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FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

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Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#111

Post by azalemeth »

V99 wrote: post #18
outworlder wrote: post #8

Are there NOTAMs regarding GPS jamming operations? It's not a fix, but maybe it would allow pilots - specially ones without sophisticated avionics like those founds in airliners(who don't rely on GPS in flight) - to prepare and/or avoid the issue.

Yes, for example: 10/034 (A0480/21) - NAV GPS (WSMRNM GPS 21-18) (INCLUDING WAAS, GBAS, AND ADS-B) MAY NOT BE AVBL WI A 445NM RADIUS CENTERED AT 334005N1063216W (ONM148043) FL400-UNL, 399NM RADIUS AT FL250, 329NM RADIUS AT 10000FT, 329NM RADIUS AT 4000FT AGL, 275NM RADIUS AT 50FT AGL. DLY 0600-1159. 13 OCT 06:00 2021 UNTIL 17 OCT 11:59 2021. CREATED: 08 OCT 20:45 2021

400 NM is a hell of a long way. I quite understand why light, unpressurized aircraft can't route around impositions like that easily.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#112

Post by KZerda »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #21
tweedledee wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s for military protection. I had a flight canceled due to GPS jamming. I think it was to protect a U2 flight. Putin also flies around with GPS jammers.

Wouldn't that mean that Putin's flights can't use GPS to navigate? But maybe he worries more about someone intercepting his plane than he does about crashing due to a navigation mistake. And his risk assessment may in fact be accurate...

There are other accurate systems for navigation available for aircraft, like the network of Non-Directional Beacons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-directional_beacon). It's a bit more of a pain in the butt to fly, because you're going from waypoint-to-waypoint, rather than a course relatively towards your destination, but it was how we did aircraft navigation up until relatively recently.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#113

Post by light_hue_1 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #108
sklargh wrote: post #62

The FAA is actually pretty good at regulating "known" things within its remit. It is however, exceptionally bad at regulating unknown things, so it has a defined process to make things known. One of the most dangerous conditions at the FAA is when an unknown thing evades the FAA's process by which to make it known and understood to the FAA. It takes the agency a long time to grasp and assess. See 737 MAX, UAS...

The FAA is a giant lumbering dinosaur that has done as little as humanly possible to avoid any sort of modernization while drowning General Aviation in paperwork and regulations to protect a buggy-whip avionics and engine manufacturing/maintenance/repair industry, while for decades has failed to effectively address the primary safety issues in GA. Namely controlled flight into terrain and running out of fuel. Let me…

This is a case where a little knowledge makes everything look like a conspiracy. Sadly none of what you wrote is even remotely true.

Glass cockpit upgrades are very popular. For example, an Evolution E5 is $5k to $10k depending on the model. You can remove your vacuum system at that point. There's nothing stopping anyone from upgrading, aside from the cost. There's no conspiracy here, no evil FAA paperwork or regulations standing in your way.

I have no idea where you got the impression that the FAA tolerates faking paperwork. The FAA even has a page showing off some of their enforcement actions https://www.oig.dot.gov/agency/federal-aviation-administrati... Check out https://www.oig.dot.gov/library-item/37661 That's literally what you are describing, the mechanic said they did something according to the manual, but didn't.

So no. The FAA isn't trying to keep GA down.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#114

Post by rlpb »

lutorm wrote: post #106
ryandrake wrote: post #36

> "Aircraft are greatly affected by the GPS jamming and it's not taken seriously by management," reads one report. "We've been told we can't ask to stop jamming, and to just put everyone on headings." This is the military practicing, but I would hope that civilian airline transport operations are also robust to GNSS unavailability or denial. Even private pilots in little Cessnas are taught to navigate using radio-nav…

What I don't understand is how this is supposed to work when the point of using the more precise GPS-based ADS-B positional reporting is for controllers to be able to pack airplanes closer together. If they do this, there will literally not be space in the sky to spread out existing air traffic to radar-based separation requirements.

> ...the point of using the more precise GPS-based ADS-B positional reporting is for controllers to be able to pack airplanes closer together

It's not.

Edit: at least, not in the places where there is adequate radar coverage - ie. in congested areas.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#115

Post by EastOfTruth »

c3534l wrote: post #29

It really annoys me how far into an article you have to read before it becomes clear that they're only telling one, disputed side of the story. > The US Army takes the safety of its operations extremely seriously. Calls for a cease buzzer are taken seriously and range control has not denied or ignored any cease buzzers.

