GPS is out?

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

My son is taking flight lessons and they were cancelled this morning due to GPS being out, maybe just over Colorado? I didn’t think GPS went down? ADS-B also not working. I don’t if it is ‘out’ or unreliable.

We have a lot of pilots here, is this common. I would think being satellite based, any outage would be fleeting??? Are there ground repeaters that go out and degrade local sevice?

[C-grunt]

Just text my buddy who owns a cyber security company with gov contracts. If something is happening he'll know.

[C-grunt]

He said he's not seeing any reported outages from the GPS systems themselves. He said it might be a specific issue to the airline/company itself.

On the other hand FAA is showing an outage on their coverage in some places.

Edit: FAA is having outages all along the west/southwest US

[mack7.62]

Not a good idea to train pilots to only be able to fly with GPS.

[rjacobs]

Not a good idea to train pilots to only be able to fly with GPS.

I think almost every NDB is decommissioned now. Its been removed from all the airplanes at my airline/rendered inop.

VOR's I think are going to go that way soon.

We basically only use GPS as an update to the inertial reference unless we are flying GPS or RNP approaches... So even with a GPS outage we could still operate. I think the IRS is considered within acceptable tolerances for 18 hours in between updates. Obviously you are losing some precision, but not to much.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Good afternoon Colorado members,

A temporary loss of GPS signal over Denver area has been reported by several pilots and Centennial tower. This short term loss of GPS signal is not currently showing via notams or the FAA’s GPS coverage website.

This means the GPS in your aircraft may not have signal. Any system relying on GPS signal will be unable to provide data. Please note that you may not have moving maps, GPS navigation, ground speed, ect.

This outage has also been affecting ADSB. ADSB has been failing randomly and intermittently. If your ADSB fails, tower will request the aircraft land and will not permit the aircraft to depart again.

If you choose to fly, please note that your flight might be cut short. The equipment in the aircraft is working properly, and any interruption to your ADSB coverage is due to the faulty GPS signal over Denver.

Please note that if you choose to fly and your ADSB fails or you loose GPS coverage, you are still responsible for the cost of the flight time.

It’s a club plane, so I don’t know if that matters, but the tower comment seems to be for all planes?

How can a region have issues with satellites that have what, four hour orbits?

[AKDoug]

Is it back up now? My phone navigation through OnX Hunt never skipped a beat this morning.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Is it back up now? My phone navigation through OnX Hunt never skipped a beat this morning.

I was wondering if it was an intermittent thing that something like a time critical function like crash avoidance or landing systems might need. My guess it that it was the location/avoidance?

On the ‘why’ of course, it could be bad actors, or maybe it is our side doing it, knowing that someone is using GPS in teh southwest for a nefarious purpose? Enough issues to make a GPS drone lose its way?

To much Tom Clancy.

[Defaultmp3]

GPS jamming happens all the time CONUS, ironically enough due to DoD testing: https://spectrum.ieee.org/faa-files-...arys-gps-tests

[TBAR_94]

Localized GPS outages are pretty common. You can actually check GPS NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen) from the FAA, or search GPS status at GPS.gov. Depending on where you are flying, and if you need an IFR approach, “GPS” could also just refer to the local RNAV approach.