Originally published at: Military GPS Jamming Under Scrutiny In Fatal New Mexico Medevac Accident
A military GPS jamming exercise is under scrutiny as investigators examine whether it contributed to the fatal crash of a medevac King Air in New Mexico.
I genuinely don’t understand the point of GPS jamming exercises.
The avionics people, if they’re trying to test jamming-resistant equipment, can do that in a controlled environment.
For training, you need dedicated training aircraft with GPS equipment that can be switched, by the trainer, to simulate the effects of various types of jamming.
From the outside, interrupting the GPS system actually used by airliners and civil aircraft is essentially indistinguishable from an attack on our country. And no, NOTAMS that say “we may jam your GPS over 100,000 square miles of the western states at any time over the next 72 hours” don’t really distinguish from an attack. Folks back east may not realize that these NOTAMS are near-continuous in parts of the west (e.g. Arizona, Nevada, southern California).
That said, I’m also genuinely curious. It would be great if a journalist could get someone to explain the purpose and need for these simulated attacks on our country.