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Comment by bronco21016 | Hacker News Reader

The author seems to believe that GPS is the only and primary form of navigation.

Pilots in the US are trained from day one to use landmarks and dead-reckoning. From there the skills are built upon to where I believe it would be difficult to push a crew to such a gross navigational error that it causes disaster.

I’ll need to read the article more closely but it appears to be a lot of fluff and leaves out the many layers of navigation still available.

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Commercial traffic flying at 30-40 thousand feet is not flying VFR typically. And of course spotting landmarks through cloud cover or at night is not a thing. But you are right that spoofing would largely just be annoying. Commercial traffic is usually in contact with a controller and monitored on radar. So, any course deviations would result in controllers asking what they are doing and be followed by them simply vectoring them back on course with compass headings.

However, GPS has replaced a lot of the NDB and VOR radios that pilots used to rely on. Also a lot of airport approaches are now GPS rather than ILS/VOR. It's pretty critical to modern aviation.

GPS, or rather GNSS (which includes GPS and other systems), spoofing is a concern; but so far mainly in conflict areas. Most airlines would route around those.

Resilience against spoofing is actually a big topic from a strategic point of view. Also, spoofing is a big part of counter measures against drones in e.g. Ukraine. So there is a bit of an arms race going there.

The point with GNSS is that most phones can utilize multiple satellite positioning systems at the same time at this point. Which is of course something that navigation systems in planes could also do. And of course many pilots actually use ipads in the cockpit, which they could use as a backup in case of an electrical failure in the plane.

I’m well aware of the methods used for navigation and the technological changes over the last decade or two.

My point is that US trained pilots have an exceptionally strong foundation of the fundamentals and are very unlikely to fall prey to a misguided GPS signal. The spidey senses will be tingling is essentially my argument.

A generation or two from now that may become more of an issue as primary training is beginning to move away from the fundamentals and is bracing technology.

It's mostly fear mongering for Regular Joe, along with:

> Another important development was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Vastly outnumbered in jets and tanks, Ukrainians quickly jury-rigged a miniature air force out of off-the-shelf drones carrying improvised munitions

Lol, Ukrainians were watching videos from Syria and Afghanistan and implementing ISIS tactics for years before 2022.

I think the drone war is getting off the charts. 300,000 per month!?! [1] This will definitely have impacts in the coming decade both in war and terror/counter-terror applications.

[1] https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/01/05/russia-produces-300...

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