Dependency on GPS

Ron Levy said:
My Garmin 530, properly installed and certified with WAAS, loses the signal for a couple of minutes probably once a week. And that experience extends to the many other GPS-equipped planes I fly regularly.

But beyond the issues of signal loss or other GPS failures, the fundamental skills and understanding of basic navigation you learn using DR and pilotage are essential to using GPS or any other electronic nav system effectively.
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Then you had better check your installation. I have not had a failure for 17 years. I regularly keep in touch with many airline pilots, who fly airliners, in which the GPS is the predominate form of navigation (such as a Boeing 737-800). I have many, may pilot friends who always use GPS.........and I'm always asking about failure rates, as well as keeping in touch with someone who's been installing aircraft avionics for many years. If you come here, as an instructor, and tell about a weekly failure, then either you know a specific area, where failure is always imminent (to make your point), or your installation "sucks".

A good friend of mine, who flies 737's has had one momentary GPS failure in eight years of crossing the USA. Of the three navigation systems, the GPS is the main unit. I recently asked again, and he repeated that one instance. However, the last time he mentioned it, was several years ago. So add at least two years, to those eight.

L.Adamson --- the GPS advocate
 
I've lost signal all of twice. No biggie, really. I know where I am on the chart, start pilotage, and for Odin's sake remain on course. If the outage lasts that long and I really can't figure out where I am from the chart, I'll issue a plea for help to the nearest ATC facility. But if you know your course and where you are, figuring out where you're going really isn't that difficult.
 
Re: GPS is the best, period!

L.Adamson said:
With today's handhelds, or the GPS systems included in Cessna 172 trainers.............you get plenty of warning for hundreds of Miles in all directions.
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Oh really. Which mode was the G1000 in when the CAP C182 flew directly into a mountain that it silenced this "plenty of warning for hundreds of miles in all directions".

And why would I want a warning 100 miles out at 100 knots? Great... now I have a terrain warning for Aspen while I'm sitting on the ground at KAPA.

Which specific GPS "included in Cessna 172 trainers" were you referring to that has this feature?

L.Adamson said:
It's much more accurate,
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It can be more accurate. It can also be worse. How accurate do you need en-route? Feel like running directly into someone else coming the opposite direction on the Airway?

Folks flying the NAT tracks over the Atlantic now voluntarily offset to one side just to deal with the "too much accuracy" problems generated if someone changes altitude without permission (due to emergency, or stupidity, or whatever...).

Overall point here is... what does enroute accuracy that high buy you? Nothing really. I can make a position report down to six decimal places. Great... no one cares.

L.Adamson said:
allows for more direct travel,
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That's a function of the receiver, and there were plenty of receivers installed that allowed straight line and even great-circle routing using VORs as their location sources. Ask anyone with an older FMS.

L.Adamson said:
and works much better in mountain regions, where VOR is line of sight.
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Both are line of sight, and severe weather with precip above can disrupt the signals from oblique angles for GPS, just like your Dish or DirecTV going out in the rain.

L.Adamson said:
And remember, a decent GPS will pick up eight to twelve satellites at any one time. That's a great backup!
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Newer ones pick up more than that, if they're in view.

All coming through a single antenna, by the way.

L.Adamson said:
L.Adamson --- the GPS advocate
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It's fine to be an advocate, and I don't disagree with much of what you said, just get the technical details right.

Advocacy is fine, and good even... just don't turn it into zealoutry with bad info.
 
 
By the way... if you don't file /G an AFSS briefer will NOT GIVE YOU GPS NOTAMS. Just so y'all know...
 
Ron Levy said:
After But beyond the issues of signal loss or other GPS failures, the fundamental skills and understanding of basic navigation you learn using DR and pilotage are essential to using GPS or any other electronic nav system effectively.
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Fundamental skills, are stick & rudder. Some confuse it with VOR navigation. I was once told, that I shouldn't even be piloting an aircraft, if I wasn't dialing the OBS's before every cross country flight. What a bunch of poppy-cock.

