else concerned or annoyed by this???


Military ain't the only ones jamming GPS. Truckers have GPS jammers to

spoof their company GPS nannies.

As the SSA's Airspace committee person, I have followed GPS jamming and spoofing as a potentially awkward development for US soaring over the past ten years. I repeatedly raised the issue of jamming and spoofing to the IGC GNSS committee, including sending them IGC files with 'holes' from documented announced jamming events, to make them believe that perhaps we would have difficulties with record flights in the western states of the US. (Please note they still downplay our realities.)

The discussions did allow for a slight modification of the Sporting Code to allow verification of 'achieving a turn point' (sector or beyond the line) to be verified if two fixes could be interpolated to show a passage beyond the point. There never was accommodation for gain of height situations, other than to say --' the approved recorders all have pressure transducers'. And subsequent to those talks, there has been separate discussion to accommodate Perlan's activity; which was what got me started in the first place, as I was hosting Fossett and Enevolden launches for altitude record flights.

I doubt there is as much GPS jamming in Argentina as there is in the western US. (Smile.)

I raised awareness of scheduled GPS jammer testing to a 1-26 Nationals, a couple Regionals, and locally have passed along NOTAM postings to a few SoCal/Region 12 high achievers. The contest organizers were pointed to the local military agencies, and the DofDef were very gracious about adjusting test schedules around event soaring. I doubt we would be so well served for weekday OLC flying or one-off record attempts. Now, it is almost de rigeur for the western contest organizers to address their GPS jammers during contest preparations. And, everyday pilots are becoming aware of increasing areas and durations of GPS test events. Hooray for NOTAM awareness!

Yes, GPS came into being on the Dept of Defense budget. It has permeated civilian use and the FAA leans on it heavily, decommissioning ground based radio-nav VORs due to GPS WAAS and other applications. There are documented cases of signal loss on IFR approaches due to ground based civilian (illegal) jamming. Locally, the Dept of Defense has been our best ally in accessing airspace that is protected from airline traffic.... with our Region 12 wave windows and wave XC procedures in Restricted airspace. So the DoD isn't all bad news.

As with all technology and piloting.... you better keep the skills sharp that relate to basic VFR flight. Navigation, airspace restrictions, traffic avoidance, awards flying all require pilots to plan ahead for many eventualities that occur 'in-flight'. Loss of a GPS signal shouldn't endanger a soaring flight.

This message brought to you by the gal who was known as the "Anti-Electron Queen", with a tremulous grasp on the trailing edge of technology.

Cindy Brickner, Region 12 Director