"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

[snipped for brevity]

If you keep the trained navigators and their equipment "just in case",
what benefit is GPS providing?

Countless benefits too numerous to mention. Say you're in IMC and
lose your electrics. Dark clouds, no radios, your head is bouncing off
the ceiling in the turbs and just when you thought things were bad
enough and your heart starts beating again, you lose your vacuum
instruments as well. In this situation, even an el cheapo, $300
handheld GPS can help you keep the dirty side down literally
saving your life! In other words, besides just navigating, you can
actually FLY an airplane via GPS alone since even most of
today's handhelds have an altimeter, vertical speed indicator,
airspeed indicator, turn coordinator, and HSI. The only thing missing
is an attitude indicator!

Also, supposedly VOR, ILS, NDB approaches will all go away in
the future and there will be only the GPS "Basic T approach."
Supposedly, feeder routes will go away, too. GPS also does other
things that old-fashioned navigators and their equipment can't. For
example, if you don't know the lat/long of a location but you do know
the distance and bearing from your present position, you can project
a waypoint using a GPS. You can program the GPS to alarm you via
visual and audio alarms when you arrive a given waypoint. You can
zoom in and "see" powerlines, smoke stacks, etc. on the ground not
depicted on a sectional or WAC chart (and certainly not on an IFR
enroute chart!) when flying low-level in the soup, at night, or if
scudrunning is necessary during an emergency. In other emergency
situations, the "nearest airport" feature can get you on the ground
quickly and safely.

It's true that GPS is the cat's meow, however, as you know the
importance of basic pilotage and dead reckoning skills cannot be
over-emphasized.

-Mike Marron