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

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.