Galileo (European GPS) id down

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

Since they are not officially in service until next year this is all much ado about nothing. Galileo has experienced several problems, including with the atomic clocks in their satellites. It is no small thing to duplicate GPS from scratch without the benefit of the US experience over decades. Kicking the UK out isn't helpful either.

For the conspiracists, it would be nice to know the politics behind the destruction of the LORAN system in the US. At a time that eLORAN was being mooted, with its rather obvious value as a terrestrial-based alternative (backup) to GPS based on existing infrastructure, a decision was made not to just shut down LORAN but to destroy the LORAN antenna towers immediately. That always had a smell about it...

Greg

The US Loran-C system was dismantled due to lack of funding by elected representatives somewhat at the behest of a few civil servants. After 9-11 there were limited funds and growing demand for increased security missions by the Coast Guard. Congress did not appropriate money specifically to keep Loran-C and especially the extra cost to develop and field eLoran. Not having enough money to operate and maintain the antennas and no direction to maintain the signals the Coast Guard ordered the towers destroyed lest they become a large safety liability (free-base jumpers, terrorist targets, etc.). Before they could destroy them all some members of Congress realized the mistake and made some legislation to stop the destruction. But it was too little too late.

So far as I know there was no conspiracy by anyone. It was a time when the threat to GPS was not fully appreciated and the US government was really stung by 9-11 so their priorities had shifted. The US passed a law late in 2018 to resurrect the domestic timing system that used to be done by Loran-C with a path to a full functioning alternative to GPS. So the sausage is in the grinder so to speak.

[barnakiel]

Galileo spectacular fracaso, the funny facts:


- EU biggest media news hardly mentioned this (as if oh wtf no problem)


Shows you how very corrupt the whole EU thing is - from politicians down to the journalists. Also, down to the taxpayers. Because I have learned only from CF (sic !!!) As if wtf no problem who knows here what Galileo is. (Ask any Med dweller, Galileo IS an Italian drink).


- it was bugged by Putin on request of his UK fellas. For you must know UK was kicked out from Galileo and now discovered late that being unable to launch their own, rely on Putin to create a GSTQPS system for the UK.


Putin seems very skilled, he fixes election results in one country on Monday then he spoils sat systems in another on Tuesday. I fear to live thru Wednesday!



Conspiracies ???


No, just ignorance is bliss, like Orwell envisioned so many years ago. Tax payers do not care for democracy or sat nav. Tax payers want more beer, sausages and Netflix.



Read, read, think, it does not hurt.


Cheers,
b.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

Would it make you feel better if I called your statement:

"Wild conjecture without a shred of evidence"? Probably is more accurate, but I was trying to be charitable.

Did I say I had evidence? It's too soon to have any evidence (for or against a connection). You're shooting holes in something that hasn't been said. If I'd asserted it actually was more than a coincidence, rather than just posing the question and leaving it up to the reader to decide, I'd say you were right. My question didn't even rise to the level of a hypothesis, let alone be asserted as a theory. You're reading into my post something that I didn't say. But feel free to shot holes in your imagined target.

There is an ongoing cyberwar between Iran and Russia on one side, and the US and its allies on the other. That much isn't conjecture.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

Since they are not officially in service until next year this is all much ado about nothing. Galileo has experienced several problems, including with the atomic clocks in their satellites. It is no small thing to duplicate GPS from scratch without the benefit of the US experience over decades. Kicking the UK out isn't helpful either.

For the conspiracists, it would be nice to know the politics behind the destruction of the LORAN system in the US. At a time that eLORAN was being mooted, with its rather obvious value as a terrestrial-based alternative (backup) to GPS based on existing infrastructure, a decision was made not to just shut down LORAN but to destroy the LORAN antenna towers immediately. That always had a smell about it...

Greg

I was actually in the service when Loran was shut down. There was no "immediately" about it. We went through something like 4 or 5 phases of starting to shut down then getting a last minute reprieve then spending a bunch of money on switching to solid state transmitters then getting ready to shut down again...over years if not decades. The towers came down when the facilities shut down because of how the Coast Guard gets funded. The LORAN program ceased to exist after it shut down. If the decomissioning of the towers wasn't included in the shutdown budget we could never have gotten the funds to take them down later when the program was just a memory, leaving us a huge unfunded liability. In isolated places around the world to make it even more fun. Taking them down as part of the decommissioning effort was simply foresight and good work by the CG civil engineers, based on hard learned lessons from similar situations. Non-engineers seem to all be oblivious to the maintenance and final disposition cost incurred by any asset...that's how cities get saddled with these great "free" closed military bases they can't even begin to afford to maintain or even dispose of. The smell you got from the LORAN shutdown was the smell of competent civil engineers who pushed to do things right (and that's hard for me to say as an electrical engineer!)