"[The] facility manager on duty later informed me we can't ask them to 'stop buzzer' and to just keep putting aircraft on headings,"

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#116

Post by mnw21cam »

RNCTX wrote: post #102
Rebelgecko wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS and Galileo have overlapping frequencies (this is by design) so if GPS is jammed then Galileo probably won't be available either. GLONASS is historically less accurate and available than GPS (at least at lower latitudes) so I wouldn't be surprised if fewer (or no) aircraft have hardware for it

I don't know of an approved GLONASS nav unit. Even if you do have one it would be a handheld device that can't talk to the autopilot or the FMS.

The majority of modern mobile phones will happily use satellites from all three systems for location. However yes, they generally aren't approved devices.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#117

Post by mnw21cam »

topynate wrote: post #65
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that mean that Putin's flights can't use GPS to navigate? But maybe he worries more about someone intercepting his plane than he does about crashing due to a navigation mistake. And his risk assessment may in fact be accurate...

It should be possible for the jammer to subtract off its own signal rather more effectively than anything which doesn't have access to the pRNG it uses to generate the interference.

The thing is, GPS signals are really weak at the receiver. They're technically below the noise floor, and receivers have to use shenanigans to get a usable signal at all. If you're transmitting the jamming signal, you're really close to it, and therefore it is really strong near your receiver. I wouldn't like to calculate how many orders of magnitude stronger than the real GPS signal, but it would be a lot. Generally, subtraction works when the two signals are similar in strength, and you still lose definition in the received signal. GPS signals are so on the borderline of being able to be received that this would just not work at all.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#118

Post by thombat »

azalemeth wrote: post #111
V99 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, for example: 10/034 (A0480/21) - NAV GPS (WSMRNM GPS 21-18) (INCLUDING WAAS, GBAS, AND ADS-B) MAY NOT BE AVBL WI A 445NM RADIUS CENTERED AT 334005N1063216W (ONM148043) FL400-UNL, 399NM RADIUS AT FL250, 329NM RADIUS AT 10000FT, 329NM RADIUS AT 4000FT AGL, 275NM RADIUS AT 50FT AGL. DLY 0600-1159. 13 OCT 06:00 2021 UNTIL 17 OCT 11:59 2021. CREATED: 08 OCT 20:45 2021

400 NM is a hell of a long way. I quite understand why light, unpressurized aircraft can't route around impositions like that easily.

It's impressively large - if I was planning a pleasant little flight in Denver or on the Gulf of California I certainly wouldn't be wondering what's happening at White Sands:

https://imgur.com/gallery/24Ax0AK

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#119

Post by throw0101a »

linuxhansl wrote: post #33

As a lay person in this area... There are more navigation systems around: The EU Galileo, Russia's GLONASS, etc. Assuming it's unlikely that all system are down/jammed/compromised in the same area at the same time, receivers for multiple systems should be OK...? (Again lay person here)

> There are more navigation systems around: The EU Galileo, Russia's GLONASS, etc.

They all use the same frequency ranges:

* https://gssc.esa.int/navipedia/index.php/GNSS_signal

It's not that difficult to take out multiple services by having the jamming signal be wide enough.

Re: FAA Fumbled Its Response to a Surge in GPS Jamming

#120

Post by posix_me_less »

dkarl wrote: post #74
takk309 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, GPS is a military tool first. Civilians get to use it at the militaries discretion. They could turn the selective availability (which was turned off in 2000) back on and remove a lot of civilian accuracy. Maybe civilian pilots are the ones that need to training aids more than the military. It seems to me that they should be able to navigate without gps in a safe manner. Edit: fixed term for selective availa…

> Remember, GPS is a military tool first. Civilians get to use it at the militaries discretion. That's a bit like saying Java could have dropped sun.misc.Unsafe at any time because it was a private API. Once the civilian economy started relying on GPS, the military had to consider the cost of turning it off. Not to mention that the U.S. military has traditionally been deployed to promote and safeguard American commer…

> the U.S. military has traditionally been deployed to promote and safeguard American commercial interests

Any examples except maybe Kuwait? Korea and Vietnam were for geopolitical reasons, "to stop communists taking too much power", Iraq was few people taking advantage of 9/11 to line their pockets with government procured money. Afghanistan was the latter again. Which American deployment directly safeguarded American commercial interests?

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