GPS Notam

[S7Paco]

Not exactly a "near miss" but it was an interesting learning experience, last week flying from Sacramento out to Utah. I actually got a full standard brief before leaving. I was talking to Salt Lake Center on my last leg and was starting to get my teeth shaken out of my head from the bumps. Then the jet guys started mentioning that their GPS was going in and out and Center knew about it saying it was the military doing their thing and to let them know if they needed any help. About that time I had one wing in Restricted area 6405 and the other one in the rocks of the aptly named "Confusion Range". A minute later and Salt Lake said, "2TG, we're gonna lose radar and radio contact at your altitude, (11,500) squak VFR, see ya!" Thirty seconds later my GPS screen changed from a pretty map to a big "?". WTF! I turned around and ran screaming like a little girl to Ely for the night. That was the experience part, Here is what the "learning" part" was; First, if I had known the freq for Clover Control, (it was fiendishly concealed from me by being printed boldly on the sectional) I could have probably contacted them and asked for vectors. Secondly, and most interesting to me, was that when I called FSS to ask (nicely) why I didn't get the GPS notam everyone else seemed to know about it even though I had requested a "stardard brief" that morning, I was told matter of factly that it was because my pilot and aircraft profile with FSS lists me as "slant U". If, and only if I was "slant G" would I have been given the GPS notam! When I (nicely) pointed out that just because I no longer have IFR certified GPS, I, like virtually every other aircraft out there, have some sort of GPS in the plane and might have found that information useful, I was told, "no, everyone out there doesn't have GPS". I just said, Ok, now I know.

[wyomingiswindy]

Does this mean you also would have been unable to automatically update your Facebook location status during that time period? I wonder if you could call it in and have FSS update it? I hope all those little scramble tests were worth your sacrifice. When the bad guys come down to get Pops we'll totally be able to get them confused and divert them to Ely where there is no courtesy car and they will die of boredom.

[bart]

LOL

[S7Paco]

Well, they did let me use their truck to go to town in Ely, but you could still die from boredom.

[patrol guy]

Paco - so what was the military doing with the gps? I never knew they did those things either. and since I never file flight plans, what should we use for that code? u/g?

[S7Paco]

Hey John, I just wrote a big reply but I don't know what happened to it! I never file anymore now that I sold my 182 and don't fly IFR anymore. I was /G when I had an IFR certified GPS, now Im a /U which is "Mode C with no DME" For whatever that's worth.
You guys coming out this way this summer? Idaho or whatever?

[soyAnarchisto]

If you file VFR - you still use /G. My regular aircraft is not IFR certified (nor am I yet) - but it has a GPS and they always take it and always give me notams on satellite outages. I don't think I would file IFR w/ G if the gps was not certified for IFR, but it was explained to me if you file IFR you still use /G and that you use box 18 - other information to indicate in an IFR flight plan that your GPS is non-IFR.

I don't know if you believe in wikipedia or not, but this is actually called out there. I looked in the AIM, table 5-1-2 and of course it is not clarified.

G GNSS (No restrictions for VFR flight plans, but for IFR flight plans this code implies the GPS receiver is TSO C-129 (IFR certified. If the equipment is not IFR certified it could be entered in box 18 on an IFR flight plan as NAV/G non-IFR.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_ ... ote-ICAO-0

http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publicat ... @$D2d0webb

My 2c.

'Greg

[S7Paco]

2c!? That's at least 2 BUCKS worth! Im just gonna go /E (FMS with RVSM) on my Rans S7 and If I ever bother calling FSS again maybe they'll tell me everything there is to know!

[Cary]

Instead of using the wrong equipment identifier, you could always ask the briefer if there is anything affecting GPS in the route of flight. Of course, in this case, that there were massive GPS anomalies predicted was published in all sorts of aviation publications, including AOPA, Avweb, Flight Aware, etc. It's a great reason not to rely on GPS as the only means of navigation. While Selective Availability hasn't been employed in several years, the fact is that the GPS system is still operated by the Air Force and can be shut down or modified in seconds for "military necessity", testing, or whatever reason seems good at the time.

Not the best idea to file with an improper equipment identifier. Using an equipment identifier implies the ability to actually use the equipment. Note the /G caveat: "Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), including GPS or Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), with en route and terminal capability." That's why having a handheld GPS isn't /G--none of them have terminal capability--even in VFR conditions on a VFR flight plan.

Cary

[lowlevelops]

While I wouldn't say this is fairly common, it has happened to me a couple of times crossing the UT, NV and AZ areas. Jamming and spoofing are all going on in different military training scenarios. Jamming is obvious, but spoofing typically is hard to detect if you are flying solely /G. My first experience was somewhere between Prescott, AZ and Las Vegas, NV, Center let me know that I was 15 nm off course and tracking off course by 20 degrees. I looked back down at the HSIs on the panel and they showed the needles centered and I let him know that. He said he was going to check on a few things meanwhile I started tuning in VORs and then I could see I was off course. When he got back to me, he said there was some training going on south of our position and he was all of a sudden concerned with the effected area. No big deal in our case, the flight continued using ground base NAVAIDs and radar vectors but I could see if you were on a GPS approach into somewhere and receiving these false signals it could end being a bad day. From that point on even when flying /G, I have VORs and/or NDBs tuned in and tracking them on the RMI.... Just making sure, because obviously you never know!

