The use of GPS...
 

Thanks for all taking time to read this thread, I am compiling research for a presentation on GPS and the private pilot, and I would really appreciate your views. If you have the time I'd be grateful if you could just write down your comments on how GPS has helped a PPL holder, and how it is moving the way we navigate onwards and upwards. Also, if anyone believes that GPS shouldn't be used, I'd like to hear from you.

Thanks alot for your time,
BBear

I have never taught my PPL students to use a GPS when available. That is to say, not untill right before their checkrides. I am of opinion that you should learn to be able fly without a GPS, but also, be able to use a GPS, as you should know to use all systems on the aircraft your are flying, plus it can be a handy thing to use...

I have a handheld GPS, and to be honest, i have never used it since i got my instrument rating, nor have i used panel mounted ones, except for to make GPS approaches. I found that once i really understood how to use VOR and NDB stations, it is much easier and quicker to check your approximate position.

This all said, i do think GPS will "take over" so to speak, also for PPL holders. Look at the Garmin and Avidyne panel mounted systems. But i am also old-fashioned in a way that i say "I hope everyone can still navigate their way around, when the GPS' fails"

Gps
 

Until a satisfactory civil owned and operated system of satellites is in place GPS will rely on US and Russian military systems that can be shut down at any time. For this reason the FAA will not allow airlines to use GPS as a primary navigational aid. A few years ago there was a satellite jammer sytem on open sale at a Russian trade show. Imagine this in the hands of a terrorist organisation!
GPS can only be an aid, not a substitute for navigation.

For VFR flights, the primary means of navigation is, and always will be, looking out the window. As long as that primary means of navigation remains, and continues to be taught to an appropriate level, there is nothing wrong with backing it up with whatever other aids happen to be available, and GPS is a great tool for this.

For IFR flights, it is again useful, and probably important, to use as many navigation aids as possible to back each other up. So if you are following a radial from a VOR, there's nothing wrong with following that radial, and having a line on a moving map GPS to confirm that the VOR is working correctly - or vice versa, following a GPS track, and having the VOR tuned and the CDI or OBS centred to enable you to cross-check the VOR.

The problem with both VFR and IFR operations is that modern GPS is so easy to use in its simplest form, and so flexible once you start going into more detail, that it is very tempting to use it as the only means of navigation. For VFR flight, this results in lack of situational awareness, since you are no longer using your primary means of navigation. I got caught out by this just last week. I was P1 on a flight which I intended to make IFR, but on the day we decided to depart VFR from an airfield which I am not familiar with. I had the route programmed into the GPS, and followed the GPS route. ATC asked us to report abeam a certain town, and I realised I had no idea where the town was, and didn't have a chart to hand. Fortunately, there was another pilot sat in the right seat, who located the chart and pointed out where the town was, thus keeping my workload to relatively low levels.

For IFR flight, the danger comes on the rare occassions when the GPS fails and you are left with little awareness of the navigation aids around you, none of them tuned in, and hence no way of fixing your position without a sudden increase in workload. But if pilots are aware of these potential dangers, and ensure they don't fall into the traps, then GPS is one of the best tools modern aviation has.

FFF
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have to agree with IBLB in saying you should learn to navigate without GPS. Very important. However because GPS is now so widely used i think it should be part of a PPL course to be able to put in a route to a GPS, understand what all the different things are i.e. dtk, obs etc. (they are mostly industry standard) and understand how it will go wrong and that it can go wrong. Not that a VOR or NDB wouldn't go wrong.

A perfect example of this would be my Dad. He bought a brand new Cessna 182 about 5 years ago after getting his ppl. It was FAA IFR equipped but that was irrelevant because he had no IR. He had no idea how to use the equipment in the aircraft only the VOR. It was easy for me to pick it up but he grew up without all this stuff so he found it a very slow process. I think that if his PPL course had outlined the GPS use then it would have made it easier for him.

So how do you explain Airbuses and Boeings carrying out GPS approaches ?;)

The real question is ..... how many pages (of mostly uninformed and prejudiced anti-GPS bu11sh1t) to allow this thread to run to before typing up a reply?