As to myself, I do use current charts to plan any new flight in mountain country, in which I haven't previously created flight plans (which I store in the GPS). I'd never think of just punching "direct" , & blindly following a magenta line (see note below). And I'm well aware of how badly VORs work with mountains, unless you maintain a high enough altitude for line of sight. Thats one main reason, that I could care less about the VOR network. It's the same reason that GPSs were pushed so much in Alaska (Capstone project). Of couse, the Alaska accident rate has now dropped by 40%.

Note: A few years back, a CFII & instrument student did just that. It was a dark moonless night. The plan was to open an IFR plan in flight. The instructor, familiar with the area, forgot about that "one" mountain poking 10,500' from the desert floor. They had one of the older point A to B black line GPS's with no terrain warning. Flying at 8500', they hit snow covered tree tops with no warning whatsoever. Luckily, they hit one of the lower peaks, and the trees cushioned the impact. One pilot was thrown clear, while the other remained in the airplane. It was 10:00 PM, and both survived. A couple of years later, three people including a CFI, hit the other side of the same mountain. All three, instantly perished. I've regularly used my terrain warning GPSs in that area...........to make the point, that they work, and they work extremely well, and every time. I want to see CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) reduced. With GPS terrain functions, and synthetic vision, that's exactly what's going to happen!

L.Adamson
 
denverpilot said:
Or he flew through this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2012/pdfs/120613gps-unreliable-over-new-mexico.pdf

Or this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2012/pdfs/120213nm-gps-interference.pdf

Or this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2012/pdfs/120131gps-testing-over-nm.pdf

Or this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2011/pdfs/111021gps-testing-over-new-mexico-in-oct-nov.pdf

Or this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2011/pdfs/111205wsmr-flight-advisory.pdf

Or this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2011/pdfs/110901gps_testing_alamagordo-new-mexico.pdf

Or this...

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2011/pdfs/111129alamogordo_gps.pdf

Or....
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Then by all means............do point out....GPS testing areas & "times" they're in effect. Just please.... don't insinuate that GPS suffers weekly failure rates...... to make a point.

L.Adamson
 
Re: GPS is the best, period!

denverpilot said:
Oh really. Which mode was the G1000 in when the CAP C182 flew directly into a mountain that it silenced this "plenty of warning for hundreds of miles in all directions".
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Oh lordy..........

I forgot, that's the "other" great example to pooh-hoo GPS along with "Children of the Magenta Line". I actually had to contact the CAP on that one. Best they can figure, is that the pilot who was familiar with the Garmin 1000.........was instructing the other "unfamiliar" pilot in it's use. Most likely flipping through it's menu pages.

New rules: All CAP pilots occupying the front seats of a Garmin equipped aircraft, must have completed and passed a course...before sitting behind either yoke.

Of course.............to the uninitiated..............this "example", plainly shows why GPS doesn't work.....right! :(

L.Adamson
 
Re: GPS is the best, period!

denverpilot said:
Both are line of sight, and severe weather with precip above can disrupt the signals from oblique angles for GPS, just like your Dish or DirecTV going out in the rain.
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You're telling me to get technical details right. However, the line of site difference between the VOR & GPS is very different. You almost need to be in a steep walled canyon, to loose GPS. Satellite signals are reaching the receiver from many different angles. You have to be above a mountain ridge line to receive a VOR signal from the other side.

L.Adamson
 
Re: GPS is the best, period!

bbchien said:
The new "HWMNBN".
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Please explain.........is it something funny? :(

In the meantime, you are the one, who pushed the very outdated "Children of the Magenta Line" video, in the last great debate.
 
To clarify I'm not saying pilots should not use GPS. That is silly. I use GPS on just about every flight. It is, in my opinion, not prudent to depend on any single source of navigational information. GPS is one tool. The tool box should have many tools. DR and pilotage are, in my opinion, valuable tools.

