FAA Urges Pilots to Rely on Old School Navigation Aids
This is a bit scary and something I know way too much about.
Back in the dark ages, I worked on a team that developed the first first GPS system – for the Air Force. It was not designed to help you find the nearest Starbucks, but rather to protect Air Force personnel from our enemies. The basic system that I worked on is, in fact, what helps you find the nearest Starbucks today.
So it more than bothered me a little when I heard that the FAA is telling pilots to be ready to not to rely on GPS navigation and instead learn about old school navigation aids like radio signals that pilots (including me) used years ago.
Why is the FAA telling pilots not to rely on tech? Because COMMERCIAL GPS signals, unlike the military GPS signals that I worked on, can be and, apparently, are being, spoofed. At scale.
Nowadays, many commercial airliners are authorized to make GPS based approaches and some of them can even land themselves. BUT, if the GPS signals they are receiving are spoofed then the plane might think it is someplace other than where it is. If done intentionally with malice, that would likely cause the plane to crash. Not a good outcome.
While military GPS signals (encrypted p-code for those GPS geeks reading this) are not very easy to spoof, the technique that the military uses to make that work doesn’t work well in the commercial world.
The FAA’s most recent alert tells crews to monitor for indicators of attacks, warn air traffic control if something is off and be prepared to go old school. Gasp. They might even have to use maps.
Unfortunately, in an effort to save money (isn’t is always about money?), the government decommissioned a lot of the old radio equipment years ago because, after all, if you have digital solutions, why do you need old school at all.
Maybe that wasn’t a great idea.
If pilots lose access to GPS data or more generically GNSS satellite signals, they might risk multiple problems including veering way off course (already happening) or straying into restricted airspace. Spoofed GPS signals could even trigger terrain avoiding radar warnings that are designed to stop planes from crashing into objects or the ground, but in a spoofing world, could cause them to do just that. Spoofed GPS signals could even corrupt the electronic flight bag (EFB) software that pilots use now to replace paper navigation aids.
This is a major problem in conflict zones like the Middle East, where it is really important to know precisely where you are and where you are allowed to go.
Regulators say that spoofed GPS signals are spreading beyond active conflict zones and they have seen a recent surge – resulting in more than 1,000 incidents being reported every day in August.
While the FAA is working on a way to make GPS signals less spoofable, pilots have to count on their intuition and powers of observation to make sure that they, and their passengers, stay safe.
Credit: Airguide.Info
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