3 minutes ago, Ephedrin said:

I somehow doubt that ILS systems will vanish in the nearer future. Nor I think that aircraft will depend on GPS solely. That‘s just my thought and I don‘t have backup information on this but since GPS is still the property of the US military and has actually already been turned off for the public in the past during war times it seems a bit too risky to me to relate on it alone. Thinking about certain presidents I wouldn‘t trust on a system that can be used as a blackmail that easily. ILS means an airport and an airplane. GPS (and GNSS in general) means a third someone in charge. If one of it is gone there‘s no landing anymore in IMC? Hardly to imagine. Never make yourself 100% dependent on one nation/person. 

Again, only a thought now.

Gnss is just a global name. GPS is American, glonass is Russian, Bei Dou is Chinese and Galileo is Europe. All these systems uses satellite to operate. Another point is that you although I don’t know if it is actually true so don’t hold me on that but you could change the data and thus change a location of something. 

On 1/3/2019 at 8:20 AM, hohum said:

If this were true, I'd be able to do RF legs in the 737, 777 and the 748.  It's 2019 now and I still can't fly approaches with RNP arcs in your planes.    I don't know how you can sit there with a straight face and make this claim because it's patently absurd.

 

Daniel,

You have probably missed the discussion elsewhere in our various communications- so please allow me to refresh the topic for you:  You are correct that you cannot fly RNP procedures in our products currently- and few people will agree with you more fervently on this topic than me since I fly them almost exclusively in the real world.

In 2012, we worked into our development plan the need to update the core features of our LNAV, VNAV and navdata capabilities.  These are central to the nervous system of all of our aircraft and cannot be updated without a significant development effort.  The effort was **supposed** to take place during the 777 development, but got pushed into the 747 when we discovered what a big bite the 777's FBW system was to swallow.  We then elected to defer the work out of the 747 in order not to hold up the product release (literally) for years. 

(Re-read that sentence:  It is a years-long process to do this properly.)

The development work is going on in a parallel channel, and even with the 747s released it is **still** not ready to be pushed into the product line.  We have been discussing the adaptation for some time with our beta team and we are hoping to have them testing it in the months ahead.

The nice thing about software is that we are able to keep the product line growing and moving forward, and then we can add these features to it as they reach maturity.

We think this approach works better than putting ourselves on an imaginary single-track development cycle that says all progress must stop at a red light and wait for it to change- especially when we know that the change might take years to do properly.

I hope that enhances your understanding,

 

5 minutes ago, rsrandazzo said:

Daniel,

You have probably missed the discussion elsewhere in our various communications- so please allow me to refresh the topic for you:  You are correct that you cannot fly RNP procedures in our products currently- and few people will agree with you more fervently on this topic than me since I fly them almost exclusively in the real world.

In 2012, we worked into our development plan the need to update the core features of our LNAV, VNAV and navdata capabilities.  These are central to the nervous system of all of our aircraft and cannot be updated without a significant development effort.  The effort was **supposed** to take place during the 777 development, but got pushed into the 747 when we discovered what a big bite the 777's FBW system was to swallow.  We then elected to defer the work out of the 747 in order not to hold up the product release (literally) for years. 

(Re-read that sentence:  It is a years-long process to do this properly.)

The development work is going on in a parallel channel, and even with the 747s released it is **still** not ready to be pushed into the product line.  We have been discussing the adaptation for some time with our beta team and we are hoping to have them testing it in the months ahead.

The nice thing about software is that we are able to keep the product line growing and moving forward, and then we can add these features to it as they reach maturity.

We think this approach works better than putting ourselves on an imaginary single-track development cycle that says all progress must stop at a red light and wait for it to change- especially when we know that the change might take years to do properly.

I hope that enhances your understanding,

 

Thank you for the info, The progress line is lovely at the moment. Keep it up ❤️

1 hour ago, rsrandazzo said:

Daniel,

You have probably missed the discussion elsewhere in our various communications- so please allow me to refresh the topic for you:  You are correct that you cannot fly RNP procedures in our products currently- and few people will agree with you more fervently on this topic than me since I fly them almost exclusively in the real world.

In 2012, we worked into our development plan the need to update the core features of our LNAV, VNAV and navdata capabilities.  These are central to the nervous system of all of our aircraft and cannot be updated without a significant development effort.  The effort was **supposed** to take place during the 777 development, but got pushed into the 747 when we discovered what a big bite the 777's FBW system was to swallow.  We then elected to defer the work out of the 747 in order not to hold up the product release (literally) for years. 

(Re-read that sentence:  It is a years-long process to do this properly.)

The development work is going on in a parallel channel, and even with the 747s released it is **still** not ready to be pushed into the product line.  We have been discussing the adaptation for some time with our beta team and we are hoping to have them testing it in the months ahead.

The nice thing about software is that we are able to keep the product line growing and moving forward, and then we can add these features to it as they reach maturity.

We think this approach works better than putting ourselves on an imaginary single-track development cycle that says all progress must stop at a red light and wait for it to change- especially when we know that the change might take years to do properly.

I hope that enhances your understanding,

 

Well said Rob.

 

On 1/5/2019 at 7:25 PM, DaveCT2003 said:

Well said Rob.

  

Agreed.   Question more than answered.   Complaint appropriately addressed.  