I will simply say that I agree with what Flying For Fun has said.

One other small point is that pilots IFR and VFR must remember that even the approved units are only certified to keep the flight within 5nm of the centerline (RNP5) so no point in planning to miss a CTR boundary by 1nm based on GPS.

Also, I have come across plenty of pilots who use GPS in one form or another. Of that large number, less than 1% knew what RAIM checks were and when they are required and even less actually did a RAIM check pre-flight. In this area, Eurocontrol and National Agencies could do more to publicise the tools available.

Regards,

DFC

DFC, there really is no point reading from your book and telling people there is 'no point in planning to miss a CTR boundary by 1nm based on GPS', when these same people know exactly how accurate GPS is from practical experience.

VORs are only certified to keep you within a certain distance from the centreline, but you can still shoot VOR approaches and expect to land on the runway when you break out 600ft AGL. The GPS accuracy doesn't change along an airway like a VOR receiver does. I think the 5nm you quote has more to do with VOR physics than GPS physics. In fact there is a strong argument for airlines to fly an 1nm offset because GPS are so accurate they will hold you precisely on the centreline.

GPS's are approved for non precision approaches in the States, they will get you to the airport with an accuracy of far greater than the one mile you are telling us there is no point to rely on.

I'd also ask how you came up with 'less than 1%', you would have to ask several hundred people the question before you get anything statistically quoteble, and I simply don't believe you anyway. Perhaps you should ask light aircraft pilots the question?

Bonglebear, do a search in the private pilot forum. You will find loads of stuff on this site, most of it repeated (as proven by my post above). You will also see the same names pop up :)

Thanks alot for the comments, all much appreciated!

When doing a search, make sure to change the period! Since the search function was restored, it seem to only search posts in the last month by default.

Perhaps DFC's 99% of pilots were using portable gps units, where RAIM checks aren't available? The nearest thing would be to understand how your unit shows a 2D fix and a 3D fix, and no fix.

dp

My take:

The dark ages of navigation by stopwatch and compass are gone. The dark days of wobbly VORs and lightning detector NDBs are almost gone. GPS knows where you are within +/- 100metres, mostly less.

When the primary means of VFR navigation (mapreading) tells you your location to within one mile (if you're lucky and the wind hasn't shifted), and the secondary means of navigation fixes you within 100metres, which is more reliable?

Yes, the electrics could die, but a spare GPS on batteries following the same route would keep going for at least 3 hours - more then enough time. On the flip side, what if your visibility sudden goes down to 1 mile or less while you're mapreading the old fashioned way in a C152 with knackered avionics? Oh dear, you're in big trouble - especially for a PPL. We all know it happens.

It's a bit like comparing a sextant to an INS - the INS will let you avoid the mountains, but the sextant will give you a closer approach. I'm sure airline pilots whined about the sextant being easier to use - do the use it now? Mapreading is fine for PPL training, and nessescary, but if you're lost in low vis and out of range of 121.5, GPS WILL save the day (as long as you know how to use it).

Mapreading, NDBs and VORs are now secondary navigation - like it or whine about it, GPS is here to stay. The Wright brothers flew 103 years ago - maybe we've found a better method of navigating - and none too soon.

I'm very grateful to Dublinpilot for showing me his incredible GPS setup on a flight last year - it really opened my eyes.

The key here is to examine the problems with GPS and the alternatives. These are the commonly cited problems:

1. It is possible to jam the signal,
2. It is possible for the set to fail without reporting it has failed,
3. It may be subject to accuracy degradation,
4. The database may be inaccurate.

Whilst there has been much talk of the ability to jam GPS signals and the availability of equipment to do so, there are no unscheduled reports of jamming. Whilst VFR GPS are not RAIM compliant if the signal is jammed they are far more likely to report a loss of signal or degradation of navigation to 2D.

