A question for the future

B25flyer wrote:

Got me to thinking. So question is, what is the opinion of the troops as to
when the system will change and as part of the written/PTS for any rating there
will no longer be the requirment to draw the line and figure out all the other
stuff for the X-C portion of the test. Just put in airports/waypoints and go
for it.

Five years? Ten years? Or will it stick around forever?

It'll stick around forever. We no longer teach things like radio ranges, but when the
electrons decide not to go down those wires, it'll be whatever we remember about
pilotage that gets us safely on the ground somewhere close to where we wanted to be.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

My prediction is that GPS will become a standard equipment in the
cockpit, and will replace the magnetic compass. Sure, the GPS can fail,
but those are technical issues which will eventually be solved, and the
GPS will become more reliable than a magnetic compass. My guess is that
it will be 10 years or more before it happens.

The concepts of magnetic variation and deviation arise entirely due to
our reliance on the magnetic compass. These will go away. We will not
rely on the magnetic north for navigation. We can use true north, which
will be a much cleaner system.

We would still need to calculate the effects of wind, not because of
wind correction angle, but for time enroute and fuel requirements.

The PTS does not demand that the applicant draw lines and do all the
calculations by hand. You can let a GPS do it, or use a computer. There
is no requirement that it be done by hand. Actually, it is high time we
stop focusing on that teach some of the modern ways of doing flight
planning. There are tons of online services and handheld computers that
can accomplish flight planning in a fraction of the time it takes to do
by hand.






(B25flyer) wrote in
:


Over a period of time aviation seems to make changes due to technical
advances. As such in the past certain "basics" of aviation that were
once written in stone have gone by the wayside.

So here is one for ya. Last week I started a student on the ground
school basics of cross country planing. Draw the line on the sectional
from airport to airport. Discuss all the wind, magnetic and other
variables etc. After about 20 minutes into the discussion the students
13 year old daughter who was intently watching asked the question.
"Why do all that when I can do the same thing in 30 seconds on the
handheld GPS and enroute it will take care of the wind correction"

Got me to thinking. So question is, what is the opinion of the troops
as to when the system will change and as part of the written/PTS for
any rating there will no longer be the requirment to draw the line and
figure out all the other stuff for the X-C portion of the test. Just
put in airports/waypoints and go for it.

Five years? Ten years? Or will it stick around forever?

Walt
Forty+ years as a CFI and still drawing lines on sectionals.

Recently, Andrew Sarangan posted:

My prediction is that GPS will become a standard equipment in the
cockpit, and will replace the magnetic compass. Sure, the GPS can
fail, but those are technical issues which will eventually be solved,
and the GPS will become more reliable than a magnetic compass. My
guess is that it will be 10 years or more before it happens.

To paraphrase this idea; your prediction is that a GPS, which has
thousands of components with complex relationships and therefore countless
failure modes will become more reliable than a magnetic compass which has
only one failure mode -- the loss of fluid.

I doubt it seriously.

Neil

"Neil Gould" wrote in
news
Recently, Andrew Sarangan posted:

My prediction is that GPS will become a standard equipment in the
cockpit, and will replace the magnetic compass. Sure, the GPS can
fail, but those are technical issues which will eventually be solved,
and the GPS will become more reliable than a magnetic compass. My
guess is that it will be 10 years or more before it happens.

To paraphrase this idea; your prediction is that a GPS, which has
thousands of components with complex relationships and therefore
countless failure modes will become more reliable than a magnetic
compass which has only one failure mode -- the loss of fluid.

I doubt it seriously.

Neil







The same thing was said about glass cockpits. Now even the ubiquitous
172 comes with a glass cockpit. It won't be long before the backup
vacuum driven gyros are removed from their panel.

You can't count the number of components in a circuit and assign failure
modes to each one of them. If that were the case, your computer will not
be able to run for even a minute. There are millions of transistors
inside your computer, with million different failure modes. The
traditional method of counting failure modes of mechanical parts do not
apply to highly integrated electronic products. Yes, there are a few
failure modes, but not as large as you make it out to be.

Andrew Sarangan wrote in message .158...
"Neil Gould" wrote in
news
Recently, Andrew Sarangan posted:

The same thing was said about glass cockpits. Now even the ubiquitous
172 comes with a glass cockpit. It won't be long before the backup
vacuum driven gyros are removed from their panel.

And with good reason: just as transistors proved more reliable than
vacuum tubes, solid-state AHRS look to be far more reliable than their
replacement. There's a huge benefit to safety, utility, and ultimately
cost by making the move.

However, I would not want to give up the non-powered wet compass,
altimeter, and airspeed indicator completely. Not until we prove that
mice can't chew through wires, etc. What's the benefit of tossing
these completely?