As to the arguments about GPS being relatively fail proof. I only have 5000 hours. Cant remember every time I have had an FMS/GPS failure. Doesn't happen everyday but if you use them enough you will eventually have a failure. My experience is the receiver end takes a dump, often related to software issues on the box. I have had issues where the MX fix was nothing more than a reboot of the computer.

But if you want to put all of your eggs in one basket, by all means, help yourself. I'm just sharing my point of view and experiences.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
To clarify I'm not saying pilots should not use GPS. That is silly. I use GPS on just about every flight. It is, in my opinion, not prudent to depend on any single source of navigational information. GPS is one tool. The tool box should have many tools. DR and pilotage are, in my opinion, valuable tools.

As to the arguments about GPS being relatively fail proof. I only have 5000 hours. Cant remember every time I have had an FMS/GPS failure. Doesn't happen everyday but if you use them enough you will eventually have a failure. My experience is the receiver end takes a dump, often related to software issues on the box. I have had issues where the MX fix was nothing more than a reboot of the computer.

But if you want to put all of your eggs in one basket, by all means, help yourself. I'm just sharing my point of view and experiences.
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Right you are. And always carry a second portable GPS as a backup. The signals themselves, unless purposely defeated as in NOTAMed testing, really are reliable.

I do admit, I tend to go over the edge with this subject sometimes. A few years back, a flight instructor on a student pilot forum was advocating that GPS was nothing more than a seductive toy. He claimed that the VOR system was the navigation system for the USA, and that was all there is to it.

I do have my reasons. In 1977, a four engine DC-8 slammed into the mountain above my home. A few years ago, a fire fighting "bomber" hit the other side of the peak at 240 knts, from where I live now. Two good friends died in a CFIT. I've seen the remains of many CFIT aircraft on the mountains during my life time, and many other acquaintances, have also left us........not to mention all of the others we hear about. GPS derived systems, are just a better way of doing things. I can't believe that a "toy" reference is still used, or that's it's often labled as cheating for a new pilot. However, that is the agenda for some....... that push it, make stupid jokes about it, or whatever.

L.Adamson
 
I just made a night 400nm VFR round robin.

It's a nicely equipped aircraft, G530, G430, HSI and VOR OBS. I've seen everything work in the last couple month, although not in the last couple weeks.

Com radios worked, but couldn't get anything on the nav radios. G530 worked just fine. G430 radio worked good, you need to keep tapping the display to keep it lit sometimes. Nav radios eventually turned out to be useless.

I use Foreflight without GPS geo-location. I track my fix crossing times using the typed scratch pad. I enter my fixes as user waypoints on my magenta line. Passing KPVE would get entered as a user fix on my magenta line as XKPVE (to keep it from bending the line).

I type all my fixes, estimated climb to cruise fix and descent fix in the "Type" scratch pad ahead of time. As I fly by, I toggle from Map to ScratchPad and enter my time using the pop up keypad. So I tab betweeen Maps and ScratchPad a lot.

I find the "Type" Scratch pad easier to work with, it's less sensitive to stray contacts.

My heading indicator worked OK, my magnetic compas worked really well.
G520 was on the whole time, I followed the route using pilotage very well. There were a couple featureless places.

Seeing the destination beacon (KMBT) in the sprawled urban area near Nashville was very difficult. Just too many lights and no boundaries to it all. I doin't know if I could have seen it without the assistance of the G530.

The return was very easy, you could really just fly west until you see the Mississippi.

I used flight following the whole time, I guess I could have requested vectors if the 530 failed. I still carry a Garmin iQue palm pilot for phone numbers, so I always have a backup GPS in my pocket.

I hate rentals, buit it's just not time yet.
 
L.Adamson said:
Then by all means............do point out....GPS testing areas & "times" they're in effect. Just please.... don't insinuate that GPS suffers weekly failure rates...... to make a point.
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I never said anything about weekly failure rates. You might want to review the thread.