It would be a poor pilot who was not monitoring his predicted en route course against the GPS by some other means. For example, with a moving map GPS you would have a pretty good idea how quickly the aircraft was moving along the map, the heading compared with that of your DI and your position by reference to visual features. In reality only the most subtle of the problems identified might go unnoticed. For example were the signal to be jammed the GPS would indicate a loss of signal and the aircraft would stop moving on the display or perhaps jump around the map in an unpredictable manner. Both are likely to get the pilots attention! A loss of degradation is far more subtle and could mean you are wide of your predicted course but it seems very unlikely that the degradation would be reflected in a continuos and predictable manner so that the aircraft was shown consistently 5 miles wide of track to the north for example.

In short a pilot who was at the very least cross checking his GPS with visual features occasionally and monitoring his progress to ensure it was following his predicted course is very unlikely not to be aware of any of these problems. That does of course mean he still needs to have the ability to fall back on some other form of navigation should the need arise.

The problems are broadly not dissimilar for a pilot en route operating IFR in IMC, other than the obvious issue that visual navigation is not now an option. As they have been for a long time now the tools of trade are the VOR’s and the PLOG. Once again if both are being monitored with even a modicum of diligence it is unlikely the discrepancy between the PLOG, the VORs and the GPS will go unnoticed for very long.

There is of course a significant difference with IMC operations (with broad similarities to flying very close to a zone boundary) and VMC operations in that during the landing and departure phases very accurate navigation is required and even for a pilot with good currency a risk that he may not identify a problem with the GPS of the sort described quickly enough. For this reason it seems vital that either operations of this sort are supported by other navigational aids or in the case of an approach the minimum takes account of the navigational risk. For example at an airport with an NDB DME procedure and a minima of 600 feet there would seem little problem relying on a RAIM GPS approach if the highest obstacle within the sector is 250 feet!

In short I cant help feeling a great deal of rubbish is printed about the use of GPS by people who have little understanding of its problems and its practical use. Of course if you are blindly relying on GPS for navigation and are an inexperienced pilot you may infringe a zone or end of getting hopelessly lost, but this must be weighted against the likelihood of the same pilot getting lost using traditional forms of navigation. In so far as the IFR pilot is concerned if he is going to operate in IMC in a SEP, SP, then he needs all the help he can get. He is hopefully going to have the experience not to rely on any one single means of navigation and that includes VORs. In over 1,000 hours of using a GPS in a SEP I have had the VOR fail twice, and become unstable or out of range on more occasions than I can count and yet the GPS has never (repeat never) failed. For such operations the aircraft is going to be fitted with at least one VOR, probably two, a DME and two moving map GPSs - there is pretty good redundancy and cross checking cover.

Confabulous, I can not concur that map reading is dead.

When the resolution of the screen is sufficient to show me the same details as my 1/2-million scale map, we may be some way closer to map reading being dead. Indeed, many pilots I know find that the 1/2-million is not detailed enough, and opt for the more detailed 1/4-million scale.

Likewise, when I can read NOTAMs, take a lat/long coordinate of a NOTAM of interest, and plot it on my GPS to ensure that I remain clear of it all day, we might be a little closer. Bear in mind that as an instructor, I do a lot of flying which is not along pre-planned routes, but general handling in and around my local area. In the case of trial lessons, I often don't decide where I'm going until after I get airborne (when the trial lesson happens to mention that they work at XXX, so I suggest that they fly themselves over their place of work, for example), so simply deciding in advance whether my track takes me through the relevant area is not enough.

I can not stick old GPS databases on my wall at home, and use them as a rough guide in the early stages of planning, nor can I open a GPS database out in front of a student to show him how the different layers of airspace are built up on top of each other. And if I take my girlfriend flying and point out where I'm planning on taking her on my GPS, the most I might get would be disinterested "hmm", whereas I can point out somewhere on a map and she will associate it with somewhere nearby that she knows.

I could carry on.....

FFF
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FFF - I just had to come back on your post because I did not cover the short comings you mention.

1. Lack of detail compared with a traditional map.

The lack of detail is wholly down to the type of moving map you use, and the use you intend to make of it. The moving map I use is every bit as detailed as the 1/2 mil scale at the higher zoom levels and in some respects far more detailed. With the GPS I can position the aircraft over a VRP (within 30 metres probably) should I want to, but I doubt my map reading is that good.

