"zatatime" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:02:56 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:

When are GPS approaches for places like this, and thousands of others
going
to be available?


Why would a GPS be better than a Localizer/DME. I doubt a GPS
approach would have had any lower minimums than the LOC did, so I'm
not sure how that would have helped in this situation.


LPV approaches (GPS+WAAS with lateral and vertical guidance) can I believe
get you down to 250' and 1-1/2, which is a lot lower than a GPS (LNAV)
approach and quite close to ILS minima.

Second, an LPV approach should be comparable to an ILS in terms of
difficulty to fly: just configure the airplane and keep the needles in the
donut. By bringing planes down on a stabilized approach all the way to MDA
you eliminate a number of opportunities to screw things up.

None of which may have been responsible for this particular crash, but the
overall statistics strongly suggest that better approaches mean safer
approaches.

-cwk.