When the Terrorists take out GPS...

[Qutch]

I don't see what the big deal is. I fly everywhere by pilotage... Even in IMC.

........I'm not sure what the threat is.

I recall years ago when I first heard R&D forecasters predicting that pilots would need to adjust to a radically altered role and competition from technology. If pilots didn't adjust, they said lower wages and job insecurity would be in their future. Those forecasters were laughed at by most pilots. No matter. Those scientists went underground and busied themselves minimizing the role of the pilot.

I think Murdoughnut's OP is important for 2 reasons. The increasing gulf between the training and use of cerebral piloting skills (both old and newly developed techniques), vs. pilot welcomed reliance on automation, presents 2 main risks to JC members. One risk is to National Security. The other risk is the diminishing importance of the pilot's future role in commercial aviation. If younger pilots keep trying to laugh this off, their fate is sealed.

Below is a glimpse of this second risk, that to commercial aviation pilots. Your tax dollars at work. NASA's Aurora Flight Sciences. When they aren't planning delivery vehicles for Solar Radiation Management flights, they're working to reduce aviation employers' reliance on pilots. To many R&D people, aviation's future isn't controlled by the pilot anymore, it's controlled by them, or soon will be. Aviation is owned and funded by the employer. Employers and passengers are the driving mission behind much aviation R&D. Not pilots.


NASA - Aurora..... "Our objective is to replace pilots with operators"

NASA - Aurora ...... GA "pilot optional" aircraft

.
MikeD touched on the National Security aspect. I'll post more on Yung's National Security arguments later.
.

 

[gotWXdagain]

When Terrorists takeover the GPS system, hundreds of G1000-equipped skyhawks piloted by aviators with less than 3 year old pilot certs will fall out of the sky like rain. Everyone else will just hit the CDI key to VOR.

 

[deadstick]

Except after 2020, there will be 50% fewer VORS (per FAA memo April 2012).

 

[Murdoughnut]

Except after 2020, there will be 50% fewer VORS (per FAA memo April 2012).

Yeah, but by then GA will be dead and robots will be flying 121.

 

[deadstick]

Yeah, but by then GA will be dead and robots will be flying 121.

...made by Cyberdyne.

 

[wheelsup]

IFR = I follow roads

 

[gotWXdagain]

Except after 2020, there will be 50% fewer VORS (per FAA memo April 2012).

And by 1980 the FAA will completely phase out the NDB network.

 

[Ziggyfuzz]

Thanks. I'm here. Some of these thread topics have a technical side to them that gets so complex (or tedious depending on a person's point of view), or is so controversial, that we move our discussions into PM, email or phone chat and let the thread itself go on without us. Frankly, I move to PM/email as soon as possible on some threads.

This OP interested me though. It strikes at the heart of a topic I hear in R&D circles as to why pilots, along with wages, are being de-emphisized in favor of automation. R&D nerds get giddy at the idea of the ultimate achievement, replacing the pilot. As strange as the book title and cover art is on this book, I don't blame Murdoughnut for presenting the book as a joke. It might look like one. But I happened to know who this guy Yung is and, in his own way, he's campaigning to make pilots more relevent to employers. Some advanced military instructors are worried about the same thing....too much reliance on automation. Yung's pitch, or hook, is that GPS and other technologies can be knocked out, not by terrorists, but by EMP, star wars technology, etc., and probably will be someday. Ed, who is also an avid glider pilot, wants to see the training industry hang on to instinctual piloting methods that are going dormant.

But I have to wonder what he was thinking with this book cover. This is Ed Yung and his 1960's era family. Maybe his plan was to get Murdoughnut's attention with the weirdest aviation book cover in history. If so, it worked. He's on JC, but off to a rocky start. Don't judge this book by its cover. Yung has something to say about piloting, and navigation in particular.
View attachment 20226

I gotta say, I am so on board with getting modern aviators back to basics!

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ziggyfuzz]

When Terrorists takeover the GPS system, hundreds of G1000-equipped skyhawks piloted by aviators with less than 3 year old pilot certs will fall out of the sky like rain. Everyone else will just hit the CDI key to VOR.

Bahahahahahaaaaa! I laugh now, but you wait...!