Likewise, I suspect navigating by reference to magnetic north will be
one of those charming anachronisms that our descendants 2000 years ago
will talk about in the same way that people today talk about how
railroad gauges were based on roman roads. (I know it's true only in a
loose sense, no need to rehash that here)

You can't count the number of components in a circuit and assign failure
modes to each one of them. If that were the case, your computer will not
be able to run for even a minute. There are millions of transistors
inside your computer, with million different failure modes. The
traditional method of counting failure modes of mechanical parts do not
apply to highly integrated electronic products. Yes, there are a few
failure modes, but not as large as you make it out to be.

Um, I'm calling bull**** on this assertion. Isn't the real key here
that the odds of a particular part (say a transistor gate inside a
CPU) failing are simply infinitesimally small? Because if one
capacitor on your PC motherboard smokes out, it's quite likely that
the whole shebang will in fact not work properly.

Best,
-cwk.

C Kingsbury wrote:

Likewise, I suspect navigating by reference to magnetic north will be
one of those charming anachronisms that our descendants 2000 years ago
will talk about in the same way that people today talk about how
railroad gauges were based on roman roads. (I know it's true only in a
loose sense, no need to rehash that here)

Actually, it's not true at all.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

(C Kingsbury) wrote in
om:

Andrew Sarangan wrote in message
.158...
"Neil Gould" wrote in
news
Recently, Andrew Sarangan posted:

The same thing was said about glass cockpits. Now even the ubiquitous
172 comes with a glass cockpit. It won't be long before the backup
vacuum driven gyros are removed from their panel.

And with good reason: just as transistors proved more reliable than
vacuum tubes, solid-state AHRS look to be far more reliable than their
replacement. There's a huge benefit to safety, utility, and ultimately
cost by making the move.

However, I would not want to give up the non-powered wet compass,
altimeter, and airspeed indicator completely. Not until we prove that
mice can't chew through wires, etc. What's the benefit of tossing
these completely?

Likewise, I suspect navigating by reference to magnetic north will be
one of those charming anachronisms that our descendants 2000 years ago
will talk about in the same way that people today talk about how
railroad gauges were based on roman roads. (I know it's true only in a
loose sense, no need to rehash that here)

You can't count the number of components in a circuit and assign
failure modes to each one of them. If that were the case, your
computer will not be able to run for even a minute. There are
millions of transistors inside your computer, with million different
failure modes. The traditional method of counting failure modes of
mechanical parts do not apply to highly integrated electronic
products. Yes, there are a few failure modes, but not as large as you
make it out to be.

Um, I'm calling bull**** on this assertion. Isn't the real key here
that the odds of a particular part (say a transistor gate inside a
CPU) failing are simply infinitesimally small? Because if one
capacitor on your PC motherboard smokes out, it's quite likely that
the whole shebang will in fact not work properly.

Best,
-cwk.



The real key is that all the transistors on a chip are made on the same
substrate. They share all the same characteristics. The failure of one
transistor is not an uncorrelated event from another transistor failing.
They all fail more or less at once, or they all continue to function.
They behave as single component. Just because there are millions of
transistor on a chip does not mean that there are millions of different
failure modes. There are only a handful of failure modes regardless of
the number of transistors on the chip. This is what is fundamentally
different about integrated circuits compared to discrete circuits.

GPS can fail for a variety of reasons, not all are "technical issues
which will eventually be solved". Interference is a growing issue for
example. Batteries die, wired connectors stop connecting, and
sometimes electronic components just plain stop working. Don't get me
wrong, I like the GPS, I think it's pretty useful and cool as well.
But, being a belt-and-suspenders man, I like having and knowing how to
use backups too.

While the PTS may not require doing calculations by hand, examiners can
and do "fail" GPS devices and expect the applicant to perform well no
matter what. As would your passengers if this happened in real life.
-Malcolm Teas

Morgans wrote:
Troll.

You need to stick around for a bit longer, before you jump with a
post like
this. I can assure you that the poster has been around for years,
and is
not a troll.

The post is a troll.

The GPS vs. pilotage "debate" is the most classic aviation newsgroup
troll material.

Every experienced CFI knows the value of weather and pilotage skills.
No experienced CFI would seriously wonder when it's going away. The
guy is either not an experienced CFI, or he's trolling.
Are you a troll?

Only in appearance.

"Brien K. Meehan" wrote

The GPS vs. pilotage "debate" is the most classic aviation newsgroup
troll material.

Every experienced CFI knows the value of weather and pilotage skills.
No experienced CFI would seriously wonder when it's going away.

In your opinion.

There *is* a difference in bringing up a subject for discussion (even if it
has been beat to death), and bringing up a subject that is put forth to make
other people mad. (or crazy)

The latter is a troll. (In my opinion) g
--
Jim in NC


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