NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: How likely is a GPS shutdown?
From: David F. McCune
Date: 2000 Jan 23, 6:38 PM
From: David F. McCune
Date: 2000 Jan 23, 6:38 PM
Well, those are the VERY long-term FAA plans. At the moment, GPS navigation is barely taught to instrument pilots. I think it is fair to say that every current instrument-rated pilot in every current instrument-equipped plane (whether commercial or private) could comfortably find his way home without GPS. Non-GPS navigation will be standard in aviation for at least several more years, and perhaps throughout the current decade. That's not so much because of doubts about the reliability of GPS, rather that is because proper navigation and approach procedures for GPS approaches haven't been worked out for many airports. All that being said, I don't think it's at all likely that the GPS system will be shut down for any length of time. If it did go down, pilots would just shrug and keep on navigating. I know lots of sailors who would be screwed. I read an article in the New York Times a year or two ago about the increasing number of offshore rescue operations conducted by the Coast Guard. A coastie hypothesized that the increase was due to GPS. In the old days, before a yachtie ventured offshore, he had to learn celestial navigation. That took time, effort and desire. During the learning process -- which often took a year or two -- the yachtie also learned how to sail offshore. Now, all you need is a boat and a $150 GPS and you can strike out into the deep blue sea. So lots of ill-trained newbies are setting off for places like Bermuda. They know exactly where they are, of course, but when the wind hits Force 9 and the seas are 25 feet or so, they don't know what to do. So they get scared and call the Coast Guard. The good news is that the coasties know exactly where to find these folks. The bad news is that they still have to risk their lives saving folks who don't belong offshore. One Coast Guard SAR guy I talked to said he hated all the recent cases of "INS." I had to ask him what that meant. "Interfering with natural selection," he said. Smooth sailing and good navigating. - David -----Original Message----- From Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]On Behalf Of Roger M. Derby Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2000 14:58 To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Subject: Re: How likely is a GPS shutdown? Bob Clark wrote: > > How likely do you think it is that the GPS system would > be shut down for any length of time? Since the Federal Aviation Agency has based their long term plans on using it as the sole means of avigation, I really don't think it's likely. Roger -- http://www.seidata.com/~derbyrm
