3 ms·

I’m not too worried about commercial airlines. I’m more worried about press-button-and-fly weekend IFR warriors.

• toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I would also be worried about systems like Cirrus’ VisionJet Safe Return, that turn the aircraft into an autonomous vehicle if a passenger activates the system due to an incapacitated pilot, as GPS is required for its automated path planning to autonomously return to an airport and land. I haven’t investigated, but I would be curious how such a system responds when GPS is degraded or unavailable.
  • kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    Surely they also use GLONASS and Galileo.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • lovecg 6y ago
    That’s already a rare event though, so the probability of it coinciding with a GPS outage is smaller still. Time integral of risk exposure and all that.
    • danaliv 6y ago
      Rare as it is—and I’d argue it’s not as rare as some people think, having experience three avionics GPS loss-of-signal events in the past two years (in different aircraft)—they’d be nuts not to have considered that risk in the design. I can’t find the AFM supplement for Safe Return but to a first approximation, it wouldn’t be out of the question for it to go into a heading and altitude hold until it reaquires.