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Gold/Mining/Energy : PN - Pelorus Navigation partner with Honeywell
PN 0.779+7.5%11:02 AM EST

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To: Bernard Elbaum who wrote (81)5/21/1998 2:10:00 AM
From: Step1  Read Replies (1) of 115
 
Good points, hard to answer, only time will tell ...

>>>most major US airports having GPS capability by
2005, and all of them by 2010.<<<
Obviously the most important thing is to agree on a standard first. Then orders should come in over the years.

>>There seem to be several potential hitches to this projection.
1. The government will have to spend some money for the airports to pay for new GPS capability.
However, it's not a lot of money for ground installations.
<<
Infrastucture projects are never cheap. The ground part only may be relatively cheap, although the FAA is looking at having a seamless Future Nav System incorporating many other technologies.

>>> 2. The airlines have to pay much more money for GPS cockpit avionics. If they feel cash poor and
would rather make do with what they have, the airlines could lobby for delay, though their own public
pronouncements to date are supportive of GPS in a general sense.<<<

GPS saves them money in fuel and improves their safety overall I think.

>>> 3. The FAA site also refers to some lobbying by other nations to slow down the move to GPS, though
the IR person for Pelorus tells me that the international aviation authority has been lobbying for
speeding things up.<<<

I spoke to him too. He seemed to be quite knowledgeable about the aviation industry in general. I remember seeing something about ICAO pushing for implementation of GPS sooner than later.

>>>4. There could be some technological hitch.<<<

>>> The most worrying of these potential hitches strikes me as #2. Any idea what the major US airlines
think about switching over to GPS?<<<

This is an awfully difficult question to answer at this point. The majors reaction has been mostly against Loran C (as a back up to GPS). They are not equipped and don't want to spend the money on it. They would rather keep their DME/VOR/ILS compatible on board equipment (as a back up). At least that is what I gather from the articles I saw in Flight International. Some may oppose it at first feeling it may put them in a difficult financial situation against their richer competitors but I would say that something that has the ability to improve their efficiency and safety records should not encounter too much opposition. They quarrel a lot among each others and always attempt not to give a competitor an edge they can't have or can't afford , but usually come around pretty quickly once they see something as inevitable.
If you are Canadian and remember what happened when Canadian Airlines wanted to leave the reservation system they co-owned with Air Canada (Gemini) to move into American Airlines 'camp (with SABRE), then you will recall how much dealing went on. AC opposed it until they felt they could clinch their own deal and then it was not an issue anymore.

I was sent an incident report a couple of days ago (Tail skid contacted the runway and aft part of fuselage was damaged on a 767) . The airport was not equipped with an ILS and both pilots flying the approach had not had much practice with non-precision approaches in a long time. (767 are large aircraft and they usually fly schedule service into airports equipped with ILS in North America anyway) Anyway, no injuries and not really endangering the life of the passengers but nevertheless a very costly glitch in a carrier flight and maintenance schedule. Had the airport been equipped with GPS SLS (and the aricraft as well) this would have probably prevented the incident. This airport was relatively small and therefore could hardly justify the cost of an ILS, especially since you need one for each runway end (essentially doubling the cost ).

hope this helps, I was commenting on your message more to add info than to correct anything as we both seem to belive in PN despite the price performance...

later
sg
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