Comments

I've used Loran from the early implementations in GA aircraft, I've used RNAV, and now it's GPS. However, I think pilots and government make a serious mistake with the one or the other approach. What is going to be the back up for GPS. It was to be enhanced LORAN-C, but now there will be no Loran. There is little else that could serve as well. Solar storms are not something the public and many of our officials are aware of. GPS has been so reliable even the government is starting to think of it as invulnerable which it is far from being, but it is so low profile a danger it is easy to ignore. At the old saying goes, "Ignorance is Bliss". Not having a ground based back up to GPS is a serious safety issue. GPS is reliable and accurate, but it is not invulnerable. At least twice it has been out of commission for short periods of a few hours. One I remember was during the solar storm that shut the power grid down in Quebec. We are now entering a new sunspot cycle with increasing activity and with that comes more sunspots, solar storms, and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME). On top of this is a rather disturbing phenomena in a rather large area of the Sough Atlantic. It's referred to as the South Atlantic Anomaly where there is no discernible magnetic field. Some scientists are saying this is the harbinger of a magnetic field reversal for the earth. It's happened many times before and we are overdue for another change. The major problem with this is with no magnetic field, or a very weak one and there are no Van Allen Belts and no protection from solar flares, or CMEs. GPS satellites are currently pretty well protected from all but the most powerful CMEs, but that protection could disappear in the future be it next year, the next decade, or the next century. One thing that is relatively certain and that is the change is not far off. Even with the current protection, a direct hit from a CME could easily put satellites out of commission. If it's a big flare it could render a number of satellites inoperable and if it lasted long enough for all of the satellites to complete their orbits the GPS system could be rendered useless in a matter of hours. It's an unlikely scenario but a long way from impossible. Depending on the activity of this new solar cycle ... or the next the likelihood of CME damage becomes a strong possibility. What happens to the thousands of commercial flights that now use GPS for reduced seperation? What happens to any aircraft using GPS for navigation with no "earth based" back up. I don't like to sound like an alarmist, but we have redundancy in the cockpit for a reason. Virtually all navigation instruments and radios have at least one on-board backup, but are we going with an "all our eggs in one basket" approach (no pun intended). More and more land based nav aids are being phased out. That leaves us with the likely hood of finding ourselves in one of those Aluminum mailing tubes at 35 or 40,000 feet flying VFR if they are lucky. You do not want to be at high altitudes when the earth is being hit by a CME which is not only unhealthy for human, but aircraft instruments as well. Computer based electronics are much more at risk. To summarize, I think the Coast Guard and DHS are being irresponsible while they are putting the public at great risk to save a few dollars short term when there is a very real danger of not having a reliable back up for GPS. That backup does not need the accuracy of GPS. It just needs to be something we can rely on.