2. Plotting NOTAMS

.. .. .. but you can. It is just as quick to enter a NOTAM on your moving map as a waypoint as on your chart. Granted adding a zone is more complicated but usually the zone is a radius from the point, so not too much of a problem unless you want to get as close to the zone as possible.

3. Girl friends and putting them on the wall

Many GPS packages come with a PC companion. I think the "GPS maps" for the PC that accompany them are far easier to manipulate than paper charts and far more informative for the student because you can show them flight profiles that miss the areas of controlled airspace in the 3D representation and give the student a better appreciation of climb or descend profiles.

As for the girl friend .. .. ..

and without being sexest, unless she is a pilot people usually relate better to road maps than aviation maps anyway so show her one of these, or switch your GPS PC map between the two (removing all that silly aviation clutter :). She will also be impressed how easy it is to move around a PC GPS map rather than having to spread several maps out over the floor for those longer trips.

I agree with Fuji Abound. Time to move to the 20th century.

FlyingForFun:

"When the resolution of the screen is sufficient to show me the same details as my 1/2-million scale map..."

I think you have a deep mis-understanding of how GPS is used for real navigation.

You CAN get what you want. You just need the right sort of GPS. Not the piece of junk from the local camping accessories shop, which no doubt is what the mostly-rubbish content of CAA "safety" sense leaflet #25 is based on, not to mention the views of most of the old guard of the anti-GPS Kremlin.

The reason most GPSs don't display the printed-chart data is nothing to do with GPS. It is to do with the tight grip on copyright (and the desire for royalties) which exists within the Peoples Republic of Europe, ably assisted by the UK CAA and every other CAA in these parts.

If you want a GPS that shows the CAA charts (in fact potentially up to 1 year less out of date than the paper ones, but I am going to be charitable today) then you can buy Memory Map www.memory-map.co.uk and run it on a pocket/pc PDA, or a Tablet PC. You will end up with a fantastic big-screen GPS which blows away every "aviation" GPS on the market for VFR presentation. And if you go for a Tablet PC like this http://www.motioncomputing.com/produ...blet_pc_ls.asp for example then you can also run a decent flight planning program like Navbox and you can chuck away the slide rule too. Not a £100 solution, but good things never are dirt cheap.

I chucked away my slide rule the day I passed the PPL skills test. Good riddance. IFR navigation is the way forward, regardless of the rules one is flying under.

Unfortunately MM doesn't provide charts for outside the UK (I suspect their marketing man is still having counselling after signing the cheques to the CAA for the use of "their" data) but there are ways to do the same trick for the whole area for which the Jepp 1:500k VFR/GPS charts are available, basically all the way down and across Italy. You can get this on the 28-day update cycle, too. But if, like most PPLs, you never fly outside the UK, this isn't relevant.

There are even ways to do it very cheaply, if you are into "sharing" of map data :O

The reason the Garmins etc don't provide decent VFR maps for Europe is because they can't get them. Not in digital vector form, which is what is needed. So they all license the rather bare vector database from Jeppesen which holds the monopoly on all this stuff. That database is uniform for everywhere.

In reality, existing GPS databases are not a problem because (for VFR) one uses the printed chart for planning anyway. The route is then loaded into the GPS, where it is displayed against the map. During the flight, the GPS just presents the primary reference track line. So there is no great need for every last bit of detail.

If the CAA really wanted to get a grip on the apparently rising CAS infringements issue, they would approach this whole subject properly. They could start by making their map data available free of charge.

Girlz always have problems with rotating maps anyway :O

GPS is mandatory not an option !
 

If you fly above FL100 it is mandatory to have a BRNAV unit fitted to the aircraft.
Most of these units us GPS I have flown three types of airliner for UK based companys that have used GPS and only GPS to meet the BRNAV requirement, Yes the aircraft did have a full "airways" avionic fit but if you think that anything other than the GPS was used when cleared to an airway intersection 500 miles away then it is time for you to wake up and smell the coffee.

