Dangerous GPS jamming?

Latest GPS jamming tests ( https://www.faasafety.gov/files/noti...t_Advisory.pdf ) are mostly scheduled at night, but the week of March 11-15th they are smack in the middle of prime soaring time; 1:00-2:30PM PST. They may disrupt GPS functionality over most of California and Nevada and a good chunk of Colorado during that time.

I have personally seen big holes of 20 minutes or more in my flight logs in the past due to these tests. Anything that uses GPS is potentially affected, and increasingly many of these devices are safety oriented.

Potential issues include;

1) ruined flight logs for contests, OLC, badges, or record flights
2) loss of GPS navigation to safe landing sites or getting home
3) loss of PowerFlarm collision warnings (due to GPS, not loss of 915mhz)
4) Loss of ADS-B warnings (can someone confirm this?)
5) loss of PCAS warnings?

What happens to drones flown by local law enforcement or private sector during this time? Does SSA or AOAP lobby against this testing on our behalf?

Anyone else concerned or annoyed by this???

Matt

At 18:20 22 February 2013, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
Latest GPS jamming tests (
https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2013/Feb=
/NAFC_13-04_GPS_Flight_Advisory.pdf ) are mostly scheduled at night, but
th=
e week of March 11-15th they are smack in the middle of prime soaring
time;=
1:00-2:30PM PST. They may disrupt GPS functionality over most of
Californ=
ia and Nevada and a good chunk of Colorado during that time.

I have personally seen big holes of 20 minutes or more in my flight logs
in=
the past due to these tests. Anything that uses GPS is potentially
affect=
ed, and increasingly many of these devices are safety oriented.

Potential issues include;

1) ruined flight logs for contests, OLC, badges, or record flights
2) loss of GPS navigation to safe landing sites or getting home
3) loss of PowerFlarm collision warnings (due to GPS, not loss of 915mhz)
4) Loss of ADS-B warnings (can someone confirm this?)
5) loss of PCAS warnings?

What happens to drones flown by local law enforcement or private sector
dur=
ing this time? Does SSA or AOAP lobby against this testing on our
behalf?

Anyone else concerned or annoyed by this???

From experience in the UK these tests are very localised and in many cases
are confirned to restricted areas where we cannot fly anyway. Bit of a non
problem really. There are NOTAM'd so everyone is aware.

Matt

Not sure what you mean by localized, as this area covers the better part of three states. The jamming signal emanates from one location so I doubt they can restrict the affected area to just restricted airspace.

What does a CD do if a NOTAM like this pops up on top of his/her contest? Move the launch time to 3pm? require cameras for turn points (kidding, but what's the alternative?) Hope for the best? If it hasn't happened already, it will. If a pilot gets a "hole" in his log and misses a turn point, is he/she just out of luck?

On Friday, February 22, 2013 1:42:45 PM UTC-7, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
Not sure what you mean by localized, as this area covers the better part of three states. The jamming signal emanates from one location so I doubt they can restrict the affected area to just restricted airspace.



What does a CD do if a NOTAM like this pops up on top of his/her contest? Move the launch time to 3pm? require cameras for turn points (kidding, but what's the alternative?) Hope for the best? If it hasn't happened already, it will. If a pilot gets a "hole" in his log and misses a turn point, is he/she just out of luck?

Contact them and explain the situation.

We would have had jamming conflicts at the Moriarty contests the past two years, but prior to the events we contacted the powers to be and they worked with us, resulting in no conflicts.

Mike

You can count me as concerned and annoyed. I think enough is enough. I understand that there is a need to characterize jamming scenarios and capabilities. But do the damn tests for 5 minutes at 2AM; not for hours in the middle of the day over a huge geographic area. The FAA is letting us down in this regard.

On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 4:21:17 AM UTC+1, Steve Koerner wrote:
You can count me as concerned and annoyed. I think enough is enough. I understand that there is a need to characterize jamming scenarios and capabilities. But do the damn tests for 5 minutes at 2AM; not for hours in the middle of the day over a huge geographic area. The FAA is letting us down in this regard.

Steve, I have to disagree with you in this respect. If you want a system that the US military doesn't train with, then get your own - use GLONASS or the Chinese system or whatever the Euros are putting up. But complaining about GPS outages is like moving next to an active airbase then complaining about the noise!

The fact that everyone has piggybacked on GPS and found wonderful ways to use it doesn't change the fact that it is a US military funded, developed, and maintained system. It's a weapon system! We get to play with it for free, and thats great, but our contribution is in our tax money that goes to the military, not in funding GPS via FAA user fees or whatever.

That being said - Contest managers obviously need to keep an eye out for potential GPS outages that could affect a contes and work with the local military to see if there is a way to work around each others needs.

If this comes off as a rant, so be it - but like complaints about military use of MOAs and restricted airspace, it just irritates me how much people will complain about military intrusions on their pastimes while taking our national security for granted.

Cheers!

Kirk
66

Well Kirk, I appreciate that you have a military perspective and I understand that it was originally developed for the military. Never the less, it was not funded by the military as you say, it was funded by me and a some other guys like me and it is for all practical purposes now a US government everybody utility and we've all become quite dependent. So please don't jam it, damn it.

Or, if they really really need to jam it for a test, do it at 2 AM. Make the test short and localized -- not like described in the Notam that Matt pointed to.

Le jeudi 28 février 2013 05:47:27 UTC+1, Steve Koerner a écrit*:
Well Kirk, I appreciate that you have a military perspective and I understand that it was originally developed for the military. Never the less, it was not funded by the military as you say, it was funded by me and a some other guys like me and it is for all practical purposes now a US government everybody utility and we've all become quite dependent. So please don't jam it, damn it.



Or, if they really really need to jam it for a test, do it at 2 AM. Make the test short and localized -- not like described in the Notam that Matt pointed to.

I seem to understand this is not a test about the effectivity of GPS jamming. Red Flag is a full blown military exercise, where aircraft (often also from other NATO forces) are flying in simulated war situations. GPS jamming seems to be a fairly obvious way of handicapping your opponents. It makes it necessary for them to revert to inertial navigation systems, to good old map reading, compass and chronometer, or switch to whatever successor to GPS may already exist (it would most likely remain highly classified). It is logical to simulate this aspect also - and the easiest way is of course to effectively jam the GPS signal. But it seems to me it would be just as efficient to disable GPS reception in the participating planes. I don't know if it's feasible though in complex weapon systems...

So it seems you're "just unlucky" to live in an area hosting this type of exercise. Perhaps it's not such a bad idea to have a backup camera, after all, for contests in that area. Even if IGC doesn't recognize this method anymore, I think it could very well be specified in the local rules. You would only need to activate the system in case of scheduled jamming, of course. Not being IGC regulated, you could even use a digital camera or your phone (the pictures are timestamped)...

Well, at least they don't prohibit you flying, as they sometimes do in large areas of some European countries during Nato (or even national) exercises.. "Temporary Prohibited / Restricted Areas" are really frequent in France, for example, the numerous permanent ones notwithstanding.

I like that the AF pilots are training with GPS jamming, it kinda makes it hard to drop a JDAM without it. They might have to do some of that "pilot sh*t".

Red Flag is in town. The center of the GPS jammer is in the Nellis AFB, Red Flag range.
They are flying afternoon and night missions for 3 weeks.