You might also want to look closer at the sheer size of that "testing area" before pooh-poohing it too cavalierly. It covers three States into the Flight Levels, and notice that its recurring almost monthly for the last year.

If you're flying with a handheld GPS and not filing /G, you're not even going to be made aware of those NOTAMs. As a GPS advocate, that should concern you more than it concerns me. The FAA assumes your VFR handheld is a backup and you have no need for those NOTAMs in your briefing.

If whatever they're doing in Alamagordo easily wipes out three States of coverage, that's not particularly great for a system that's supposed to be Primary now and will have no backup in seven years.

Unless they're planning to stop all of that "testing" down there.

As far as the CAP plane goes, everything you said in reply didn't answer the question. I asked what feature would provide a WARNING on the G1000. Pay attention. There is a terrain PAGE but that is NOT A WARNING SYSTEM and certainly not "100 miles away" which you also said, and I pointed out as being ridiculous.

I will say it again. Advocate is great. False information and zealotry is not.

I've made a good living out of being honest about system limitations and fixing them. GPS has a number of them. A ground-based backup nullifies almost all of them.

You react emotionally like a ground based BACKUP system is a threat to GPS. It's not. The biggest threat to uptake of GPS has always been that there's on,y one player left in the certified market and prices are out of control. Everyone would install an IFR GPS/WAAS receiver tomorrow if they were following the price curve of automotive or other GPS models.

No one here is arguing against GPS, your baby. Chill.
 
Re: GPS is the best, period!

L.Adamson said:
Please explain.........is it something funny? :(

In the meantime, you are the one, who pushed the very outdated "Children of the Magenta Line" video, in the last great debate.
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WHY would you, with so much heavy aircraft experience, think to judge "children of the magenta line" as outdated?

...and why would I share "HWMNBN'd" with you?
 
Ron Levy said:
My Garmin 530, properly installed and certified with WAAS, loses the signal for a couple of minutes probably once a week. And that experience extends to the many other GPS-equipped planes I fly regularly.
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Sounds like you're flying near too many truck stops.
 
I don't think there is any way for any of us to "win" this argument. Redundancy is important in aviation and I think that is what most of the posters here are advocating. It helps to mitigate the risks inherent in the activity all of us love to pursue. Fly safe and be careful out there.
 
There's also the issue of crawling before you walk, and walking before you run. If you try to run before you learn to walk, you're going to fall on your face a lot more times before you master running.
 
Re: GPS is the best, period!

bbchien said:
WHY would you, with so much heavy aircraft experience, think to judge "children of the magenta line" as outdated?

...and why would I share "HWMNBN'd" with you?
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As I've previously said, this video was produced after AA's 757 fatal flight into rising terrain (Columbia, South America). Much of the problem was dependency on automation. It's even suggested that too much automation, is worse than having it at all. For the time and circumstances, that could be very true.

However, if we should advance to today's electronics............I can assure you that my light weight & "portable" Garmin 696 would have easily prevented this accident. Today's moving map GPS provides a much larger picture of where we're going, where we've been, and what's in between. That is something they simply did not have. Therefor, it's quite backwards, and certainly outdated to suggest .........that we're perhaps better to step back a step, and forget the electronics. Pushing the video these days proves no other purpose, than trying to prove why advanced electronic navigation is not such a good thing.

Thanks to this type of "brain washing"............I've often read of students who brag about not using a GPS........as if it's a ritual of being inducted into the corps of worthy, skilled, & immortal pilots. That's all bull. Students should be taught the real value of GPS navigation along with all other nav aids & flight planning.........right now! Let's don't farther the thought of a bunch of hapless children, blindly following the magenta line, as the title suggest. Even that title is seriously out dated.

BTW-- you certainly shared your RV owner/pilot thoughts with me. So give me a hint.

L.Adamson
 
Ron Levy said:
There's also the issue of crawling before you walk, and walking before you run. If you try to run before you learn to walk, you're going to fall on your face a lot more times before you master running.
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True..........

