The FAA is marching toward sole dependence on GPS.

The FAA is marching toward sole dependence on GPS. The FAA
engineers and controllers are screaming from the
mountaintops PLEASE do not single thread North American
airspace navigation on satellite only. Yes GPS is awesome.
Yes GPS has and will change our lives. But the signal is
small and vulnerable. From an infrastructure perspective all
you have to do is jam the down link. IF we were GPS only in
North American Air Traffic control the Chinese or
sophisticated internal terrorism could shut down the system.

High Power GPS jammers energized at coordinated locations
near big cities. Mobile jammers in vans. GPS jammers and
Spoofers on balloons launched up wind from major cities.

We would come to our knees. It would take days to sort out
the jammer locations while our entire economy is crippled.

GPS can be PRIMARY But!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we should have a
secondary Robust ground network for Navigation and
Communication of aircraft, military, trucks and ships and
trains and people.

Use an integrated GPS/VOR/DME/LORAN concept. All GPS
receivers sold after 2010 everywhere should be capable of
picking up all four systems. FOUR separate frequencies for
more spectrum jamming difficulty. Keep ILS at major airports.

It's not just the FAA, wolfie. It is the entire aviation industry
working with the FAA in performance-based navigation concepts.

Most of the serious transport aircraft have, or will have, very accurate
IR systems in addition to GPS, thus they are not single thread aircraft.

ILS won't be decommissioned for many, many years.

VOR triangulation is so inaccurate that it has no value in today's RNAV
terminal procedures. DME can work, but only where the geometry is good.
All modern transport aircraft can degrade to DME/DME updating and
there is no plan to stop placing that capability in serious aircraft.

WolfRat wrote:
The FAA is marching toward sole dependence on GPS. The FAA
engineers and controllers are screaming from the
mountaintops PLEASE do not single thread North American
airspace navigation on satellite only. Yes GPS is awesome.
Yes GPS has and will change our lives. But the signal is
small and vulnerable. From an infrastructure perspective all
you have to do is jam the down link. IF we were GPS only in
North American Air Traffic control the Chinese or
sophisticated internal terrorism could shut down the system.

High Power GPS jammers energized at coordinated locations
near big cities. Mobile jammers in vans. GPS jammers and
Spoofers on balloons launched up wind from major cities.

We would come to our knees. It would take days to sort out
the jammer locations while our entire economy is crippled.

GPS can be PRIMARY But!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we should have a
secondary Robust ground network for Navigation and
Communication of aircraft, military, trucks and ships and
trains and people.

Use an integrated GPS/VOR/DME/LORAN concept. All GPS
receivers sold after 2010 everywhere should be capable of
picking up all four systems. FOUR separate frequencies for
more spectrum jamming difficulty. Keep ILS at major airports.

And LORAN sucks and does not work in much of the world.

No, Sam....LEGACY loran sucks. Enhanced loran (which will require new
receivers/antennas to utilize its GPS-equivalent accuracy) is right around
the corner. A new eLoran station has recently been put on the air in the UK,
and the Coast Guard is well on the way to upgrading its whole system. Go to
www.loran.org and start following links. www.crossrate.com is another useful
site.

Bob Gardner

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
And LORAN sucks and does not work in much of the world.

Well, let me put it this way. It isn't in any of the FAA's NexGen
performance-based nav systems plans.

Bob Gardner wrote:
No, Sam....LEGACY loran sucks. Enhanced loran (which will require new
receivers/antennas to utilize its GPS-equivalent accuracy) is right
around the corner. A new eLoran station has recently been put on the air
in the UK, and the Coast Guard is well on the way to upgrading its whole
system. Go to www.loran.org and start following links. www.crossrate.com
is another useful site.

Bob Gardner

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...

And LORAN sucks and does not work in much of the world.

Can't argue with that...it is a Coast Guard program, not an FAA program.
Still, if you follow the links in www.loran.org you will see a lot of USCG
Headquarters names listed.

It seems as though I have to repeat this over and over, but with eLoran you
don't have to select chains or group repetition rates...you just turn it on,
like a GPS, and it starts displaying RNP 0.3-accuracy positions. Its
all-in-view technology uses all usable signals within range and processes
them simultaneously. The wonders of microtechnology...

Bob Gardner

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
Well, let me put it this way. It isn't in any of the FAA's NexGen
performance-based nav systems plans.

Bob Gardner wrote:
No, Sam....LEGACY loran sucks. Enhanced loran (which will require new
receivers/antennas to utilize its GPS-equivalent accuracy) is right
around the corner. A new eLoran station has recently been put on the air
in the UK, and the Coast Guard is well on the way to upgrading its whole
system. Go to www.loran.org and start following links. www.crossrate.com
is another useful site.

Bob Gardner

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...

And LORAN sucks and does not work in much of the world.

Sam Spade wrote:

Well, let me put it this way. It isn't in any of the FAA's NexGen
performance-based nav systems plans.

The FAA does not OWN LORAN. The DOT has done a diservice to the GA
comminity by waffling on LORAN for a decade or more. Make it a viable
system and the GA community can have another viable RNAV-like system
like the big boys do with their expensive FMS, DME, inertial units.

NextGen. Yea right. Force GA pilots to spend TBD thousands of
dollars on the ADS-B Out equipment that provides no benefit to me.
They can't even make what they have now work properly although the
airlines are also culpable in the problems we have today.

Ron Lee

"Ron Lee" wrote in message
...
Sam Spade wrote:

Well, let me put it this way. It isn't in any of the FAA's NexGen
performance-based nav systems plans.

The FAA does not OWN LORAN.


Nor does the FAA OWN GPS.

I missed my target, Sam. M (Mitch? Michael?) Nairns is the enhanced loran
go-to guy at FAA headquarters.

Bob Gardner

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
And LORAN sucks and does not work in much of the world.

Ron Lee wrote:
Sam Spade wrote:


Well, let me put it this way. It isn't in any of the FAA's NexGen
performance-based nav systems plans.


The FAA does not OWN LORAN. The DOT has done a diservice to the GA
comminity by waffling on LORAN for a decade or more. Make it a viable
system and the GA community can have another viable RNAV-like system
like the big boys do with their expensive FMS, DME, inertial units.

NextGen. Yea right. Force GA pilots to spend TBD thousands of
dollars on the ADS-B Out equipment that provides no benefit to me.
They can't even make what they have now work properly although the
airlines are also culpable in the problems we have today.

Ron Lee

ADS-B is not a performance-based navigation system, thus not in the
context of this thread.

Performance-based navigation is. Have you seen the RNP SAAAR IAP for
Runway 31 at Bishop, CA for example? Look at the minimums on that IAP
compared to the other IAPs for that airport.

So far as the GA community is concered, keep in ming there are light
aircraft then there are business aircraft. A world of difference.