Thread: Good book!
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Old 12-22-2017, 05:45 PM   #12
FlyWright
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City: California Delta
Vessel Name: FlyWright
Vessel Model: 1977 Marshall Californian 34 LRC
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 13,728
Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post
The weather forecasts in Antartica were the reports we had sent the day before.
You know you're alone when this happens!

The difference between those of us who learned without all the gee-whiz electronics and those who've always had it shows when the automation stops working.

I went to an annual Christmas Party at my old Flight Check office today and got to catch up with the old gang. I learned of the shift in airspace use in Southern CA to extensive automated GPS nav from enroute to the gate including new runway encroachment protections from other on-airport radar systems.

One Flight Check pilot told the story of an extensive GPS jamming session that wreaked havoc in the airspace for 20 minutes or so while he was departing Santa Monica in Southern CA. Pilots were whining on the frequency about being assigned low altitude airway and high altitude jet route routing using ground-based transmitters only. Very few of the airborne air carrier or corporate/civilian crews were prepared to revert to ground-based nav systems and did not carry paper charts to be able to quickly identify the navaid frequencies. Each pilot had an iPad but it took a while for them to be able to change gears.

Tom had his radios set up for the local navaids (he was always a stickler for that...) and with his local knowledge and familiarity of the ATC system he quickly and painlessly altered his plan with ATC and continued on away from the mayhem.

When the shit hits the fan, if you don't have familiarity with an area, what are you going to do?

I think there's a lesson there for boaters and pilots everywhere. Lucky for us, things don't happen on a trawler as fast as they do in a Learjet 60.
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