Of course, the analogy has nothing at all to do with GPS versus old world navigation. And it would be a real stretch of the imagination, to make it so.

L.Adamson
 
I believe the GPS constellation is partucilarly robust right now as a result of all the military ops we have going on world wide.

When they draw the constellation down to the nominal config, availability and accuracy could drop off.

This came up in ADS-B planning discussions. The airlines wouldn't have to equip to recieve WAAS/SBAS to meet ADS-B accuracy needs, if the government sprang for a few more sattelites.

The business jet worlds early equippage for WAAS undermined sensitivity to the airline arguments. ADS-B performance requirements don't necessarily require WAAS though, just a certain level of accuracy and system availability.

Some of the alternative solutions could still offer relief.

I believe Honeywell demonstrated the required levels of accuracy without WAAS by coupling inertial reference system to GPS using recursive algorythms.
 
Ron Levy said:
No, only a lot of years of teaching people to fly.
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Ron, while I do agree that every pilot should learn how to navigate visually on cross country trips I do believe that the day will soon come when that's considered to be as outdated as AN ranges and ADF in the US. I don't know a single post-checkride pilot who would normally embark on a long trip using nothing but pilotage guided by a chart marked with their route and visual checkpoints every 10-20 miles. But it is still a useful skill to be capable of finding your way around a local area without electronic aids.
 
Well, I am one of the oldest active pilots on here - and been flying that long also...

I love GPS... I can follow the magenta line like my dog can track down a bacon treat on a pitch black patio by following his nose... I have a pair of moving maps in Fat Albert - belt and suspenders...

But - and it is a big but at my age - I KNOW how to navigate with compass, VOR, stopwatch, etc... I can calculate by the Rule of 60 (look it up) I am a whiz on a whiz wheel (getting a bit rusty though)

So, students need to be taught ALL that in initial training so they will have the ability when the sheet hits the big fan someday (it will)...
Then they need to be taught that for anything but a local flight they need to have a chart handy and the VOR tuned to a nearby station so that when all the magic smoke leaks out of their magic glass screen it will take but a minute to establish themselves on a desired heading at or above MEA...

One time going to Florida I had one portable GPS in the plane... My buddy in the right seat said, "that's mine" and placed it on his yoke... Several times that day he challenged me with, "where are we?" In as bored a tone as I could muster I would reply 'we are 11.2 miles from Kxxx on the 162 radial'... He would look at the GPS then laboriously scratch lines on his chart and finally say, "uhhh, that's right" and shake his head in disbelief... With a pair of VOR receivers and a DME I had no problem with determining my position at any time within seconds - what he did not notice is that I would set the OBS so that a radial was about 5 minutes ahead of me and when I centered that radial I would reset the OBS ahead again, and that I could judge where I was within a couple of radial degrees and any instant by glancing at the angle of the OBS needle... Old AND sneaky...
 
gismo said:
Ron, while I do agree that every pilot should learn how to navigate visually on cross country trips I do believe that the day will soon come when that's considered to be as outdated as AN ranges and ADF in the US.
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Perhaps, but it doesn't change the importance of learning and staying proficient with DR/pilotage navigation. I consider the comparison to AN/ADF inappropriate, because they were electronic nav systems that were replaced with better electronic nav systems. The fundamental understanding of time, heading, and distance was just as essential to the use of VOR as it was for the use of NDB's and AN ranges, and it still remains important to using GPS effectively (not to mention when the military does a jamming test and wipes out GPS for 400 nm around).

I don't know a single post-checkride pilot who would normally embark on a long trip using nothing but pilotage guided by a chart marked with their route and visual checkpoints every 10-20 miles.
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I'd say that depends on what they're flying. They might not mark all the points, but the skills developed by doing that in primary training still allow them to locate and use visual checkpoints on their sectional as a means of determining where they are in relation to their desired course line and destination.