[Midnight Son]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

There is an eLoran system in UK. It has very limited coverage. Russia has Chakya for the Arctic and Siberia which is similar to eLoran. Saudi Arabia has an original Loran-C chain still operating.

Germany, Japan and US have low frequency timing systems but these don’t support position or velocity solutions. The US (WWVB) coverage is spotty too. Japan (JJY) and Germany (DCF-77) coverage is pretty good in their respective coverages.

What is needed is a world agreement for a terrestrial position, navigation and timing system that complements GNSS so users could have an alternative source of position, navigation and timing. Just having an alternate source of precision time and position greatly reduces the motivation for bad actors to muck with all the GNSS systems around the world. Many high level people are concerned and I suspect there is a small army of engineers devising a workable alternative to GNSS.

eLoran would provide the timing redundancy, plus with the power available to ground based transmitters, well, as I wrote earlier, much tougher to spoof. For aviation, they would need to go to radar altimeters, combined with the digital map, gives full 3D positioning.
Cheers all

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

Having flown many thousands of hours professionally I was pretty much never in IMC in a position where I couldn't have gotten myself to at least a GCA if not a PAR or just vectors to VMC if my GPS failed suddenly. Or execute the missed if I'm on approach. What are you flying around at 400 knots that you suffer that kind of loss of situational awareness that you end up lost in 3 dimensions when your GPS kicks off? Might I humbly suggest your safe flying days may be behind you?

I'd throw that question back and ask if you've gotten a bit too comfortable having GPS? How are your NDB (non-directional beacon) ADF (radio direction finder for boaters) approach procedures? And how many PAR approaches do you think ATC (air traffic control) could handle pre hour? (Sorry, this is getting technical for non-pilots: PAR is where a controller literally "talks" an airplane down to a landing using ground RADAR. Most pilots have only practiced the procedure once or twice in their entire careers, and many airports don't have the controllers or radar to support it. The military fields that do support PAR approaches would be slammed.)

Failure of GPS would be a colossal mess, especially since many flights these days aren't navigated to waypoints, but instead fly "direct" using GPS for en route navigation. I'd expect a least a few "aluminum showers" from collisions.

I'm doubtful many pilots could hand-fly their aircraft during a PAR approach. The current crop of pilots, who spend 99% of their time on autopilot with fancy "glass" cockpits (few or no analog instruments) are so pampered by automation that when the automation quits or does something unexpected - they've forgotten how to fly. They are "systems mangers" and "redundant components." Which explains why we have seen so many accidents caused by mistakes a 20-hour flight student wouldn't make. The smallest problems these days can bring a plane down due to lack of basic flying skills in the dumbed-down ranks of pilots. And loss of GPS would be a serious distraction. In a recent conversation I had with a 787 captain, I asked: "What's it like to fly that ship?" His response: "I don't know. But ever since I became Captain, I've learned how to type 110 words per minute."

None of the pilots I know believe a wide-scale GPS failure would be anything less than an air traffic catastrophe.

Here's a story about unskilled pilots and their dependence on automation that's guaranteed to give you shivers: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/busi...ight-447-crash

[hzcruiser]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

[...]


- EU biggest media news hardly mentioned this (as if oh wtf no problem)


Shows you how very corrupt the whole EU thing is - from politicians down to the journalists. Also, down to the taxpayers. Because I have learned only from CF (sic !!!) As if wtf no problem who knows here what Galileo is. (Ask any Med dweller, Galileo IS an Italian drink).

Pretty strange way of drawing conclusions. Because a system that is in test mode has an outage does not make headlines across all the media proves "the whole EU thing is corrupt" ?

[Cpt Pat]

P.S. To above: Lest I offend any "real" pilots out there, I am referring above to automation-dependent transport (airline) pilots who are only "voting members" in the operation of their aircraft (the redundant autopilots have the majority vote) and are limited to tweaking a video game joystick on the rare occasions they are manually flying. I'm not referring to pilots who fly stick-and-rudder aircraft with analog instruments that require actual flying skill to fly.

Myself, I tow gliders and banners with Piper Pawnees and Cessna Agwagons, haul skydivers in Cessna Caravans, fly aerobatics in Citabrias and Pitts S2Bs, and fly Hughes 269B helicopters. In those aircraft, there's no autopilot to go "bing" and wake me from my boredom-induced slumber if its transistors or software get confused. Those aircraft also don't dive into the ground when a bad angle of attack vane commands bad software to wrest control away from me (as in 737 Maxes).

I'll strap a handheld GPS to my knee on cross-country flights because it's convenient - but I certainly don't depend on it. I depend on the chart in my lap and basic radio navigation in instrument conditions.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

P.S. To above: Lest I offend any "real" pilots out there, I am referring above to automation-dependent transport (airline) pilots who are only "voting members" in the operation of their aircraft (the redundant autopilots have the majority vote) and are limited to tweaking a video game joystick on the rare occasions they are manually flying. I'm not referring to pilots who fly stick-and-rudder aircraft with analog instruments that require actual flying skill to fly.

