picking the best of each. I tend to see advocates of "Class E everywhere" are mostly sub-2000kg owners with a JAA IR; a miniscule group numerically but quite vocal online. Whereas 2000kg+ pressurised owners with a full IR tend to "fully appreciate" ;) the option to go VFR; in France you can do it up to FL195 and your costs go down by about £30/hour.


Beagle:
"Pretend-airliner drivers are welcome to $od off somewhere else."

Now, that isn't exactly an inclusive attitude, is it?????

I can fly a tight enough oval circuit; what p1sses me off if even when I do that, somebody cuts me up on the inside. You call that "airmanship"? And I might be flying a slightly bigger circuit because I am doing the correct thing and following somebody else doing such a circuit. Anyway, I don't want to start another thread on this well worn topic. Just think of a foreign pilot coming to one of these places.