But it is still a useful skill to be capable of finding your way around a local area without electronic aids.
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That, too, at the very least. OTOH, I've seen folks who, if they punched the wrong identifier into their GPS, would happily follow it east when their destination was to the west. The last two pilots I counseled on airspace busts both had GPS, and didn't recognize that their improper use of it was going to take them through airspace in which they should not have been because they didn't check the GPS steering against their sectional chart and the ground. Had they just drawn the line on the chart, and compared where the GPS was taking them with that line on the chart, they would have realized the GPS was taking them off that line and not busted the airspace.
 
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Dr. O said:
Well, I am one of the oldest active pilots on here - and been flying that long also...

I love GPS... I can follow the magenta line like my dog can track down a bacon treat on a pitch black patio by following his nose... I have a pair of moving maps in Fat Albert - belt and suspenders...

But - and it is a big but at my age - I KNOW how to navigate with compass, VOR, stopwatch, etc... I can calculate by the Rule of 60 (look it up) I am a whiz on a whiz wheel (getting a bit rusty though)

So, students need to be taught ALL that in initial training so they will have the ability when the sheet hits the big fan someday (it will)...
Then they need to be taught that for anything but a local flight they need to have a chart handy and the VOR tuned to a nearby station so that when all the magic smoke leaks out of their magic glass screen it will take but a minute to establish themselves on a desired heading at or above MEA...

One time going to Florida I had one portable GPS in the plane... My buddy in the right seat said, "that's mine" and placed it on his yoke... Several times that day he challenged me with, "where are we?" In as bored a tone as I could muster I would reply 'we are 11.2 miles from Kxxx on the 162 radial'... He would look at the GPS then laboriously scratch lines on his chart and finally say, "uhhh, that's right" and shake his head in disbelief... With a pair of VOR receivers and a DME I had no problem with determining my position at any time within seconds - what he did not notice is that I would set the OBS so that a radial was about 5 minutes ahead of me and when I centered that radial I would reset the OBS ahead again, and that I could judge where I was within a couple of radial degrees and any instant by glancing at the angle of the OBS needle... Old AND sneaky...
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Seems to me that dependency on VOR/DME isn't really any different than dependence on GPS other than the slightly higher risk of a total GPS system failure. And I have little faith in the ability of pilot's to fly solely by pilotage over unfamiliar ground if they've been following magenta lines ever since they passed their checkride no matter how well they were taught during PPL training to use their wiz wheel and compass with a chart. You (and to some extent I) have had enough experience navigating visually without electronics in the past that we can probably manage to grope our way to a distant airport after the smoke leaks out of the boxes but I'll bet there's plenty of "properly trained" private pilots out there who have let that skill atrophy to the point of uselessness.
 
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gismo said:
Seems to me that dependency on VOR/DME isn't really any different than dependence on GPS other than the slightly higher risk of a total GPS system failure.
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Bingo. That's why this is no different than overdependence on LORAN, VOR, ADF, or even AN ranges. In each case, understanding and proficiency in basic DR/pilotage is what saves you from errors in electronic navigation.

And I have little faith in the ability of pilot's to fly solely by pilotage over unfamiliar ground if they've been following magenta lines ever since they passed their checkride no matter how well they were taught during PPL training to use their wiz wheel and compass with a chart.
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Me, neither, and my lack of faith is based on flying with quite a few such pilots.
 
Ron Levy said:
Me, neither, and my lack of faith is based on flying with quite a few such pilots.
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So aside from the PTS, what's the point in teaching this today? I'd think it would be more productive to use that time on things like ADM, and emergency procedures but WTHDIK.
 
gismo said:
So aside from the PTS, what's the point in teaching this today?
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The same as it always was -- so pilots can navigate with whatever tools are available, and identify when the tool they're using is broke. I don't think the fact that a lot of pilots haven't been sufficiently convinced of its importance to maintain their proficiency in it after passing the PP test is a reason to stop teaching it. If that were the way of things, we wouldn't teach partial panel for IR, either, and bloody history tells us that would not be a good idea.
 
