Why GPS Doesn't Work

Dark clouds are looming on the horizon of our otherwise exciting GPS future. With increasing frequency, the military is jamming or spoofing GPS over huge swaths of airspace. A typical GPS NOTAM for Albuquerque center covers a radius of 237 NM at 10,000 feet, 207 NM at 400 feet and 165 NM at 50 feet daily for most of a week. Pilots in the Southwest have become accustomed to these NOTAMs, but theyre becoming more frequent and expanding to other areas of the country.

jmiller

Tuesday, October 01, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Increasing military GPS jamming and insidious spoofing pose a significant and growing threat to civil aviation, disrupting multiple aircraft systems and creating dangerous situations due to a lack of clear user clues.
Civil aviation, heavily reliant on GPS for navigation and surveillance, critically lacks a widespread, effective, and supported backup navigation system, especially for the approach phase of flight.
Current advisories are inadequate for these opaque threats, creating safety concerns that necessitate better pilot planning, updated regulations, and a reevaluation of the balance between military electronic warfare training and civil aviation safety.

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Dark clouds are looming on the horizon of our otherwise exciting GPS future. With increasing frequency, the military is jamming or spoofing GPS over huge swaths of airspace. A typical GPS NOTAM for Albuquerque center covers a radius of 237 NM at 10,000 feet, 207 NM at 400 feet and 165 NM at 50 feet daily for most of a week. Pilots in the Southwest have become accustomed to these NOTAMs, but they’re becoming more frequent and expanding to other areas of the country.

Jamming is bad enough, but there’s been little talk of spoofing. GPS spoofing occurs when the GPS signal is replicated in a manner that provides incorrect location information. For example, at the Geneva Motor Show, a spoofing attack reported show-car locations, not in Geneva, but in Buckingham, England, in the year 2036.