Senate Votes To Replace Aviation Radar With GPS

plover writes "The US Senate on Monday passed by a 93-0 margin a bill that would implement the FAA's NextGen plan to replace aviation radar with GPS units. It will help pay for the upgrade by increasing aviation fuel taxes on private aircraft. It will require two inspections per year on foreign repair stations that work on US planes. And it will ban pilots from using personal electronics in the cockpit. This just needs to be reconciled with the House version and is expected to become law soon. This was discussed on Slashdot a few years ago."

Comments

Great...

[T-Bucket]

While the nextgen plan is a good thing, the rest is crap. We can get legislation to ban laptops, but we can't get the HORRENDOUSLY dangerous rest regulations fixed. How about NOT giving in to the airline lobbyists for once and actually doing something to make air travel SAFER????

Re:Great...

[dgatwood]

The worst part about this law? Personal electronics in the cockpits of small planes make then safer when used for flight-related purposes, and using personal electronics for purposes unrelated to flying is already against the rules, so this law can't possibly do anything but cause harm. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about:

• pilots using cell phones/PDAs to check weather.com or wunderground.com or whatever so they can actually see the weather system
• pilots using cell phones to talk to the tower after a radio failure
• pilots using laptops for various flight operations calculations or to more rapidly search the operator manuals for an esoteric problem or...

Might as well provide a link to professional pilot discussion on the subject. To sum up the thread, they mostly think our Congress are a bunch of morons. Usually if the people you are regulating think you are utterly incompetent, that's a clear sign that you should take a step back, pull your head out of your backside, and rethink your position.

Sadly, Congress in their infinite ineptitude, will almost certainly blaze ahead and pass this law, thus dooming some flight a few years from now that could have been saved with personal electronics in the cockpit. And, of course, they'll never know that the flight could have been saved because they aren't smart enough to recognize the hundreds of times this has already happened.

I think we need a constitutional "cooling off period" amendment that says that with the exception of laws to provide financial relief, no law may be passed in response to any accident, catastrophe, or other incident, whether of natural or human cause, for a minimum of one year (or even two) after the incident in question. Such a law would have prevented so many of Congress's worst screw-ups. Hmm. I think I've said this before.

Satellite vulnerability

[PhilHibbs]

This just adds to the consequences of the inevitable solar flare that will knock out all our satellites.

Re:Satellite vulnerability

[LWATCDR]

Well lets look at the benefits.
1. More accurate. GPS can produce a more accurate position fixes than radar can.
2. More reliable. The ATC radar system is big expensive and is a point of failure. With GPS transponders you can replace the radar with a few simple and redundant data links.
3. Can provide more coverage. Every aircraft in the system can transit it's location even when out of radar range. Radar is limited by line of site. "ATC radar we will not get into back scatter systems as they are not used for ATC"
Downsides.
1. If the GPS system goes down we are in a world of hurt. To be honest if the GPS system goes down we are already in a world of hurt.
2. If you turn of your GPS beacon you are invisible. Not that big of a change really. If you turn your transponder off you may also be invisible to some ATCs
3, Dangers from jamming, How hard will it be to jam the GPS signal or worse spoof it near an airport?

The ATC system and air navigation system in the US has been in need of an overhaul for a long time.
VOR/DME systems where very useful in the day but GPS is much more accurate.
Most communications are still using analog voice systems that have changed very little since the 40s and 50s.
Of course there is a huge problem with any massive upgrade.
That is simply cost.
There are thousands of small Mom and Pop airports and FBOs that are just barley staying in business as it is. They can not afford spending thousands of dollars to get new radios.
Then you have all the private pilots that also really can not afford the cost of upgrading. It is a myth that all private pilots are rich. A lot of them just have a passion for flying. They tend to be no more rich than must boat owners. That and people tend to forget that General Aviation also provides lots of jobs as well. Not as much as it used to but still a good number.
I fear that unless these beacons are really cheap we will see a lot of aircraft grounded or restricted to none controlled airports.

sounds risky

[seeker_1us]

what if some big foreign country who has anti satellite weapons decides to blow up our GPS satellites?

Inquiring minds...

[Genda]

So exactly how prone will this system be to;

1. Solar storms and sunspots?
2. Terrorism foreign or domestic?
3. Hacking or cracking?
4. The problems surrounding an aging satellite service?

Don't get me wrong, this has a lot of upside, it's just important we have a good idea what the down side is, how significant it is, and what the expected impact on American business and transportation will be.

Soo the FAA said this was good?

[Drethon]

If this appropriately meets FAA guidelines than this is fine.

In cockpit systems a standby attitude device must be installed in the cockpit as a fallback system unless the existing cockpit systems have dual redundancy.

Along the same token the GPS DAMN WELL better have a backup system of some sort. This backup may be a radar system or it may be an INS system combined with altitude sensors or use of VOR/TACAN systems. There just has to be something there.

This is BAD

[Phairdon]

I can tell from comments that not many of you are private pilots. They are paying for this with yet another tax on fuel for private planes. The FAA keeps raising fees on everything associated with having a private plane while giving big breaks to commercial companies. I'm sick of it.

Re:What about UFO's

[Angst Badger]

It doesnt sound safe to me, especially in a post 911 world.

Well, of course not. If you're one of those people who uses the phrase "post-9/11 world" without (conscious) irony, you're never going to feel safe. Just be thankful you have the specter of terrorism to focus your fear on, instead of the countless vague fears that preyed on your mind in the long and dreadful period between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of al Qaeda.