I found Dead Reckoning surprisingly accurate during training. Get timely weather briefing for winds aloft, calculate course, keep course, and you get right where you want. I would go 150 nm hitting every checkpoint and then come right to the airport. Very cool. But then I got my ticket and never done it since, because maaaan. It takes way too much work to plan a flight for it, and flexibility is nil. These days I select checkpoints judiciously and place them about every 20 nm, then steer roughly where I want to go. I'm that minimal standard in Dr. Bruce's avatar.

As for GPS, it's quite cool. I suppose people get to "rely" on it when flying over water or places like Kansas where landmarks are scarce. Unfortunately in some airplanes that I rent, the 12V outlet is broken and my AV8OR only has juice for about 40 minutes. VOR receiver is inoperative too. So I pretty much got used to flying my cross-countries by pilotage out of necessity.
 
mxalix258 said:
Hi All,

I wanted to bring up a topic that I'm sure has been discussed here before, but wanted to get some of your thoughts. As a new private pilot, and looking back on my training - I depended ALOT on the GPS.

During a flight last night it finally hit me that, if this thing went out I would have NO idea where I am (well I generally idea, but would be severely hampered).

Just wanted to get you all's thoughts on dependency on a GPS, am I reducing the value of the flying I'm doing because I'm not really doing any true navigation? I suspect this is true, but I'm still a little hesitant to venture too far out on a cross country with no GPS (even as a backup) with all the special airspace out here in DC.

Just curious - I hope I don't get tore apart for this post :redface:
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I got my private and IR in an aircraft with no GPS, and I'm thankful for that. Not criticizing you, because now I fly in what used to be called TAA.

Flying should be practical, fun, safe, and convenient. If you feel you're dependent, just have a backup like an iPad or Garmin handheld in the plane.

If you can't guarantee you'll have that, then be sure to be up on pilotage and dead reckoning skills.
 
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spiderweb said:
I got my private and IR in an aircraft with no GPS, and I'm thankful for that. Not criticizing you, because now I fly in what used to be called TAA.

Flying should be practical, fun, safe, and convenient. If you feel you're dependent, just have a backup like an iPad or Garmin handheld in the plane.

If you can't guarantee you'll have that, then be sure to be up on pilotage and dead reckoning skills.
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The other day I was on a flight and we had backups galore.Need a backup pilot? Four pilots aboard. Need a backup IFR GPS? Three of those aboard. And if they all went TU? We had 8 VFR GPSs with us, at least four of which had moving maps on sectionals.
 
Mafoo said:
Yea, and I plan to understand how to use other means. However the odds that in my real life I ever need to rely on them is minimal.
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The very first flight I took away from home base as a newly-minted private pilot in my newly-acquired 430W-equipped Cherokee, the 430W went dark and didn't come back.

My passenger freaked a little bit, until I reminded her that I'd plotted our course on the sectional, and had a flight plan with easy-to-find waypoints, and other navigation instruments like VORs and compasses. She calmed down and I completed the flight without a problem, just like I'd flown all my PPL XCs.

Today I have a yoke-mounted GPS with a battery backup in addition to the 430W. But I still print a flight plan and carry a paper sectional (though I don't plot my course in advance anymore).

Do what you wanna do, but if you scoff at those who wear a belt and suspenders, you'll be that much more embarrassed if your pants ever fall down.

Mafoo said:
Let's say he had 3-4 GPS systems with him, like I would most of the time.
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Seriously? If you're counting an iPhone or similar as one of those, you might want to try using it in the air before you count it as a viable backup. And keeping a couple of charts handy and glancing at them occasionally might be less workload than managing the buttonology of 3-4 GPSs during a flight.
 
Jim_R said:
The very first flight I took away from home base as a newly-minted private pilot in my newly-acquired 430W-equipped Cherokee, the 430W went dark and didn't come back.

My passenger freaked a little bit, until I reminded her that I'd plotted our course on the sectional, and had a flight plan with easy-to-find waypoints, and other navigation instruments like VORs and compasses. She calmed down and I completed the flight without a problem, just like I'd flown all my PPL XCs.

