Here in the UK, it happened in two ways:
The flight training business mostly ignored it and mostly continues to do so.
The CAA put out a lot of material, often in presentations, suggesting that GPS is the work of the devil.
The result has been that many pilots believe that GPS is illegal for “primary navigation” (whatever that means) although I don’t think it is the majority anymore like it was up to a few years ago.
The use of GPS for VFR and IFR has never been questioned in the legal sense, and anyway BRNAV can be met (in light GA) only with an IFR GPS, but you had to “know” this.
bq. why was every regulator afraid of GPS
Here in the UK there has been and still is strong training industry pressure to ignore GPS, to keep costs to minimum. If the CAA mandated some form of GPS training, they would have a war on their hands.
Here in Germany (usually a very conservative country with this kind of stuff) I had my first GPS officially and legally installed in a Cessna 421 in 1992. That was even before the satellite constellation was complete and we had lots of times per day with poor and no reception. Also, there was selective availability in place and the positions were only accurate to about 100 metres. There was a placard on the panel saying “GPS for VFR navigation only”. Sometime in the mid nineties, that placard could legally be removed and GPS be used as a means of area naviagtion. As early as 1999 I flew my first legal and approved GPS arrival procedure with a "TSO"ed GNS430 – on a German registered aeroplane. So I never saw this “why was every regulator afraid of GPS” thing!
So you’re fearing interference from car keys?
No, excuse me for being insufficiently clear. I am concerned about too high levels of reliance on “consumer grade” electronics. You may well be right that lots of certified avionics are not very reliable either, but at least they are traceable, and if anything does go wrong there will be a way to find out who really was to blame, though that may be a poor consolation to the victims’ relatives.
Most of all, I am afraid that many pilots will rely far too much on a technology building on relatively poor basic building blocks. “I have this FLARM gimmick, it tells me about all other traffic around, a midair can never happen on me”. It is so fatally easy to think…
Nothing wrong with FLARM as such but, again, everything depends on pilots’ education, especially as regards knowing the merits AND the limitations of their equipment. These last being rather extensive, in the case of FLARM, and IMHO insufficiently publicised.
PS excuse me for writing 866 – I thought it simple enough to double the 433 MHz frequency. Wrongly, it appears…
FLARM is on 868MHz.
So you’re fearing interference from car keys?
Definitely a possibility, but I’ve not seen very many flying cars recently, so distance takes care of that. Power allowed in the 868MHz band is quite limited, and furthermore car keys are supposed to work on a smallish battery for a long time, so there’s even more interest to keep the radiated power low.
Operating 868MHz devices while airborne is not allowed in most european countries. So in the beginning of FLARM, there had been talks to authorities. OFCOM wanted them to use an exclusive frequency allocation in the air band, while FOCA said there was no way to do this as the airband was full, so in the end OFCOM gave way and granted an exemption to allow FLARM devices to be operated while airborne.
It relies on flimsy automotive technology – the same transmitters as in your car key.
Do you have any grounds for a claim like this? (I’m not writing that two letter acronym again )
Thomas,
I do seem to remember FLARM uses 433/866 MHz frequencies, but must admit I’d have to look up even that. And sure enough, there are a handful of FLARM hardware builders by now so there may well be some gear around with an acceptable degree of reliability. One can get better 433/866 gear than used in car keys, indeed.
And, thanks for the smiley and what went before…
FLARM alone does not make much sense, combined units do.
Without having researched the subject to the bottom, I feel much the same. Transmit ADS-B, receive and display anything you possibly could (ADS-B at the very least, FLARM very worthwhile, everything else another step forward), and you’ll be as holy as the holiest. Yet, “je persiste et signe”: no such system will ever offer 100% complete and reliable information, and my main concern is that certain pilots will tend to take it for that – flying blindly into a mid-air that adequate look-around should be able to avoid.
And again: who guarantees that any investment on this front will be valid over the next 5 or 10 or 20 years?
They might as well count road victims and tell everyone to stay home.
Precisely.
I recently purchased a Power Flarm (which combines the original FLARM with ADS-B and Mode C signal detection) and have not regretted this one minute. It shows a lot of traffic which I would probably have detected a lot later if at all.
I agree, FLARM alone does not make much sense, combined units do. They are relatively inexpensive so most people can afford one.
In recent times, FLARM have cooperated with authorities in several SAR cases as it was found that they can detect pretty accurately from where the last received signals came. Another reason to look at one.
As for the article: typical anti GA rant. They might as well count road victims and tell everyone to stay home.
FLARM is not formally defined
You have a point here.
It relies on flimsy automotive technology – the same transmitters as in your car key.
Do you have any grounds for a claim like this? (I’m not writing that two letter acronym again 
)
For example, industrial electronics is required to work from -40°C to 85°C. Car electronics likely even at higher temperatures. Yet avionics is usually only required to work from -15°C to 55°C (DO-160 category A1; short time -40°C..70°C).
Disassemble a King device. You’ll usually find 10 wires glued to the PCB to fix some issues. No manufacturer of commercial or industrial products where millions are produced can afford to deliver that kind of quality, he’d go bust very quickly on the warranty returns alone.
I personally trust car or commercial electronics far more than avionics.
And I don’t seem to be alone, everyone seems to be relying on commercial tablets or mobile phones during flight one way or another.
No it isn’t.
Well, I find it very useful. I don’t put blind faith in it tough, but it enables me to look in the right direction to spot gliders and to know when I have passed them.
FLARM is a good thing.
No it isn’t. (apologies if this should perhaps be in a dedicated thread)
FLARM is not formally defined, not recognised by any authority*, not verified in any annual or such.
It relies on flimsy automotive technology – the same transmitters as in your car key.
It is the typical example of looking good without offering any guarantee of being comprehensive.
False feelings of safety – or, if one wishes, feelings of false safety – are the only thing FLARM can offer.
The idea behind it is very much ok, and I trust its conceivers are aware of its limitations – but apparently not all of its users are, some putting a blind faith in it that the system can never satisfy.
I am very much concerned there may be a good deal of pilots flying around with a mindset like “I have FLARM, so I am absolutely safe”. This brings more danger than safety.
*I must admit there are some rumours from Switzerland, or perhaps Austria, but I have no indication of formal validation procedures or criteria. The worst of all would be a formal acceptance of a technology without proper validation.
