Airplanes Can Now Take Off and Land With GPS. Will Flights Be Faster?

http://mashable.com/2012/02/07/faa-gps/

by hoag • 14 years ago

35 28 14 years ago

hoag2• 14 years ago

It's about freaking time. I remember back in May 2009 I was on a UA flight from HNL-SFO and if I'm not mistaken, they were testing SFO's GPS approach system: IIRC, we descended from cruising altitude to wheels down in about 10 minutes. Awesome.

nekojima2• 14 years ago

That's quite a common time (10-13 minutes) from cruising altitude to landing at most airports in East Asia. America has other issues that interfere with more sensible landing procedures that need to be addressed, but are unlike to be.

DrJokepu• 14 years ago

This is very interesting, if you have a few minutes, can you please explain briefly why this is the case to someone who doesn't know much about aviation?

hoag2• 14 years ago

That's interesting. I didn't know that. I would assume, therefore, that domestic operators in East Asian countries tend to average at least slightly better fuel economy? Would be interesting to see some numbers on this. A 10-13 min descent is a huge improvement over the 20-25 min descent commonly used today elsewhere.

brndnhy• 14 years ago

Great news, though the headline is kind of weird.

GPS-only RNAV STARs (Standard Terminal Arrival Routes) have been in use for some time.

The "next gen" technologies referred to in the article involve a lot more than just GPS improvements (such as WAAS and publishing more RNAV GPS approaches annually). They include new ground radar for automated taxi operations, a replacement of traditional transponder-based aircraft separation, redesigning ATIS and weather reporting, and an overall push to standardize all ATC data -- ultimately getting more real-time data into cockpit avionics.

bprater• 14 years ago

Today, it seems like the bulk of the pilot's job is to get the plane in the air and then get it back on the ground. In 10 years, are we going to be at the point where a pilot's job is completely redundant? (Or maybe a fleet of planes is handled by a small group of "ground" pilots?)

emehrkay• 14 years ago

Didnt the FAA just state that unmanned aerial vehicles will be flying around general airspace by 2014?

potatolicious• 14 years ago

AFAIK "unmanned" at this point doesn't mean "pilotless" - you still have a full-time pilot, just not on board the aircraft proper. It seems pilot jobs are safe... for now.

joshwa• 14 years ago

Go read the AF 447 accident report and you'll see why humans are both the weakest link and still completely necessary. Sensors fail.

kooshball• 14 years ago

one of the articles covering it here.

give me chills every time i read it

CamperBob• 14 years ago

Correction: crappy, inadequately-redundant sensors fail.

kijin• 14 years ago

Just curious: What happens if some dude in a truck drives around an airport with an illegal GPS jammer? These things are everywhere: http://www.economist.com/node/18304246

gibybo• 14 years ago

Couldn't someone do the same thing with existing radio navigation tech? I suspect they just track the source of the signal down and arrest them.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

Not a big deal. The pilots would either switch to using other instruments / visual flight rules or would abort a landing and go around for another pass.

zdouglas• 14 years ago

A machinist I knew for an airline told me a story about how the avionics in plains in the late 80's could land autonomously in fair weather. The problem wasn't that the systems weren't smart enough, but that the tarmacs weren't robust enough to handle 'perfect' performance every time. After thousands of planes touched down within feet of each other, the pavement would crack and the systems couldn't be configured to inject variability to compensate.

coob• 14 years ago

If this were true, then surely chucking a tiny bit of randomness in there would solve the issue.

jdietrich2• 14 years ago

There's a very similar problem in maritime navigation. Ships used to steer their course along shipping lanes by hand, but now they're automatically steered by GPS. Everyone is crowded right into the middle of the lane, greatly increasing the likelihood of collisions. After a fatal accident caused by this issue[1], the British Coastguard specifically instruct ships not to follow the exact line of the shipping lanes in the English channel.

[1] http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources/SB_%202_2001_%20Ash_and...

rogerbinns• 14 years ago

Planes have been able to land in poor visibility automatically since 1968 using the ILS (instrument landing system) radio waves. There are various categories with category 3 being supported in 1968 (low decision height and visibility).

Autoland systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland ILS Categories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system#ILS_c...

DanielBMarkham2• 14 years ago

This works great until some foreign power takes out several of our GPS birds or a CME fries some important stuff, then what? We give up IMC aviation? Can't go back to ILS -- I hear they're taking those out. NDBs? Gone. LORAN? Are those even in existence any more? Can the big airports supplement with WAAS units enough for some kind of commercial aviation to continue? Is that possible?

I love GPS, and I'm for using it more and more, but I have a philosophical problem with putting all of our eggs in one basket. Just like the military's reliance on stealth, this is really cool stuff -- until it stops working. Then you're worse off than before.

Maybe I'm just old cranky guy today.

jdietrich2• 14 years ago

GLONASS (and eventually Galileo and Compass) have put us in something of a cold war situation. All the superpowers will have full GNSS systems in operation by 2020. Crucially, Galileo is effectively the "non-aligned" GNSS system, with diverse investment from outside Europe.

If we start shooting at satellites, there'll be much scarier things to worry about than how aviators will plot a course for landing. For better or worse, satellite warfare is the new Mutually Assured Destruction.

DanielBMarkham2• 14 years ago

Thank you. Okay, I'll buy the MAD analogy, although we were very lucky that MAD worked. No guarantee it's going to work in a multi-party situation. But fine.

Sill, where's the dual technology system? When I got my IFR ticket, I shot an NDB and an ILS plus I had to know about GPS approaches (they weren't certified then). If I couldn't shoot an ILS at an airport, maybe I could pull off an NDB at my alternate. If your GPS broke you could use the NDBs to get a fix, your pitot freezes over you use pitch and power, your vacuum gyro fails you have an electric backup, etc. There was always a mix of methods. The beauty of the system was that you never depended on just one thing.

Is that gone now? It's all GPS or nothing? A solar flare takes out our GPS capability, and simply because "there'll be much scarier things to worry about" that means we're not as hosed?

Thanks again for the information. Just trying to sort out in my head what risks are being taken.

icegreentea• 14 years ago

I believe the plan is to leave some ILS systems in place as backup. Honestly, they're in a bad spot. I'm sure all their engineers want to keep all current ILS around, but money is on the line. Sometimes you got to make trade offs.

deserted• 14 years ago

Hasn't the FAA seen Die Hard 2?

Airplanes Can Now Take Off and Land With GPS. Will Flights Be Faster?

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