No GPS Instrument Checkride in 2021?

This past Monday, I was flying home from Arkansas in a friend's Turbo Lance. IFR flight in VMC.

Leaving El Paso, being vectored on the Mexico side of Trump's Great Wall, the Garmin 430 displays:

"GPS FAILURE. Use Dead Reckoning, or alternate navigation." (or something similar to that).

Folks in the White Sands Missile Range were doing pre-announced jamming.

My friend, a low-time pilot, who was left seat, looked at me with a little "WTF". I said: well, we were headed to Columbus VOR, and now we're doing that for real with this....

I dialed in the VOR for CUS, and life was good. He didn't seem worried, and I sure wasn't.

While casually looking around, I heard an American flight call in stating he had a GPS failure. Then I heard another pilot call in, and you could hear the tremble in his voice. I thought he was going to cry. The controller must have heard the same thing I did, and asked if he was okay, or needed radar vectors. His reply was: "I don't really know"

I looked at my friend and said: "Never be that pilot. VORs aren't that difficult." He simply smiled.

We got switched to ABQ. I hope the poor lost soul didn't die.
 
Special thanks to everyone for the comments, suggestions, and encouragement. It’s now been almost two months since I got my instrument rating. ATC has always been very accommodating. I just put “No IFR legal GPS” in the comments and when they wanted me to go direct it was almost always “cleared direct via radar vectors”. If they never gave me “via radar vectors” I would respond “Unable. No IFR legal GPS. Request radar vectors...” That always did the trick.

However, since I do so much cross country flying, from a safety/convenience perspective I decided it would be best to be able to land at any general aviation airport regardless of IFR/VFR weather. So, a month after getting my instrument rating I replaced my Terra NAV/COM with a new Garmin GNC 355 NAV/COM giving me both a modern COM radio and a modern GPS touchscreen navigator. New, the Garmin GNC 355 costs the same as a used 20-year-old Garmin 430W. Since I already had a reliable KX170B NAV/COM radio, I saw no need for the VOR/ILS capabilities of the 430W. I did lose glideslope capability by getting rid of the Terra NAV/COM but I replaced the VOR indicator on the KX170B with a… gasp… KI-214 indicator that has a glideslope receiver built in. While I was at it, I also pulled both the analog audio panel and intercom system and replaced them with a Garmin GMA 340 audio panel. I also replaced all the headset wiring with shielded wiring. Since the KX170B needed additional signal wires for channeling the glideslope receiver on the KI-214 indicator, I just went ahead and replaced all of its wiring as well. The majority of the work was done by myself with oversight by an A&P which probably saved me at least $5k in installation costs. The entire project took me just under a week. Total cost was $8300 including the GNC 355, KI-204 indicator (for the Garmin), KI-214 indicator, GMA 340 audio panel, and wiring/coax/connectors, and A&P fees. All-in-all, the time from the last flight I filled /A to the first flight I filled /G was 7 days.

I know a used Garmin 430W is still a popular upgrade choice with its reliable 90’s technology for IFR pilots or flight schools on a tight budget. However, if you already have a NAV/COM radio, I strongly encourage you to take a look at a new GNC 355. The GNC 355 even comes standard with built-in Bluetooth. Adding Bluetooth capability to a used Garmin 430W requires the Garmin Flightstream 210 unit which is $950 (not counting installation costs). I absolutely love the way I can transfer flight plans back and forth between Foreflight and the GNC 355 just by tapping the screen. Since I file my flight plans with Foreflight, it just takes a couple of seconds to transfer, preview, and activate the same flight plan into the GNC 355 when I get to my hangar. When ATC tells me to go direct and I activate direct on the GNC 355, the flight plan in Foreflight updates as well with just one tap. The same is true for anyone else flying with me using their Foreflight. I also have Foreflight connected to Sentry for ADSB-in and have not had any issues connecting Foreflight to both devices simultaneously (The GNC 355 connects via Bluetooth and Sentry connects via WiFi). The COM side of the GNC 355 also has some neat features like the ability to monitor the standby frequency, but I’ll save those for a future post.

In case you’re wondering, I did keep my DME unit. If I ever find myself in a GPS outage again (happened to me in New Mexico flying VFR), I’ll be ready to fly just about any VOR/LOC/ILS approach.

Tip: Your A&P can typically get new Garmin avionics at a lower price from their avionics supplier than the manufacturer's MAP (minimum advertised price) you see online. He might also have working KI indicators on a shelf in the back that he will give you at bargain prices :)
 
One of the many eye openers going from civil to military instrument flying was having only an ADF and a single VOR/ILS receiver.

fixing stepdows using cross radials while switching between the VOR and localizer frequencies was torture, but it was the only way to get it done.

No DME and GPS was unknown back then.

In some ways, I guess it kept things simple, without all that additional navigation equipment...
 
IK04 said:
One of the many eye openers going from civil to military instrument flying was having only an ADF and a single VOR/ILS receiver.

fixing stepdows using cross radials while switching between the VOR and localizer frequencies was torture, but it was the only way to get it done.

No DME and GPS was unknown back then.

In some ways, I guess it kept things simple, without all that additional navigation equipment...
Click to expand...
Yes, while I didn't have RNAV until 2017, I was spoiled by having at least a DME for fixes: not so much "children of the magenta" as "children of the orange LED" (?)

For most of my ILS approaches, however, I benefited from the Canadian practice of an NDB at around 5 miles as the final approach fix. That made things very easy. Those are disappearing now.
 
Nice write up. I also got my instrument rating without an IFR GPS, in 2018...dare I say, I think it was actually easier that way. Over the next three years, I then flew about 100 hours in instrument conditions, including several major cross country flights, without an IFR GPS (or DME, or autopilot). I never found it that limiting...although I now just recently bought a plane with an IFR GPS (and autopilot and DME). I also usually flew direct as well, although I did have a VFR GPS that did most of the navigating in such situations (along with the iPad).
 
Mach Diamond said:
Special thanks to everyone for the comments, suggestions, and encouragement. It’s now been almost two months since I got my instrument rating. ATC has always been very accommodating. I just put “No IFR legal GPS” in the comments and when they wanted me to go direct it was almost always “cleared direct via radar vectors”. If they never gave me “via radar vectors” I would respond “Unable. No IFR legal GPS. Request radar vectors...” That always did the trick.
Click to expand...
It should be enough just not to have /G (or ICAO equivalent) in your IFR equipment, but I noticed about 10 years ago that non-RNAV had become so rare for IFR that ATC was just assuming you had it without looking, and I was constantly having to reply with "Unable..." to RNAV clearances. The last NDB approach I flew in actual IMC in 2017 (a few weeks before I had my GTN 650 installed), ATC tried to clear me for the RNAV, and seemed quite puzzled that I actually wanted to fly the NDB approach (it was the only non-RNAV option for that airport).
 
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