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Teaching GPS as the primary means of navigation for the PPL

It would be helpful to mention this to EASA CPL examiners. It is still the convention in glass cockpits:

1. The first route sector is pure deduced reckoning, stopwatch, drift lines and no feature crawling, or radio nav.
2. The second sector allows terrestrial radio nav to identify the diversion using cross bearings and DME
3. The GPS flight plan is not used, and the MFD may be on the engine page. GPS bearings or magenta lines not used.

The candidate obviously has to manage the threat of controlled airspace, NOTAMs and other threats.

At least the good ol’ days’ practice of finding obscure features using a quarter mill chart seem to have evolved. The unplanned diversion sector used to be under IF sometimes, which was quite fun using just cross bearings.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Well, yes, one can always make brief and narrow-context statements to show somebody is “wrong”

Well. you were wrong! You made a clear statement that GPS is not “officially” part of the GPS syllabus, and even that for this reason instructors hide their own GPSes. I don’t know what British instructors usually do with their GPSs, but I know that they — officially — are expected to teach GPS navigation.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Hmm, for the syllabus for microlights, where I am instructing, navigation will now be GPS based, exclusively. I haven’t seen the new syllabus yet, it won’t be made available for another 2-3 months, but that’s the information we have got. The syllabus is about 70-80% in common with LAPL, but made less so now with GPS based VFR navigation.

I don’t know. I think paper map and compass is a nice skill to have. But if you never use it, what is that skill worth? Its probably better to focus on the skills and equipment you do use and make the best out of it.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Peter wrote:

Unfortunately, these include the skills test (the checkride). You can’t just pull out a satnav and fly the skills test with it…

I thought so, but on my PPL checkride the examiner pulled his 496 out and asked me if I could see the screen well enough. The dead reckoning was covered by him asking questions like “what town is that”.

Hopefully some other people will also share their experiences, especially recent ones.

Also, the reference Airborne_Again quoted is quite specific and to me sets GNSS on par, if not above, VOR/ADF – and rightly so.

See page 65 of the AMC document.
local copy

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

Well, yes, one can always make brief and narrow-context statements to show somebody is “wrong”

GPS can be used in practically the entire PPL course, except 1 or 2 specific exercises.

Unfortunately, these include the skills test (the checkride). You can’t just pull out a satnav and fly the skills test with it…

And this is one part of the problem. It usually takes such a lot of time to teach dead reckoning and the silly circular slide rule, and with the PPL not having any specific ground school time, and with the nav exams having questions which rely on the slide rule being used (i.e. generating appropriate rounding errors), a lot of time is wasted on this part, so instructors are forced to not encourage GPS.

Throw in a lot of PPLs “being of a generation, or background, which is not familiar with IT concepts” and you have a lot of GPS users who make mistakes with it. The people on EuroGA are mostly IT-savvy (if they weren’t they would not be on a forum) but they are not the entire PPL demographic (in terms of either/both age and general involvement with IT).

But, anyway, I am sure that nearly all infringers would not have infringed if they were doing the flight in their armchair at home.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

From here

Peter wrote:

Instructors keep a satnav “covert” because the PPL syllabus doesn’t (officially) teach GPS.

Yes it does. AMC1 to FCL.210, Exercise 18c. It is actually listed before both navigation with VOR and NDB.

If instructors don’t teach GPS then they are not following the syllabus.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Emir wrote:

Reading few recent threads related to GA in the UK, I have a feeling that some things are lagging behind the rest of Europe

Agree. Looks like the whole idea in the UK is to keep GA “out”, while other countries figure out ways to integrate GA. One has to wonder; is this what the UK GA really wants, or is this something the “others” want, or is it simply something that has “happened” slowly over time and everyone thinks this is how things shall be ? Or is it a result of too many patches on patches to kind of fix things somehow ? It doesn’t look very healthy.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Reading few recent threads related to GA in the UK, I have a feeling that some things are lagging behind the rest of Europe. Discussing GPS usage in 2019 seems a bit odd, especially when agency and instructors object it. GA in Croatia has suffered serious decline from 2008 mainly due to financial reasons but at least regulation doesn’t make things harder. CAA sometimes is not easy for 9A (Croatian) registered aircrafts but the problems are usually easy to resolve. Visitors usually witness cooperative ATC with full service delivered to all traffic (even during busy summertime) and friendly airports. Even (rare) ramp checks are done fast, professionally and without much hassle.

Last Edited by Emir at 29 Jul 12:22
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

@Balliol,

Great paper!

I would add one more item to the argument for change: Because the effective use of these aids is not taught, bad habits can develop – the main one being “heads down” and flying the aircraft symbol on the map, instead of maintaining a good scan which includes outside, some instruments, and the moving map.

On the practicalities – I would make one change: The “visual leg” should remain the first leg of the skills test.

  • According to current guidance, radio navigation (using legacy aids) is permitted after the first (pure visual/DR) leg)
  • Also, use of legacy navigation aids is permitted during the diversion

So all that would change is that now GPS is allowed during those legs in addition to / instead of legacy aids.

Other than that this is slightly simpler, I would back this up with the following

  • an unplanned diversion is the one scenario where being able to use all tools available (including GPS, FIS, D&D in the "old days) is critical. As an instructor I would certainly want to train a diversion with GPS (NRST function or equivalent, recognising airspace in the way and how to circumnavigate using the specific device in use)
  • Currently the “double failure” scenario (diversion + no navaids) is not examined. Given that ground-based nav aids (and their receivers) are in practice no more reliable than GPS, why should the new test format be changed to examine that?
Last Edited by Cobalt at 29 Jul 10:46
Biggin Hill

Might be worth incorporating your name and qualifications on the paper – just a thought. Seen as a disconnected PDF, it has less value.

EGSC Cambridge, United Kingdom
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