Royal Institute of Navigation - Infringement Avoidance by enhanced navigation

These things just go round and round like one of these

because

• the PPL training syllabus uses dead reckoning, and nobody can change that
• training GPS would force schools to install it and they don’t want the costs and hassle (their mandate is not producing A-to-B capable pilots)
• there are real issues with a CAA promoting (enforcing the use of) a market-dominating commercial satnav product
• most PPLs give up quickly, so not training them to fly usefully doesn’t matter (incidentally same principle applies, just differently, to the dross in airline pilot training)
• most instructors don’t fly anywhere, and even if they wanted to most can’t afford it
• the GPS caused the bottom to drop out of the nav scene, but an army of ageing hangers-on is still… hanging on
• it is true that we (GA) have no backup for widespread GPS jamming but since there is no (affordable i.e. cheap INS) solution, nobody wants to tackle it, and too few pilots fly far from base anyway
• there is a lot of really old and traditional ex military people pushing this WW1-methods agenda

It’s the same all over Europe AFAICT

There is no evidence that GPS usage produces more infringements. The current rate of infringements seems very hard to reduce; they are the product of the natural human error rate coupled with airspace complexity and variable ATC services. In the UK, we have the draconian new policy to bust 100% of infringers.

alioth wrote:

Honestly, the whole insistence on “paper and pen” is a bit silly.

Indeed. What is important is that you plan what’s going to happen before the flight and don’t simply launch along the magenta line.

Indeed. What is important is that you plan what’s going to happen before the flight and don’t simply launch along the magenta line.

Absolutely. The problem is, there is no longer a practical need to do it, and therefore it won’t be done. At least nowhere near as thoroughly as with paper and pen.

I’m a microlight instructor, and from 2020 sometime in the spring, a new syllabus will be in effect. Navigation will then shift from paper and pen to GPS only. So I have to “teach” people to use SD, EasyVFR, Garmin etc etc. First, there is nothing to teach. The finger gymnastics needed is something you have to learn by yourself. What is lost is the planning IMO. What you learn using paper and pen is to create a proper navigational plan, and a plan B and C. How do you learn to plan properly? Paper map and pen.

Still, I’m positive to it. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. These GPS apps can be connected to flight sims. You can create lots of “make believ” plans and fiddle and “fly” using the sim. Maybe this will more than make up for it, I don’t know.