A GPS approach has recently been published at Lille, thats not very far from office of the luddites of Gatwick. How long is it going to take for these people to wake up to the fact that the rest of aviation is leaving them in the dark ages ?

The fact is that no one uses ONE and ONLY ONE type of nav aid , you always back up one aid with another and these days most of my IFR flight uses GPS with VOR/DME back up.

The only warning I would add to the above post is the GPS unit must conform to a TSO and be installed in accordance with that TSO, also it must have an up to date data base. The hand held GPS units are very clever but not up to IFR flight.

Unless I'm mistaken, and I may very well be, that only applies to IFR flights, not VFR.

dp

Fuji/IO540,

After reading both your posts, I have to concede that my last post was perhaps a little hasty. As you both point out, it is possible to do some of those things which I said weren't possible - but even though I concede that this may be true, I still think that all the examples I gave are far easier to do with a paper chart.

This is something I have found over many years, not just in aviation. In my previous job as a computer programmer, I often had to study many pages of computer code - a task which I found next to impossible on a computer screen, and far easier on paper, which I could spread around so I could see a large amount of information in one go, and mark it up as I needed. But then when it came to debugging that same code, it would have been impossible to do this on paper, and the extra tools that the computer offered overcame the difficulties of having only a limited amount of screen-space.

In aviation, in the vast majority of situations, the tools the GPS offers overcome the limited screen-space (and even the limited information which the GPS manufacturer has chosen to buy to put on the screen). But there are situations where these tools are not needed, and then the advantages of an old-fashioned map are once again superior. The examples I have given are those which, in my experience, fall into this category, although your experiences may vary from mine.

Please re-read my first post on this thread, and you will see that I am in no way anit-GPS, but I think it is very important to realise that modern GPS is so good that it is very easy to become reliant on it, and to make an effort to ensure that this does not happen. And, as a separate issue, there might be a small number of cases where it is not the best tool.

FFF
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dublinpilot

Quite right, BRNAV capability is mandatory only on BRNAV routes at FL095 and above and this is IFR flight. In the GA context, an IFR GPS is the only meaningful way to meet this requirement.

I am not aware of any nav equipment requirement for day VFR flight. The UK has none. One can look in each country's AIP; I vaguely recall Germany requires the carriage of an ADF (of all things) for night VFR, and France might have something like a VOR receiver given that they permit VMC on top.

A and C

For en-route nav, the case for an TSO'd GPS is a lot thinner than the vendors who charge 5x more money for them would like you to think. The biggest benefit by far comes from a dedicated rooftop aerial. A non-IFR panel mount like a KMD150 (essentially a panel mounted Skymap 3) will be every bit as reliable as a KLN94, GNS430, GNS530. RAIM is not an issue for en-route nav, in reality. And the great benefit of a non-IFR panel mount is that you can load a flight plan into it from a laptop; this feature is not available in any GA IFR unit.

FlyingForFun

As a hardware/software developer I too prefer reading printouts. Paper charts are nicer for large-scale VFR flight planning, because one often needs to work out a bizzarely detailed route to stay outside CAS - only to get a nice DCT through it all on the actual flight.

But nobody is suggesting doing away with paper charts. With a decent flight planning program with the real VFR raster charts (look up Jepp Flitestar and their Raster Chart add-on) you can get the same thing but it's still quite awkward and you need a printer handy.

Really, today, the anti-GPS case ranks alongside leather helmets, goggles, the signals square, keeping the tail wheel in a bucket to stop mice crawling up it and eating the seats, the slide rule, the man in the bar who boasts how he flew some fabric covered biplane all the way to Egypt without ever going above 600ft and without a radio. Nothing wrong with any of these things, so long as one sees them in their correct perspective :O

IO540

Thats that is not true!

I still find leather helmets are the best thing for holding on DCs when aeroing :)

Bet he buys fewer drinks than the person with a fully kitted out moving map spamcan.

