Bush Prepares for Possible GPS Shutdown

I'm not saying that. Just like I'm not saying there aren't VOR
approaches where the missed is based on having a working VOR. But VOR
receivers cash it in, as well. Don't recall seeing any, but there may
be some NDB approaches where the missed is based only on the NDB; I
don't shoot many of those any more. Plenty of planes have a single GPS
receiver...my response was about the similarlity between losing the
entire GPS system, and having your pretty new Garmin 430 go 'pzzzzt!'
and dark halfway into a GPS approach.

In both cases, you lack the ability to fly the published missed if the
missed is solely based on the GPS. So what? We aren't robots...we're
pilots. We think our way through things. If we're talking to approach
or tower, we tell them we lost the GPS and we need vectors for the
missed and a different approach. If we're not talking to anyone, then
we do what we can...does the airport have a VOR approach as well? Well,
given the spacing requirements between IFR traffic, then we fly *that*
missed, maybe.


I try to tell my students that one cannot prepare for *every*
possibility. That's one reason they have to *understand* what's going
on as they are doing something...not just be able to perform it by
rote. The probability of losing the entire GPS system is so low that it
doesn't even register on my radar. And the probability that I happen to
be on a GPS approach (in actual), not talking to ATC, on an approach
that has a missed procedure solely based on the GPS when they shut it
down? Probability quickly fading towards infinitely small...and if it
does somehow manage to happen? I'll find a way to deal with it, as
would you, and every other qualified pilot out there.

Cheers,

Cap

Larry Dighera wrote:
On 16 Dec 2004 12:40:02 -0800, wrote in
.com::


Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:08:48 -0500, "Chris Gumm"
wrote
in ::



http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...&w=APO&coview=



Mo



http://q1.schwab.com/s/r?l=248&a=103...a&s=rb041 215


================================================== ==============


This begs the question, what do you do if you're on a GPS approach
when they shut the system down?


You mean other than go missed and shoot something else? Kind of
similar
to what you'd do if your GPS went South on you in the middle of an
approach?

Cap

So, you're saying there are no GPS approaches whose missed approach
procedures rely upon GPS?