Russia leaves planes without GPS in northern Europe

english.elpais.com

18 points·gulced··5 comments

The headline is biased. It paints Russia under a bad light. “Due to ideological disagreements between two competing geopolitical blocks, and the ensuing conflicts, part of Northern Europe is currently subject to GSP jamming”. We should not allow the whole nation and people of Russia to be subject to this smear campaign. Even if you do not like them. Because it’s wrong. And you would not want one day the same to be done to you. Because by the way things are going, there is the potential for the “good guys” to end up being on the receiving side.

It's sad that pilots can no longer fly without GPS assistance. They really are the equivalent of fancy bus drivers.

GPS is relatively new (only the last 30 years or so).

There was a whole set of navigational aids available to pilots beforehand; NDBs, VORs, TACAN, LORAN, RADAR, etc, etc, etc.

AND OF COURSE, THE BEST OF ALL, THE HUMAN EYE AND A WAC CHART.

Airline pilots had an engineer at the time before GPS was available, asking a 2-crew system to handle VOR-to-VOR or (non-FMS) IRS navigation as well as their regular navigation load isn't really feasible.

That said, most airliners still have a backup IRS, and can still fly a regular flight plan with IRS and no-GPS, it's just 10 seconds extra setup time at the start of flight.

(trying to go back to IRS-only transatlantic/pacific flights might be a problem due to drift, but GPS still works outside of the small area Russia is jamming anyway, so we're not at that point yet)

Commercial air traffic density is much higher than it used to be a couple of decades ago. It's no longer just a question of navigating, but also of staying in your alloted volume of space during the flight.

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