Dangerous GPS jamming?

On Friday, February 22, 2013 10:20:19 AM UTC-8, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
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

PCAS has nothing to do with GPS and is not affected.
TCAS only uses ADS-B in round about ways and should not affect its resolution advisories/RAs.
ADS-B would be affected if the GPS input to the ADS-B data-out transmitter is affected or the GPS input for the receiver/traffic display system is affected (used to calculate its location relative to the other traffic)
But in effect today hardly anybody in a glider uses ADS-B for collision avoidance. PowerFLARM has 1090ES data-in but few gliders or power aircraft today have ADS-B data-out. Most concentrations probably affecting gliders in this broad area might be PowerFLARM equipped gliders able to 'see' 1090ES data-out equipped airliners in busy areas like near Reno, but even there because of the closing speeds the range/warning offered to the glider pilot is probably not that great. And in locations like Reno with busy airline traffic the more important collision avoidance technology is ATC SSR radar and TCAS (both require transponder equipped gliders) and are not affected by GPS issues. that would change in future as ATC relies more on ADS-B 9and if the FAA ever gets away with closing more terminal radar facilities). Yet more of the silliness with ADS-B, all kind of idiotic. At least in these busy areas TCAS remains as an important collision avoidance technology... and a good reason for having transponders in gliders in those areas.

On Friday, February 22, 2013 7:20:19 PM UTC+1, Matt Herron Jr. wrote: Anyone else concerned or annoyed by this???

No. GPS is a military system. Working against jammers or in a GPS denied environment is essential military training.

You want to fly when GPS is being jammed? Go somewhere else, or use a map.

Kirk
66
USAF Ret

In article ,
"kirk.stant" wrote:

On Friday, February 22, 2013 7:20:19 PM UTC+1, Matt Herron Jr. wrote: Anyone
else concerned or annoyed by this???

No. GPS is a military system. Working against jammers or in a GPS denied
environment is essential military training.

You want to fly when GPS is being jammed? Go somewhere else, or use a map.

Kirk
66
USAF Ret

Military ain't the only ones jamming GPS. Truckers have GPS jammers to
spoof their company GPS nannies. These are supposed to be extremely
short range, but there are reports of them interfering with aircraft
GPS. Hopefully, the military GPS jamming tests include working on ways
of making the GPS system more jam-proof.

Speaking of jamming: The cruise control on a car I had would always
disengage and refuse to work on a stretch of I-85 northbound, just on
the south side of the Atlanta airport. It would start working upon
reaching the north side of the airport.

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

"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. "


I agree that GPS is a military system. Two military systems really. one Russian and the other American. That being said, GPS has become a critical part of our infrastructure and the military and our government recognize this. There are laws and policies in place to protect the integrity of the system for civilian use;


"U.S. Policy Statement Regarding Civil GPS Availability
March 21, 2003

The United States Government recognizes that GPS plays a key role around the world as part of the global information infrastructure and takes seriously the responsibility to provide the best possible service to civil and commercial users worldwide. This is as true in times of conflict as it is in times of peace.

The U.S. Government also maintains the capability to prevent hostile use of GPS and its augmentations while retaining a military advantage in a theater of operations without disrupting or degrading civilian uses outside the theater of operations.

We believe we can ensure that GPS continues to be available as an invaluable global utility at all time, while at the same time, protecting U.S. and coalition security requirements."

This was pulled from the following site, that has lots of additional info: http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 5:28:34 PM UTC+1, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
I agree that GPS is a military system. Two military systems really. one Russian and the other American.

Well, no. The GPS system that we all use and love is the US military system. GLONASS is the soviet/russian copy. There is also a Chinese satnav system being installed, and Europe has been developing it's own system (so as to not rely on the US military) for a long time.

You can get receivers that use multiple systems, but don't think any are in use in gliders.

Agree that the US govt has committed itself to the peaceful, civilian use of GPS. But that doens't change the fact that it is a critical military system, and must be treated as such.

Kirk
66

Cindy,

Nice to hear from you. keep the pressure on limiting the testing. Does the AOAP have any skin in this game? One would think so, and they may have more clout than our motley collection of glider guiders...

Matt