Acknowledgements: AIR FACTS / John Zimmerman
(Ed. Note: Do you still miss the good old days? Read on, and like John count your blessings today, and look forward to what more’s yet to come … )
“2018 is a year of milestones for the Global Positioning System (GPS). The concept of navigating by satellite was first discussed in the early 1960s, but it was exactly 40 years ago that the Department of Defense launched the first fully-functional NAVSTAR satellites into orbit.
It was Garmin who really changed the aviation industry though, with the introduction of the GNS 430 and 530 twenty years ago. Even jaded old veterans had to admit that a color moving map that always knew your position and groundspeed was pretty impressive, and it ushered in a new era of direct-to navigation and GPS approaches.
Decades after it first caught on, GPS is so deeply embedded in everyday life that we now take it for granted. Over two billion people carry around smartphones with GPS receivers inside, enabling everything from Uber to Instagram. As life-changing as these services have been, it’s hard to think of an industry more transformed than general aviation. Consider the long list of capabilities that even a 60-year old Light Sport Aircraft can now have thanks to 24 satellites.
Nobody gets lost anymore
At its most basic level, GPS does only one thing: it tells the user exactly where they are. That deceptively simple feature unlocks so much more when paired to a navigation database and a large screen, but even the basic “lat/long” location is a huge benefit for pilots. Before GPS, lots of brain power was required just to understand where the airplane was, especially when flying in clouds. Dead reckoning skills, VORs, NDBs, DME and radar were all used to answer the question, “where are we?”
Even with all that technology, getting lost was a major concern. When I began my pilot training in the mid-1990s, we spent a lot of time discussing “lost procedures”, which included everything from circling water towers to asking for a DF steer.
Those conversations seem quaint now. Sure, you can lose situational awareness (usually due to lack of proficiency with avionics), but truly being lost for a long period of time is almost unthinkable. The panel-mount GPS will show you where you are and where you’re going. If not, the portable GPS will… or the tablet… or the phone. Maybe this has made our pilotage skills a little rusty; but it has alsoprevented countless accidents.
Navigation doesn’t just mean in flight, either. Geo-referenced taxy diagrams have become mainstream with the growth of the iPad, and have played at least some role in reducing serious runway incursions.
Instrument approaches to small airports
Once a flight reaches the terminal area, the navigation challenge gets even more acute, at least when it’s IFR. Major airline airports have always been well served by ILS approaches that can guide an airplane down to 200 feet AGL, but smaller airports (where most general aviation pilots fly) had to make do with worse options – maybe nothing more than a circling VOR approach or an NDB approach.
GPS has fundamentally changed the distribution of power. Because WAAS GPS approaches depend on a single constellation of satellites instead of hundreds of locally-installed radios, a quiet country airport can have the same precision approach that a major towered airport does, complete with a glideslope down to 250 feet. The proof is in the numbers: today there are almost 4,000 WAAS approaches, over 1,000 at airports not served by an ILS. Score one for the little guy!
Terrain and obstacle alerts
Most pilots intuitively know that these navigation tasks are easier with GPS, but what’s less appreciated are the huge advancements in hazard alerting that have come about.
Throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s, Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) was a leading cause of fatal accidents, with the American Airlines crash in Cali, Colombia a more recent example. That Boeing 757 had a basic Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS), but it only gave the pilots a 12-second warning before impact with a mountain. Modern Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems (EGPWS) use GPS to provide much more sophisticated alerts, and critically, they also provide a visual overview of terrain. They have been spectacularly successful, almost eliminating CFIT accidents in properly equipped airplanes.
The latest advancement has brought this technology to consumer devices. An iPad running “ForeFlight” or “Garmin Pilot” can provide not just terrain alerts but also obstacle warnings. Some avionics even show power lines, a critical feature for helicopter pilots and crop dusters. Without GPS these alerts would be either impossible or annoying to the point of uselessness.
Traffic and weather
GPS isn’t the essential technology behind traffic alerting; after all, radar kept airplanes separated for decades. What GPS has added is another level of precision and a lower cost of entry. Instead of spending $20,000 or more to install an active traffic system (or a full-blown TCAS), ADS-B traffic can be displayed on an iPad for well under $1,000. And instead of just showing position and altitude, ADS-B traffic can also show track and speed. This means pilots can make smarter deviations based on where a threatened airplane is going, not just where it is.
Datalink weather has been even more widely adopted than traffic alerts, with tens of thousands of pilots now flying with up-to-date radar imagesreceived via “SiriusXM” satellites or ADS-B ground stations. This is beginning to show up in the weather accident rate, which started declining around the time when ADS-B weather went mainstream. Again, GPS is not the main technology at work here, and yet it’s impossible to imagine modern datalink weather without it. A static radar picture in flight is nice; having your position and route as well makes it far more valuable. The big picture awareness is what makes strategic avoidance so easy. It’s not just radar, either. Imagine trying to avoid a temporary flight restriction (TFR) without GPS on board.
The future
Is the GPS revolution running out of steam? Not yet. The latest generation of GPS satellites, called Block III, are scheduled to launch in October, which should bring improvements in accuracy and availability. Beyond fundamental system upgrades, there are plenty of exciting projects in the works.
In aviation, the most visible advances will come from the world of ADS-B. This massive program will slowly transform how air traffic control works. By connecting a WAAS GPS to an upgraded transponder, ADS-B offers coverage in many places that radar could never reach, and usually with better accuracy. It’s even beginning to change airspace, as routing and frequencies are redesigned around GPS navigation instead of VORs.
An instrument approach that is only possible with GPS.
Pilots can also expect to see more WAAS approaches to remote airports, many of them in places where traditional navaids are simply impractical. The latest RNP approaches feature curving paths and multiple step-down fixes, designs that are only possible with very precise GPS receivers.
Another interesting idea is the creation of more data-driven safety programs that use GPS flight data recorders to analyze flights and identify potential safety issues. Such programs have made a difference in the airline industry, and inexpensive GPS receivers might make them practical for GA pilots too. Perhaps GPS could even begin to make a dent in the number of fuel exhaustion accidents, by showing real-time range graphics and more accurate time en-route numbers, although that may be wishful thinking.
As magical as GPS seems, it is obviously not perfect. Much of the behind-the-scenes work going on now is focused on protecting it from interference, either intentional or accidental. This is a small but growing problem, as it’s shockingly easy to spoof a GPS receiver. The more our world relies on GPS, the more critical this problem becomes.
Unfortunately, the bigger threat, as you might expect, comes from pilots. GPS is merely a tool, not a replacement for a competent pilot. Used wisely it can improve situational awareness and increase safety margins; used carelessly it can lead to disaster. Indeed, the key mistake made by the pilots in Cali was to mis-program their flight management system. This is a reminder that avionics proficiency is an essential skill in the modern cockpit, not a bonus.
Still, 40 years after the Department of Defense launched NAVSTAR and 20 years after Garmin launched an avionics boom, GPS deserves the prize for the most significant innovation in aviation history. One key reason it has had such an impact is its wide reach – unlike say, the jet engine, it has touched all parts of aviation. GPS has been a democratising force, both adding features and reducing cost for pilots all around the world. Here’s to 40 more years of saving lives”.
FLY SAFE!
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