It is a cliché, but time does fly when you are having fun. Interesting is fun, and almost nine really interesting years have passed since I got one of the first (if not the first other than a manufacturer) approvals for GPS approaches. The FAA approval is dated 7/25/94. That first unit, a Garmin GPS 155, offered some installation and operational challenges, but after I mastered them it became my primary bit of navigational gear, both for en route and for approaches.
Since getting that unit approved I've changed, evaluated and upgraded units and now have a Garmin GNS 530 and a Bendix/King KLN 94. Several other navigators have been in the panel along the way, but there has always been an approach-approved GPS in my airplane.
The pervasiveness of GPS is evident in the number of approaches that I have flown using various navaids. Since getting that first approval, I have flown, in actual conditions, 65 GPS approaches, 46 ILS approaches, five localizer approaches, one back course localizer approach and one VOR/DME approach. There is still an ADF in my airplane, but I haven't flown an NDB approach since starting with GPS.
A lot of those GPS approaches were overlays of existing non-precision approaches, and I still monitor the raw data from the VOR and DME when flying an overlay of one of those approaches. That reflects no lack of confidence in GPS; it's just that if I happen to have a belt and suspenders, I'll wear them both.
En route, GPS has been the primary navigational aid, though I do still run my trusty King KLN 88 loran. Occasionally I'll monitor some en route navigation with a raw VOR signal, and I am always reminded of how the VOR signal wanders around, where the GPS is completely stable.
A great feature of GPS units is the flight plan function. I know what routes are likely to be approved in the area that I fly the most, and I always use the flight plan function of the GPS and input the plan before takeoff. If cleared as filed, that means that all the en route navigational chores were done in advance. All the autopilot has to do is keep the needle in the middle, and all I have to do is sit and watch as the airplane automatically follows the flight plan. That leaves plenty of time to monitor everything else.