I don't see loading data into a panel mounted GPS an issue after all I can get a 5 hour flight plan into the box before the oil walms up enough to taxi.

Thats in the UK , At LGSA in the summer the oil is walm enough to taxi befor I have left the hotel !

The idea behind loading a flight plan from say Navbox or Flitestar directly into the GPS is that it avoids human error.

This is the big "missing link" for IFR flight. You HAVE to use a GPS for airways flight, you more or less have to use serious flight planning software to work out the route, the route can comprise of 50 waypoints, yet there is no way to transfer them from the laptop to the GPS.

The big problem with programming the route in the aircraft is you are much more likely to make a mistake. I only have a 196, but programming it before I leave home with Navbox makes it much more usable than my old 150XL. It only takes a few seconds to transfer and I get the plog and the frequency’s on the printer, which match the route, at the same time.

Rod1

I won't say that I don't make mistakes but 50 waypoints ! ! what on earth are you doing ? I can do northern Spain from the UK with not more than about 15 waypoints.

The gross error check at the end of the input is the distance from the plog to the GPS normaly the differance is one or two miles.

Remember that the SID,s & STAR,s are in the box so that part of the set up is easy the STAR on the taxi out and the SID when you get the arrival clearance.

Depends on whether your GPS can accept airway references directly. Very few can. If not, lots and lots of waypoints to go in, lots of knob twiddling.

In real world terms there is about the same amount of work in putting a route plan into a GA GPS as there is in putting a route of the same time duration into an airliner FMC.

The FMC will of course put in all the waypoints on an airway a with just the input of the start fix, airway number and end fix but most of this information is surplus to requiements in practical terms.

The time that most likely to need a "surplus" waypoint is if ATC wants an ETA for that point, the nearest function on most GA GPS units is likely to find that point and get it into the flight plan as least as quickly as it can be done from the fix page of an FMC. As to loading data in lat/long format there is nothing to choose between a GPS & an FMC in terms of time.

There are some navigation functions on the FMC that the GPS lacks but add a heading input from the HSI and a Fuel/Air data computor and you get 98% of the functions of an FMC for 5% of the price.

Yes, one could load a (straight) airway just by putting in the two fixes and a DCT between them; the advantage of having the intermediate points loaded is that ATC are likely to give you a DCT to one of them, and it is very quick to just scroll down to it on the list and press DCT.

Small details, I agree.

You also get keyboard data entry on a FMC :O

With all the talk of red hot technology perhaps we should take a look at how things were done it the past, may be BEagle could set up a trip for us to the old airliner living museum that is on his door step !.

GPS Is here and is definitely the future

There are quite a few "Luddites" who cannot see this and who don't want to see this and the CAA gives them plenty of good reasons to stay in the dark ages however....

If you have a paper plan worked out and you back it up with GPS then you have the best of both worlds. FAA advise that a technically advanced aircraft is one which has an autopilot and gps and both of these are required equipment for flight.:cool:

In respect of at least the Garmin 430/530, this is absolute tosh.
The spread of scaremongering misinformation about GPS continues.

Lots of intolerance and 'only my way works' from people on both sides of the argument.

Beagle

The highly desirable utopia you describe will never happen, not in Europe anyway.

As I've suggested, you can get close enough though.

Navbox and Flitestar will both load up a non-IFR GPS. Navbox requires the use of printed charts. Flitestar can have the Jepp VFR/GPS charts in it.

IMV, for VFR or IFR flight at nonpressurised levels, one needs a lot more than just a list of TAFs and METARs along the planned route and the F215. One looks at other sources e.g. SigWX, various bits of GFS. So this looks very difficult to do automatically, to everyone's liking.

Again for VFR flight, Notams are a must and in principle one could set up an interface into the AIS database and stuff the planned route into the Narrow Route Briefing. I believe that Navbox has done a tie-up with Avbrief which is supposed to do just this, but last time I tried it (some months ago) I could not get it to work. However, entering the route into the NRB form is trivial enough.

You don't need to fly daily to remain familiar with a modern GPS, for basic en route operations. And terminal operations are not go get a lot of exercise in the UK right now...

