Dallas GPS

[Brandt]

From Bloomberg 

Flights into the Dallas area are being forced to take older, cumbersome routes and a runway at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has been closed after aviation authorities said GPS signals there aren’t reliable. 

The Federal Aviation Administration said in an emailed statement Tuesday it’s investigating the possible jamming of the global-positioning system that aircraft increasingly use to guide them on more efficient routes and to runways. So far, the agency has found “no evidence of intentional interference,” it said. 

American Airlines Group Inc., the primary carrier at DFW, said the GPS issue is not affecting its operations. Southwest Airlines Co., which flies from Love Field, didn’t immediately comment.

Despite the lack of flight disruptions, the GPS problem demonstrates the risks of widespread reliance on weak radio signals from space used for everything from timing stock trades to guiding jetliners.

[Fly Boomer]

Yeah.  Who would have thought that weak radio signals from satellites could be jammed?  Great design except for that small detail.

[EricJ]

7 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Yeah.  Who would have thought that weak radio signals from satellites could be jammed?  Great design except for that small detail.

Not just jammed, but spoofed!    "Jamming" might even be accidental from some noisy equipment nearby, which in the past has been errant SCADA radios and things like that.

Edit:   Relevant example:

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/sewage-plant-wireless-controls-fouled-airport-gps/

[Fly Boomer]

Just now, EricJ said:

Not just jammed, but spoofed!    "Jamming" might even be accidental from some noisy equipment nearby, which in the past has been errant SCADA radios and things like that.

Spoofing is potentially a more serious safety of flight issue.  These days I think any high-tech design needs to recognize and plan for the worst.  As you point out, it’s not just bad actors.

[Boilermonkey]

There are many ways to avert jamming and spoofing.  Just requires equipage.

[Fly Boomer]

1 minute ago, Boilermonkey said:

There are many ways to avert jamming and spoofing.  Just requires equipage.

Apparently we didn't use any of those techniques?
 

[EricJ]

53 minutes ago, Boilermonkey said:

There are many ways to avert jamming and spoofing.  Just requires equipage.

And there are many ways to defeat those mitigations.   Even accidentally.  Things that are potential interferers, like the soon-to-launch Ligado system, are still potential threats, too.   This is why we have RAIM to give us a reasonable idea of whether the system is working or not.

There are no systems that are 100% reliable or secure.

[MikeOH]

While no systems are 100% reliable or secure, I was very disappointed that LORAN was shut down.  The latest gen would have provided a decent backup to loss of GPS.  (Yes, I realize that wouldn't include LPV mins!). Very difficult to spoof/jam.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, MikeOH said:

While no systems are 100% reliable or secure, I was very disappointed that LORAN was shut down.  The latest gen would have provided a decent backup to loss of GPS.  (Yes, I realize that wouldn't include LPV mins!). Very difficult to spoof/jam.

The MON will still be there, and my understanding is ILS or other non-GPS equipment is being installed in enough airports to support service if GPS ever goes down.

I practiced flying an approach with just a geo-referenced approach plate on my EFB, which gets lat/lon from my Stratux.   It's actually pretty  easy, at least the one(s) I tried.   This is useful because I can feed the stratux with one of the $20 GPS/Galileo/Glonas/Baidu receivers, so even if GPS goes down as long as one of the other systems works I may have a chance, even without the MON.

[carusoam]

Has the Ukraine situation affected the use of Glonas at all?

PP wondering out loud… 

Best regards,

-a-

[Fly Boomer]

9 hours ago, EricJ said:

The MON will still be there, and my understanding is ILS or other non-GPS equipment is being installed in enough airports to support service if GPS ever goes down.

I haven't heard of any new ILS installs, but I think they still maintain the ILS at some minimum number of airports.  If your ILS is not at one of those designated "minimum" airports and the ILS goes TU, they just whack the plate and it's GPS or nothing.

[M20F]

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/cause-is-unknown-for-mysterious-gps-outage-that-rerouted-texas-air-traffic/
 

[Mark89114]

I read somewhere that it, i.e. the error, was moving south, possibly indicating a truck was causing some type of interference.