 

Edited January 7, 20197 yr by hohum

On ‎1‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 5:20 PM, rsrandazzo said:

 

The development work is going on in a parallel channel, and even with the 747s released it is **still** not ready to be pushed into the product line.  We have been discussing the adaptation for some time with our beta team and we are hoping to have them testing it in the months ahead.

 

1

Rob,

That's the most encouraging words that I have heard in a long time! 

Rich Boll

Wichita, KS

On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 9:37 AM, Ephedrin said:

I somehow doubt that ILS systems will vanish in the nearer future. Nor I think that aircraft will depend on GPS solely. That‘s just my thought and I don‘t have backup information on this but since GPS is still the property of the US military and has actually already been turned off for the public in the past during war times it seems a bit too risky to me to relate on it alone. Thinking about certain presidents I wouldn‘t trust on a system that can be used as a blackmail that easily. ILS means an airport and an airplane. GPS (and GNSS in general) means a third someone in charge. If one of it is gone there‘s no landing anymore in IMC? Hardly to imagine. Never make yourself 100% dependent on one nation/person. 

Again, only a thought now.

1

GPS is still controlled by the military and can be turned off in a national emergency.  However, GPS is just not a navigation system.  It's a "time" system as well.  Did you know that nearly every credit card transaction or ATM transaction is tracked using GPS based time?  A few years, a company called Light Square tried to bring wireless internet to the masses using a frequency that abutted up against the GPS frequency band.  Our FCC foolishly allowed them to do it without a proper assessment of GPS interference.  While the aviation community and the military voiced the significant concerns with the jamming effects of Light Squared's much stronger signal on the rather weak GPS signal in major metropolitan areas.  It wasn't the effect by Light Square's signal on GPS navigation signal that caused FCC to reverse its authorization, it was the potential effect Light Square's frequency would have on GPS's time signal and its effect on the Nation's banking and economic system that killed it.  With no way to track ATM & CC transactions, there was no way their proposal was going to be allowed to move forward. 

In short, GPS is not going to be turned off completely absent a major national emergency (e.g., a real war).  It may be degraded, or example should SA be turned back on.  That would blow all RNAV/RNP approaches.   ILS rationalization begins in earnest in 2025.  Many smaller airports will either loose Federal funding for the ILS or the local/state government will need to pick it up. VOR MON (minimum operational network) airports will continue to keep their ILSs as will the core airports, 

Rich Boll

Wichita KS 

 

2 minutes ago, richjb2 said:

GPS is still controlled by the military and can be turned off in a national emergency.  However, GPS is just not a navigation system.  It's a "time" system as well.  Did you know that nearly every credit card transaction or ATM transaction is tracked using GPS based time?  A few years, a company called Light Square tried to bring wireless internet to the masses using a frequency that abutted up against the GPS frequency band.  Our FCC foolishly allowed them to do it without a proper assessment of GPS interference.  While the aviation community and the military voiced the significant concerns with the jamming effects of Light Squared's much stronger signal on the rather weak GPS signal in major metropolitan areas.  It wasn't the effect by Light Square's signal on GPS navigation signal that caused FCC to reverse its authorization, it was the potential effect Light Square's frequency would have on GPS's time signal and its effect on the Nation's banking and economic system that killed it.  With no way to track ATM & CC transactions, there was no way their proposal was going to be allowed to move forward. 

In short, GPS is not going to be turned off completely absent a major national emergency (e.g., a real war).  It may be degraded, or example should SA be turned back on.  That would blow all RNAV/RNP approaches.   ILS rationalization begins in earnest in 2025.  Many smaller airports will either loose Federal funding for the ILS or the local/state government will need to pick it up. VOR MON (minimum operational network) airports will continue to keep their ILSs as will the core airports, 

Rich Boll

Wichita KS 

 

That's some great information, thank you!

11 minutes ago, richjb2 said:

However, GPS is just not a navigation system. 

The military does not need to turn it off, they have different options such as degrading the accuracy in a manner that would not impact navigation or time keeping using an encrypted dithering that military receivers can decrypt.

My past couple decades were spent employed in the engineering and construction field, and I witnessed the rather quick adoption of GPS based surveying equipment.  It is pretty amazing how many different applications there are for a system that started out with a single purpose.

8 hours ago, downscc said:

The military does not need to turn it off, they have different options such as degrading the accuracy in a manner that would not impact navigation or time keeping using an encrypted dithering that military receivers can decrypt.

My past couple decades were spent employed in the engineering and construction field, and I witnessed the rather quick adoption of GPS based surveying equipment.  It is pretty amazing how many different applications there are for a system that started out with a single purpose.

Dan,

I think you're referring to selective availability, which the DoD turned off about 1999 (can't recall the exact date).  While we were able to navigate using GPS with SA in the enroute environment, I'm not sure that if SA is on, it will qualify as accurate enough for terminal RNAV/RNP procedures. If SA were turned back on, time would probably not be affected, but overall system accuracy would be.  LPV & LP lines of minima would definitely be NOTAM'd NA, and I suspect that LNAV/VNAV and LNAV lines of minima would be as well, which means the whole approach would be NA'd.  RNAV 1 would still be allowed since DME/DME or DME/DME/IRU could suffice and I think SA GPS signal would be accurate enough, especially with radar monitoring.  RNP 1 would be questionable. A-RNP would be NA'd.  

Rich