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They do have other ways to navigate. Like land-based beacons (VORs). Unfortunately these are being used less and less and even deprecated in favour of GPS wayp

They do have other ways to navigate. Like land-based beacons (VORs). Unfortunately these are being used less and less and even deprecated in favour of GPS waypoints. Even when they are still around the pilots have less experience with them because they no longer use them every day.

nonrandomstring 2y ago
> Unfortunately these are being used less and less and even deprecated Fortune may have something to do with it. Like copper land communications that cost billions to establish over almost 100 years, are extremely resilient and can be repaired by anyone with a ladder and pair of pliers. They're being ripped out across Europe and the US because the private companies they were sold to want to shrug maintenance to squeeze out a little more profit. It's just not your fortune.
- pixl97 2y ago
  Copper land lines cost a fortune to maintain, and with everyone having moved to cellphones years ago, don't generate income to pay for their upkeep. People pay far more for an internet line that dumps out a gig of traffic, while very few pay for a hard line that is hard to cut and only carries a few kb of traffic.
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    > everyone having moved to cellphones years ago That is untrue. The news is full of stories of people who are right now being forced-off hard line connections that they want and will pay for. The choice is being removed, which is not a fair market. But, telling any group of people that "they are the only ones" is gas-lighting. Systematic lies to marginalise people was central to the Purdue Pharma opioid scandal and to the British Post Office scandal - telling people "You're the only one" when a problem is evidently extensive should be a very serious fraud. > don't generate income to pay for their upkeep When many private companies took on telecommunications properties they did so under obligations to maintenance of infrastructure, availability and reliability standards. If it turns out their choices of technology don't meet those standards of affordable resilience then that's their financial miscalculation and their problem now. Or are you saying that markets are incompatible with national security?
    - nonrandomstring 2y ago
      Detractors please don't get so upset at someone pointing out broad, sweeping, parochial generalisations are not okay (or at least try to defend your position). If nothing else they just make a bad argument.
dweekly 2y ago
The good news here is that the fine folks at the FAA have spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep aviation secure in a GPS denied environment, which is their basis for the build out of the VOR MON. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/navservices/gbng/vormon https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/at...
- labcomputer 2y ago
  > FAA have spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep aviation secure in a GPS denied environment, which is their basis for the *build out* of the VOR MON That’s an interesting characterization, given that the MON is a list of VORs they are not planning to take down.
  - FL410 2y ago
    But that's better than taking them all down. Fact of the matter is most of us hate using VORs anyway, and left to our own devices probably wouldn't care one bit if they were removed. It is a good thing that someone is second-guessing that. Degrading to MON wouldn't be great, but it would be much preferrable to hoping poor ATC can figure out how to vector everyone all the sudden. I think more industries could apply the idea of a Minimum Operational whatever
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      > Fact of the matter is most of us hate using VORs anyway This is partly UX and doesn't have to be like this. Cockpit systems could make this a lot easier to select VORs and radials without having to manually keep track of frequencies. After all a successful GPS fix is impossible to accomplish by a human given the raw receive data, which is why it's all automated inside the receiver. We can optimize the hell out of VORs as well. And only people flying ancient aircraft still have to do the thing. In fact it probably would be great to add some optional authentication signal to it, as even a VOR can be prone to jamming or spoofing.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> Unfortunately these are being used less and less and even deprecated Fortune may have something to do with it. Like copper land communications that cost billions to establish over almost 100 years, are extremely resilient and can be repaired by anyone with a ladder and pair of pliers. They're being ripped out across Europe and the US because the private companies they were sold to want to shrug maintenance to squeeze out a little more profit. It's just not your fortune.

pixl97 2y ago
Copper land lines cost a fortune to maintain, and with everyone having moved to cellphones years ago, don't generate income to pay for their upkeep. People pay far more for an internet line that dumps out a gig of traffic, while very few pay for a hard line that is hard to cut and only carries a few kb of traffic.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  > everyone having moved to cellphones years ago That is untrue. The news is full of stories of people who are right now being forced-off hard line connections that they want and will pay for. The choice is being removed, which is not a fair market. But, telling any group of people that "they are the only ones" is gas-lighting. Systematic lies to marginalise people was central to the Purdue Pharma opioid scandal and to the British Post Office scandal - telling people "You're the only one" when a problem is evidently extensive should be a very serious fraud. > don't generate income to pay for their upkeep When many private companies took on telecommunications properties they did so under obligations to maintenance of infrastructure, availability and reliability standards. If it turns out their choices of technology don't meet those standards of affordable resilience then that's their financial miscalculation and their problem now. Or are you saying that markets are incompatible with national security?
  - nonrandomstring 2y ago
    Detractors please don't get so upset at someone pointing out broad, sweeping, parochial generalisations are not okay (or at least try to defend your position). If nothing else they just make a bad argument.

dweekly 2y ago

The good news here is that the fine folks at the FAA have spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep aviation secure in a GPS denied environment, which is their basis for the build out of the VOR MON. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/navservices/gbng/vormon https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/at...

labcomputer 2y ago
> FAA have spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep aviation secure in a GPS denied environment, which is their basis for the *build out* of the VOR MON That’s an interesting characterization, given that the MON is a list of VORs they are not planning to take down.
- FL410 2y ago
  But that's better than taking them all down. Fact of the matter is most of us hate using VORs anyway, and left to our own devices probably wouldn't care one bit if they were removed. It is a good thing that someone is second-guessing that. Degrading to MON wouldn't be great, but it would be much preferrable to hoping poor ATC can figure out how to vector everyone all the sudden. I think more industries could apply the idea of a Minimum Operational whatever
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    > Fact of the matter is most of us hate using VORs anyway This is partly UX and doesn't have to be like this. Cockpit systems could make this a lot easier to select VORs and radials without having to manually keep track of frequencies. After all a successful GPS fix is impossible to accomplish by a human given the raw receive data, which is why it's all automated inside the receiver. We can optimize the hell out of VORs as well. And only people flying ancient aircraft still have to do the thing. In fact it probably would be great to add some optional authentication signal to it, as even a VOR can be prone to jamming or spoofing.