[wyomingiswindy]

Imagine if you will an eager eyed, 25 year old FAA FAR regulation writer. He was sitting in his cubicle when the GPS was invented. He was given the task to work it into the regs. There would need to be an expensive TSO version and a cheap version.

At first the kid thought about making it simple and possibly even using English, but his boss, who was 2 months away from retirement, put the kabosh on that.
"We're not here to save people's lives. We're here to cover our asses. Besides, if they want a hundred dollar hamburger, then they're going to earn it".
He went on...You need to come up with names and abbreviations and all sorts of things.
You need to make it slightly obscure. Consult the legal team. They are over there not doing anything--making those big bucks. You will need to refer to appendixes to use abbreviations and cross reference legal documents. Those documents will secure our jobs. Those documents will secure the other documents that our fore-federalies wrote and hacked and added to over time. We can't just wipe the slate clean and start over we would have to work past 4pm. This whole GPS thing will blow over. Besides, Narco just gave me a courtesy Cadillac, so we can't let those Cessnas get shipped without those AM/HAM radio VORs or whatever they're called. Work that in--make em mandatory in the name of safety. Figure it out, you do good work.

The kid, who applied for the job because he loved the movie Top Gun, got a tear in his eye...

Don't cry little buddy, we'll add another question on the private pilot exam that will cover all of this. I'm sure nobody will ever think anything of it. If they want to fly around up there in the sky buzzing around like a bunch of idiots, then they can figure out what we are trying to prescribe as law and do their homework every day before checking their pre-flight--carb heat, or whatever it is they do. After all flying is not a right. It's a privileged.

Then they published it and went in the conference room and ate some stale, old cake.

The old guy retired and enjoyed golf in Arizona for a couple years and is now in a rest-home and constantly slurring something about "slash Gee". The kid grew up, grew a mustache and got a promotion. He hopes he can get his son a job at the office, but there has been a hiring freeze for a couple years. Flying is not as popular as it once was. They'll figure out how to get funding though. They aren't sure why people just don't want to fly any more. Must be gas prices...

[S7Paco]

Old cake!...... Mmmmmm. And, of course! don't get me wrong, I would never try to get to Utah using GPS alone! I had my plastic Davis® sextant and the H.O. 249 volumes II and III, and a Nautical Almanac from 1987. As backup, in case it was cloudy or too light to see any stars that day, I had my (wireless) telegraph set. Morse Code? No problem!
_ _ _ ...., ... .... .. _!!

[Cary]

I know your story is a spoof, but reality isn't far off of it. Years ago I got cross ways with the FAA after an accident in a Mooney. The accident details are unimportant, but it was definitely my fault--clear case of pilot error. Of course it took the usual months and months and months to come to a head, and meanwhile the Mooney had been fixed. So I had the obligatory meeting with the Inspector and an FAA lawyer, in hopes of coming to a resolution at minimal expense, and I flew the Mooney to the meeting.

During the course of the conversation, after I had explained to the Inspector's apparent satisfaction exactly what had happened, the FAA attorney expressed that he didn't believe me, that he was a pilot himself, and what I had just related didn't make any sense to him. When I started explaining basic aerodynamics, his eyes seemed to glaze over. I stopped, and it occurred to me to say, "You're a pilot--why is it that I'm not making sense to you?" His response was something to the effect that from his experience, "that" just couldn't happen. So I said, "Curious--just how long have you been flying?" His response: "I have more than 30 hours and I've done my long cross country." Wow! And he was "in charge" of my penalty!

Fortunately the Inspector did believe me, his 22,000 hours trumping the other fellow's 30 hours as well as the few hundred I had at the time, and he was persuasive. End result was a 45 day suspension, but I was allowed to fly the Mooney home.

Cary

[S7Paco]

Yikes! Dealing with the FAA is a scary thought. ("we're not happy 'till you're not happy"). Glad it came out (relatively) ok. I confess I have gotten lazy with paperwork, haven't logged a flight in the last 100 hrs, stuff like that. Still, I do keep a stack of those NASA ASRS forms in my hangar. Send one in every time I land! So far so good.

PS. Besides my Telegraph, I finally got me one of those Spot® things so if I get confused or scared or lonely I just push a button and the Federalies and "Wyomingiswindy" will drop everything and come and get me lickitysplit. (I even figured out how to put the link to it in my signature info on this forum, check it out!)

[soyAnarchisto]

Just follow the roads like everybody else and you'll be fine...

'Greg