Today I have a yoke-mounted GPS with a battery backup in addition to the 430W. But I still print a flight plan and carry a paper sectional (though I don't plot my course in advance anymore).

Do what you wanna do, but if you scoff at those who wear a belt and suspenders, you'll be that much more embarrassed if your pants ever fall down.

Seriously? If you're counting an iPhone or similar as one of those, you might want to try using it in the air before you count it as a viable backup. And keeping a couple of charts handy and glancing at them occasionally might be less workload than managing the buttonology of 3-4 GPSs during a flight.
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Like in the example I used in one of my posts. If I need to do advanced Calculus with a pencel and paper, I will. So far, all my computers and calculators have not all died on me, so I have yet to actually need to do it. But that does not mean I don't want to know how to do it.

I plan on learning the expected forms of Navigation (I think that's next week actually), and I will be glad I know how to use them. However my Stratus ADS-B receiver, iPad, iPhone, Garmin GPS, and my wife's iPhone (the 90% of the time she is with me) have to all fail before I turn to the Nav radio.

If/When that happens, I will post here and admit I was wrong. :)
 
Mafoo said:
Like in the example I used in one of my posts. If I need to do advanced Calculus with a pencel and paper, I will. So far, all my computers and calculators have not all died on me, so I have yet to actually need to do it. But that does not mean I don't want to know how to do it.
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You remind me of an article I read in an engineering journal some years ago, written by the VP of at construction engineering firm. They'd been asked for a bid on a construction job to build a new factory. He handed the task to a team of young engineers, who put together a bid proposal. When they presented it to him, he took one look at the bottom line and said, "Well, we can't bid on this one."

"Why not?" the team leader asked.

"Because we'll never win at this bid price," the VP replied. "It's about double what our competition will be bidding for the same project."

"How do you know that?"

"Well," the VP said, "I've been doing this for a couple of decades, and I know what it usually costs for a building of this size, and we're about double that." He leafed through the package, looking at the detail costs, and noticed that around half the cost of the project was the drainage pond. "That's pretty odd," he said. "The drainage pond should only be about 10% of the cost, not 50%. Just how big is this pond?"

"[Insert number] cubic yards," responded the team leader.

"How big???" yelped the VP. "That's big enough to drop in the Empire State Building without leaving a splash! That pond ought to be 1/100th that size."

"How do you know that?"


"Well," the VP said, "I've been doing this for a couple of decades, and I know how big a pond it usually takes for a building of this size, and yours is a hundred times that big."

Sure enough, when then went through the numbers, someone on the team had multiplied by ten when they should have divided by ten. The computers and calculators they had used were perfectly happy to take whatever numbers the team punched in, and nobody on the team thought to check the work beyond that, or recognized the absurdly huge size of the pond. The VP, who had been brought up in the slide rule era where you needed to have a good mental estimate of the result so you could put the decimal point in the right place, saw the problem instantly. They recomputed all the numbers, and produced a winning bid.

And that's why my trainees learn how to flight plan with a pencil, a flight log, and an E-6B, and to navigate with basic flight instruments and a sectional chart before they get to use computer flight planning and a GPS.
 
Had the same thing happen with a young engineer who was doing some engine studies for me on a new turbofan engine. He presented the results and it said the SFC was .001 or something equally absurd. I asked where did that come from and the reply was the Cycle Deck computed it.

I told him before running the deck next time, get a number it should be close to before running the deck. I don't care how, ask an old guy, look it up, hand calculate it, whatever. Its called the test of reasonableness.

Same thing I do when planning a flight. I have a bunch of "That's About Right" numbers in my head so when Foreflight or the 430 or whatever device I use spits out a plan, I can check it for reasonableness. If I didn't have those TAR numbers, I would do it the old fashion way until I do. Same thing happens in flight so I know what to use and when to go to the backup.

Cheers
 
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