Myself, I tow gliders and banners with Piper Pawnees and Cessna Agwagons. Haul skydivers in Cessna Caravans, fly aerobatics in Citabrias and Pitts S2Bs, and fly Hughes 269B helicopters. There's no autopilot to go "bing" and wake me from my boredom-induced slumber if its transistors or software get confused. Those aircraft also don't dive into the ground when a bad angle of attack vane commands bad software to wrest control away from me (as in 737 Maxes).

I'll strap a handheld GPS to my knee on cross-country flights because it's convenient - but I certainly don't depend on it. I depend on the chart in my lap and basic radio navigation in instrument conditions.

This is a well know problem and has led to a number of incidents. It is called automation dependency. GPS is a significant part of this.


People forget that there is more to this than just the possible failure of the satellites. The communist Chinese destroyed a satellite as part of a test of their anti-satellite capabilities. Equipment on one's boat can fail. Also, satellite signals are extremely weak and are easily jammed and distorted to provide incorrect locations. The end result is that one must be prepared for this to fail, just as one must be prepared for other equipment on the boat to fail.


The below video is a training film by American Airlines and it deals with the problem of an over reliance upon automation. It is quite good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by hzcruiser

Pretty strange way of drawing conclusions. Because a system that is in test mode has an outage does not make headlines across all the media proves "the whole EU thing is corrupt" ?

I thought the system was in operational mode before the collapse.



"...Effective 1 April 2018, all new vehicles sold in Europe must support eCall, an automatic emergency response system that dials 112 and transmits Galileo location data in the event of an acciden..."


source: Wiki @ July 16, 16:15 UTC, via :
https://www.geospatialworld.net/news...l-smartphones/


So, you say the system is in a testing stage?


How corrupt must be a politician to order such use (emergency+SAR) of a system that is in the test mode (test mode - you said it, not me).


How stupyfied must must be the taxpayer that turn blind eye on such regulations?


Or else, it was not in the test mode.


C'mon, bring your sources. Possibly the truth is somewhere in between, or somewhere else.


+Hugs from the EU side of the pond,
barnakiel

[barnakiel]

Superb the pilots video. Most interesting. THX for sharing.



b.

[Pegu Club]

It’s the Russians!!!! Run for cover!!

( sorry could not help myself)

Fair winds,

[B23iL23]

It is live but not fully operational and won't be until the end of 2020 when the full 30 sat constellation is up. see https://www.gsc-europa.eu/helpdesk/faqs


"When will I be able to use Galileo? The Galileo programme is currently in the deployment phase. The exploitation phase, however, is expected to commence in the second half of 2016 with the declaration of Galileo Initial Services. At this time, some Galileo services will be available for use. Galileo satellites will continue to be added to the system, with each additional satellite allowing for the provision of additional Galileo services. A fully operational system will be available in 2020."


So you can use it now but don't depend on it.

Originally Posted by barnakiel

I thought the system was in operational mode before the collapse.



"...Effective 1 April 2018, all new vehicles sold in Europe must support eCall, an automatic emergency response system that dials 112 and transmits Galileo location data in the event of an acciden..."


source: Wiki @ July 16, 16:15 UTC, via :
https://www.geospatialworld.net/news...l-smartphones/


So, you say the system is in a testing stage?


How corrupt must be a politician to order such use (emergency+SAR) of a system that is in the test mode (test mode - you said it, not me).


How stupyfied must must be the taxpayer that turn blind eye on such regulations?


Or else, it was not in the test mode.


C'mon, bring your sources. Possibly the truth is somewhere in between, or somewhere else.


+Hugs from the EU side of the pond,
barnakiel

[CarinaPDX]

During this "initial navigation and timing services" phase the Galileo system has been operating at low power, with plans to raise the power to design levels before going to "full operational services" next year. Hence the Galileo satellites have a low signal/noise ratio compared to GPS, and are more difficult to receive inside structures, but will be better soon.

@barnakiel:You could have done minimal searching. The Galileo homepage is: https://galileognss.eu/ . Wikipedia has a very good article, including a mention of this past weekend's problem, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galile...ite_navigation) . Both BeiDou and Galileo are working towards full service next year, but until then GPS and GLONASS are the best bets. Most of the time BeiDou and Galileo should work but the priority is to get the systems working smoothly, not in providing 24/7 service, at this time.

Greg

[barnakiel]

OK. I see.


The system to become fully operational in 2020.


Yet claimed 'operating and delivering services' in 2016.



Yet deployed to SAR and emergency use way before fully operational (2018).


And with at least two system wide breakdowns in two year's period.


Great job there. ERASMUS generation of designers, politicians and consumers in full display of their competitive edge vs. US, Russia and China.


This also means sailors will be tied to gps, glonass and beidou, as will pilots.


b.