Talk:Air navigation

The United States has GPS approaches. I believe GPS is perfectly legal for use as a primary means of navigation and one can file a flight plan with the route as 'GPS direct'. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the author meant at the end of the page.

I wrote it. It sounds like the situation has changed since 2000 in that case, or maybe the US allowed GPS prior to that time. It's still not approved in the UK for primary navigation AFAIK. Someone with the definitive facts should amend the article, unfortunately it seems my own knowledge is out of date. GRAHAMUK 08:11, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't know the status of the UK, but I know GPS is legal as primary navigation (for most things) in the US and has been for about five years. I'm told that 'most' countries have followed suit. Selective Availability is now a thing of the past and RAIM makes GPS much more reliable. WAAS will make it even more so. You cannot, for example, substitute the GPS location for a VOR for that VOR in an approach (if that was allowed, the FAA would publish a GPS approach), but you can substitute an en route intersection so long as you retrieved the intersection from the GPS's database and that database is current. (You can't enter the fix yourself. The FAA considers the chance that you'd make a mistake to be too great.)

GA??

GA = General Aviation?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 6.3.55.1 (talk) 23:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Absolutely! - Mugs 18:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, civil aviation is better. GA (which includes corporate jets) is only one part of civil aviation - the other is scheduled air carrier/airline service. In the great majority of cases, GA and air carriers use identical navigational equipment and procedures for IFR flight. Captjosh (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Expert needed

This article needs an expert - it is missing important content (e.g. intertial navigation, radar navigation), and its unreferenced content looks dodgy. Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll clean-up the article with factual (and cited) information, as well as incorporating the suggestions in this discussion page. A little backloged at the moment, but will jump on this soon. Captjosh (talk) 15:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Second Paragraph

The second paragraph has problems for example:

Aircraft travel at relatively high speeds, leaving less time to calculate their position en route.

- Time to calculate position is related to speed and distance to navigation hazards not speed alone. An aircraft crossing the ocean has plenty of time to calculate position.

The author's comparison of speed and distance between surface vehicles and high speed aircraft is a matter of "apples and oranges." They cannot be compared due to lack of perspective.

1. Yes, speed + distance = time to destination. Who has less time to calculate position and route? A motorist taking a detour to avoid a traffic nightmare while driving to an airport because they are late, or an aircraft traveling hundreds of MPH faster to a waypoint 240 miles away?
2. With obvious exceptions, the larger the aircraft, the faster it travels, and the more sophisticated navigation instrumentation. Various modern navigational equipment and computer integration (FMS, etc.) allow entire routes, or portions of them, to be recalculated in a matter of moments. Can Aunt Judy's car do this, or does she need to pull out maps, ask for help, etc? Captjosh (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Aircraft normally cannot stop in mid-air to ascertain their position at leisure.

- The Exxon Valdez and the Cosco Busan did not have "leisure" to ascertain their position

"Normally??" If a plane stops in mid-air, and it's not an aerobatic plane at an airshow, the last thing you'll be worried about is your location. Captjosh (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

constant awareness of position is critical for aircraft pilots.

- Again not true, for instance for crew of an aircraft flying from New York to Singapore

I agree, "constant awareness of position" with 100% vigilance for such a route. Occasional position reference to ensure proper course (for fuel planning purposes and ETOPS compliance, which should be a problem if flying a published IFR oceanic route) is enough, in my opinion.

Constant "situational awareness," not position awareness, is critical for pilots at all times. Constant position awareness on an IFR flight if the route is being flown as filed (according to procedures, charts, ATC, etc.). A pilot should be "more aware" of position when flying near obstructions on the departure and arrival portions of the IFR flight. Greater position awareness is required for VFR flight because pilots are not following published (approved) airways or procedures, is usually not in contact with ATC, and may get lost easier; heck, they navigate primarily with a map, visual references, dead reckoning, pilotage, and a stopwatch. This position awareness should be greatest near obstructions ("see and avoid") and near airspace requiring either a clearance to enter, or at least 2-way communications with ATC. Captjosh (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I suggest the entire paragraph be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CaptCarlsen (talk • contribs) 20:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this section should be deleted necessarily, but should be edited greatly. A short statement describing a large difference between ground and air navigation may help users understand that it's not just requesting directions from mapquest. However, I agree that most most of the statements above and am adding specific contents there. Captjosh (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Flight Planning

• ETP is inaccurately claimed to be the point at which the time to fly from current position to departure and destination airports is the same. Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) 121 states that ETP is the point at which the time to fly from current position to last 'suitable airport' and next 'suitable airport' is the same.
• fuel weight remaining can be greater than maximum fuel weight allowed with one/two engines out at ETP, requiring a descent to a maintainable altitude and a fuel dump in order to be able to fly to either 'suitable airport'. 'Suitable airport' is defined in FAR.
• I suggest that the article is revised to make it less a discussion, and more notable.

Richard McDonald Woods 18:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcdonar (talk • contribs)

Focus on USA

Bad tho say that this article is completely focussed on USA. The described technologies have never been introduced in the whole world, but are limited to US and probably canadian territory.

Can anyone enlarge the base of this article, or is it reserved to US-english oriented readers?

--92.106.99.83 (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

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