that experience and just how low my sit- uational awareness was. Even if the Loran was working properly, which it wasn’t, the only thing I knew at that moment was that I was at 800’, over the ocean, and some- where south of the tip of mainland FL. I could not touch my screen, and at a glance, see what airports are VFR or IFR. Nor could I pull up the current METARs at every airport within 100 miles of me to see if trending weather minimums were getting lower. I definitely did not have my course line painted on an aeronautical chart with color weather NEXRAD radar overlaid on top of it all. I also did not have the reliability of an entire group of satel- lites feeding me this information. Before I get too high and mighty about


GPS, if I am honest with myself, I am re- minded that it is still no substitute for proper flight planning. Although rare, if I were to lose signal from just a few satel- lites in the same scenario I described, I could be right back to square one and re- lying on heading/time/distance calcula- tions. However, with advances in GPS technology and built in redundancies, re-


liability is light years ahead of the days of LORAN past. But I digress, my intention is not to lec-


ture you about how proper flight planning can save your butt when equipment fails. It is more to highlight how new technol-


ogy is improving situational awareness in the cockpit. I am glad to have seen the progression


of navigation systems from NDB to VOR to LORAN to GPS. The reliability, func- tionality, and broad range of information


28 August 2012


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