A&C

I think airliners never had much of a problem (well other than going into the odd bit of the Andes because their dead reckoning went wrong) because they have been under radar control for many years, they don't have to avoid CAS, icing is rarely a problem (equipment plus mach heating), and they have 2 pilots. I have better nav gear than Concorde had when it retired (I went into the cockpit after landing). A lot of the technology drive for GA appears to be flash marketing (big LCDs especially) but it should make single pilot IFR safer, through a reduction in cockpit workload.

Erm ... from which part of my post did you discern any intolerance or any 'only my way works'? I was not expressing those views and, as it happens, most definitely don't hold them. I would support any navigation method that works reliably.
BEagle made a strong statement against using the more complex GPS's unless you fly daily. That is about as nonsensical and inaccurate as claiming you need to fly daily if you are going to rely on a map, compass and stopwatch!

Chriscook, my statement was in support of yours.

Hey FFF, is that why you changed jobs? :E

Skyhawk-N

Beagle

It is worth taking a look at some of the more recently developed aviation software for GPSs before reaching a conclusion.

PocketFMS is a good example.

The maps cover the whole of Europe and are as detailed as the “official” charts. Monthly updates are freely available. There is a growing user group that work together to keep the non critical data up to date. The software can be run on a PC with full facilities and the flight plans “uploaded” to your GPS. METAR and TAFS can be downloaded for all airports for a given FIR not just en route airports. The frequency information for every airport is shown as well as that for all navigation beacons, all controlled airspace is shown including UK class A, as are all danger areas depicted. VFR approach profiles are available for all airports as well as VFR circuit diagrams and AIP extract. Agreed NOTAMS are not yet shown. Agreed, I am not suggesting this is an “IFR”compliant setup.

Proponents of restricting the use of GPS should take a look at this type of software and of the more recent offerings from Garmin and others before reaching a conclusion. It is surprising how much the software and hardware has progressed.

The reality is all the time the system is working there is really no need to look at a chart or a flight guide again because you have all the information on the display in front of you. I accept the caveat "all the time it is working" and thats why the chart and flight guide will remain firmly by my side but as I posted previoulsy not one GPS has yet let me down and with running twin GPSs there is a bit of redundancy as well.:ok:

The real question is how far you rely on “modern” technology and how far you allow the “old” skills to deteriorate. Sailors use to be able to use a sextant, but not many still can, sailors use to be able to “plot” a course using the manual navigation skills we use in the air, and most making serious passages still can, but many are totally reliant on GPS. The fact is as GPS has been perceived as becoming more and more reliable, and sets cheaper, so more than one can be carried, the more sailors have been prepared to rely on the GPS never letting them down. In reality pilots maybe have it easier because were the GPS to fail (at least in the UK at any rate) they will get a steer from D and D if the “old” skills have become so rusty they do not work!

The question this poses is whether we continue to be correct placing all the emphasis on teaching the “old” skills as part of our PPL training whilst almost totalling ignoring the use of GPSs? Might we at some point become totally reliant on GPSs as our primary means of navigation with most pilots taught these skills during their training with little emphasis on traditional skills? After all in most SEPs we trust our lives to at best double redundancy (two mags, two fuel pumps) and at worst to single redundancy (one engine). I would be interested to know the statistics for engine failures a year compared with twin GPS failures a year - I reckon I know which has the better odds.

An anecdote which for me illustrates well the advantages of GPS. I remember getting a bit too close to some very bad weather in an area with which I was not very familiar and with none of the en route diversions I had planned looking very attractive. There was a somewhat pressing need to go in a completely different direction which as it happened was between charts. The nearest function was able to pull up and at a glance eliminate all the airports in an unsuitable direction, plot a steer, show any danger areas that required avoiding, provide all the frequency information needed, pull up the terrain and ensure there was sufficient fuel to beat a hasty retreat. That’s all information that traditional skills should also be able to provide us with but the instancy with which it is available is a heck of a way of reducing cockpit stress and freeing up time to get on with the more important tasks of flying the old girl!