I can foresee GNSS/GBAS based equipment supplanting Cat III ILS quite soon. With GBAS it really is very accurate.
Hmmmm, clearly in my world we do a lot of work on this. Indeed, every time we calibrate an ILS we are basically doing it using a GBAS system that has an accuracy down to 20mm. I think there’s still a way to go for certification etc but would agree that it is coming.
Incidentally, Bournemouth is getting rid of ILS in favour of LPV.
Interesting. So I guess they’ve done a CBA on their existing Cat II/III utilisation and decided it isn’t worth retaining? The RAF had something similar and looked at Brize a few years back, deciding to take the ‘pain’ of an occasional diversion. For sure, getting rid of the EGHH RW26 Cat II/III right now is a bit of a leap of faith as far as LPV is concerned.
Out of interest, where did you get that nugget of information from?
I have just called EGHH ATC and they know nothing about it.
Public consultation
(The supporting documentation seems to suggest that 26 is going as well, but I can’t immediately find an exact statement to that effect.)
A 14 day turnaround for a consultation that doesn’t appear on the internet isn’t ideal and could lead to trouble later. I’m surprised Helios have put their name to that, unless there is actually no change to CAS and it purely reflects different routeings within existing CAS.
Going back to the original question, I think an important element has been left out.
Fun. Stimulation. Joy of ownership. New challenges. Satisfaction. Challenge. “It just brings a smile to your face.”
There is something a bit dour about “what I’ve had for the last fifteen years still does the job.”
What is the “job”? If the job is to get us to interesting places as quickly, reliably and economically as possible, then it is almost certain that EasyJet or Norwegian will win hands down.
But we, everyone on this forum, has taken the decision that we want to do it ourselves, even though it’s slower, noisier, bumpier and less reliable than the alternative, we get joy from just doing it.
So, what we are paying for is joy, not utility.
And some people derive joy and satisfaction from using old technology. I, myself, have flown from Fairoaks to Annecy using nothing that would not have appeared in a WW1 cockpit – map, compass, altimeter, ASI and stopwatch – and it was definitely fun, fun fun.
But there is also joy, fun and satisfaction to see your beautiful new avionics fit fly you, fully automatically, through the procedure, into the MA, into the hold and then tell you when your EAT is.
It’s a different kind of joy, but I want both.
Not to mention the challenge of really learning how to use the equipment. I instruct many people on their own aircraft and, nine times out of ten, they do not know half of what their equipment can do for them. We all love to learn new stuff about aviation, and new technology provides a new opportunity to challenge and stimulate ourselves.
How many of us are satisfied with the same car for 20 years? Some, for sure. I know plenty of people who have kept the same boring, family car forever. But equally, there is a constituency who have their heads turned by adaptive cruise control, infrared hazard warning, auto lane keeping, electric motors and LED headlights. There is room in our plurocracy for all.
So, please, a mention for those of us lucky enough to be able to have new stuff because we like it.
Timothy wrote:
I can foresee GNSS/GBAS based equipment supplanting Cat III ILS quite soon. With GBAS it really is very accurate.
There is the point that looking across your destination and alternates, ILS systems have more redundancy. If your destination and all your alternates have only GNSS/GBAS approaches, you are dependent on a single GNSS constellation, with a single command system, etc. Failure is rare, but if it happens, all your LPV approaches are unavailable. Or there are not enough satellites in visibility at the time of your approach!
All the while, if the ILS at your destination is not available, there’s no particular reason the one at your alternate will not be.
If our GNSS boxes start to use Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou, and some of those have enough coverage for LPV approaches, and the GBAS system augments also non-GPS systems, maybe (probably?) we can consider this as redundancy. Won’t we have to change our GNSS boxes again for that? Can this in principle be done with a software/firmware update?
