Big News -- WAAS GPS is Operational for IFR

"Stan Gosnell" wrote in message
...

And the price for a VOR receiver is sane? It's just a simple radio

No doubt all avionics are expensive -- the problem is that a GPS-only world
would *force* people who have invested in an IFR-capable airplane to now
spend *even more* money on a new upgrade.

Actually, this would be even a worse hit because the value of existing
non-GPS navigation equipment would instantly depreciate to near-zero.

It would be even worse on top of that because of the need for ongoing GPS
database subscriptions.

Multiply this triple financial hit by however many airplanes are in a given
flight school and lots of those airplanes will just be converted to VFR use.
Not only that, but many pilots who own instrument airplanes flown only
occasionally IFR will decide it is just not worth the effort and expense and
will revert to being VFR-only pilots of VFR-only airplanes. IFR would
become notably less common in GA, and that would be a shame.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...


Why does radar not meet that requirement? Is your goal to keep air
traffic moving, or just to get aircraft down on the ground at the
nearest usable airport? If the latter, my guess is radar would be
sufficient.

What happens in areas of the country which have no radar coverage? Everyone
in the area of GPS failure climbs by dead reckoning to an altitude high
enough to achieve radar coverage and we hope there are no mid-airs in the
process and we hope there are no icing accidents in the process?

Then everyone gets vectored to the precious few airports with ASR approaches
and waits their turn to fly an ASR approach?

And while the lucky first few airplanes are being vectored for their ASR
approaches, ATC has to give every other airplane in the sky radar vectors
for each turn in each airplane's hold?

Do we really have the ATC personnel and radio frequency resources to
accomplish this?

If we really were to have a GPS failure on a low IMC day, I think it would
be very questionable to think we could get all the planes down without
either having midair collisions or planes running out of fuel.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Stan Gosnell" wrote in message
...

It always comes down to money. Always. And keeping obsolete systems
working is hugely expensive, & it won't happen. End of story.

A very reasonable and economically practical compromise would be to keep the
Loran system up and running and approve Loran for emergency IFR use in the
event of GPS outage. The cost of maintaining the Loran system is pocket
change compared wtih maintaining the GPS system.

An even better compromise would be to decommission some ground-based navaids
but leave at least enough VORs and ILSs functional so as to assure their
reasonable availability for an emergency approach anywhere in the country
should GPS go out of service.

GPS is a great idea, and we can indeed save money by decommissioning some
ground-based NAVAIDs... let us just not go overboard and decomission them
ALL.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...

old-style push mower. But let's be serious; it's absurd to talk about
Loran being a reasonable or economically practical anything.

Used Lorans are dirt cheap by aviation standards -- often under $300 for
used yellow-tagged equipment.

Adding a Loran at the time of a GPS installation and removal of VORs etc.
would not be a big deal.

Even better, Loran would be the ideal backup to be included in a hybrid
GPS-Loran box which would switch to Loran if/when GPS went out of service.

I mention Loran because for a very low price it could in an emergency
continue to provide navigation to every airport and airway -- none of the
alternate systems could do so at nearly the same cost.

But if selected VORs were instead retained as a backup because all IFR
planes now have a VOR receiver, then sure, that is fine too.. that point is
to have some backup, whatever that may be.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Stan Gosnell writes:

There is no redundancy now. What happens if the weather is 200 ovc & the
localizer goes out? All it takes is one power failure, or one transmitter
to go south, & you're SOL. With GPS, there are multiple satellites, and
you aren't tied to one transmitter like you are with ILS.

You have already planned for a redundant destination -- the alternate
-- with its own transmitter (or possibly VMC), and you've ensured that
you have sufficient fuel on board to get there.


All the best,


David

--
David Megginson, , http://www.megginson.com/

In article , "Ron
Natalie" wrote:

look at what happened with FM stations just below the ILS
frequencies.

They're still there. What are you referring to? As far as I know the
FM broadcast band
has been intact for a long time. There are even some low power stuff
that shows up down
below 88.1. One of the biggest stations in the area is still on 107.7.

ok, I see where I wasn't clear. Countries have allowed FM stations
to increase their transmitted power. This has the effect of bleeding
into the lower ILS frequencies. As a result, some ILS receivers have
to be modified to protect the signal from interference.

If you are truly bored sometime, more information can be
found by searching on the phrase "protected ILS"

--
Bob Noel

I'm not sure what you mean "Tying the GPS to your altimeter (as is possible
with the CNX-80)" Most GPSs will accept altimetry data to substitute for a
fourth satellite. I have a Shadin ADC 2000 providing this data to my
530/430 combo and I have never had a RAIM warning.since I had the 430 and
ADC 2000 installed in 1999.


Mike
MU-2


"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
news |
|
| "Scott Moore" wrote in message
| ...
|
| There are multiple GPS satellites making up the GPS system. That is
the
| exact same redundancy.
|
| And it is not sufficient redundancy... it can be jammed locally and
leave
| the pilot with no navigation alternative.
|
| The very fact that we have RAIM alerts shows exactly why GPS cannot be
the
| only remaining navigation system -- if all we have is GPS, what do we do
| when we get a RAIM alert?


WAAS is offering approaches where there are none now, so the GPS is giving
me an option where none existed before. A RAIM alert does not disable your
GPS; it only means that you cannot fly an approach with it. It is still
good
for terminal and en route operations. Unless you have a bad installation
you
should not get RAIM alerts very often anyway -- at least no more often
than,
say, having the localizer inoperative at an airport. In fact, I have never
had a RAIM alert since I installed IFR GPS in my planes, but I have flown
to
numerous airports where the localizer and/or glideslope was inop during
that
time. Tying the GPS to your altimeter (as is possible with the CNX-80)
reduces the required satellites for RAIM by one, making RAIM alerts even
less frequent.

If all you have is GPS and you get a RAIM alert, you do the same thing you
would if you arrived at an airport and found the only navaid used for
approaches there is out: you fly to an alternate.

Richard Kaplan wrote:


When I bought a new clock for my airplane last year, the cheapest I could
find was $78 for analog or $400 for digital.

The extra money is to make it terrorist proof.

--
For most men, true happiness can only be achieved with a woman.
Also for most men, true happiness can only be achieved without a woman.
Sharp minds have noted that these two rules tend to conflict.....

Richard Kaplan wrote:

"Scott Moore" wrote in message
...

Fine, you have a study. What we need is an unbiased comparision of
the vulnerabilities of GPS to the vunerabilities of VOR. That is all

No, we need an unbiased comparison of the vulnerabilities of a world with
only GPS and ASR vs. a world with GPS, ASR, VOR, NDB, ILS, Loran, LOC, SDF,
LDA, and DME.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

I hear the terrorists are going to be placing a big magnet in the middle east
soon, and mess up everyones compass.

Say, lets bring four course ranges back, those were pretty terrorist proof.

--
For most men, true happiness can only be achieved with a woman.
Also for most men, true happiness can only be achieved without a woman.
Sharp minds have noted that these two rules tend to conflict.....

Richard Kaplan wrote:

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...

old-style push mower. But let's be serious; it's absurd to talk about
Loran being a reasonable or economically practical anything.

Used Lorans are dirt cheap by aviation standards -- often under $300 for
used yellow-tagged equipment.

More like free. Just look in the dumpster behind any avionics shop.

--
For most men, true happiness can only be achieved with a woman.
Also for most men, true happiness can only be achieved without a woman.
Sharp minds have noted that these two rules tend to conflict.....