Missouri GPS disruption...WTF FAA?

timwinters

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Okay here's the notice:

https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2018/Feb/AFSMO_18-01_GPS_Flight_Advisory_1.pdf

And it says:

Location: Centered at 384341N0933317W or the BUM VOR 057-degree radial at 52NM.

That lat/lon is centered on Whiteman AFB. And Whiteman is indeed 52nm at 57 degrees MAGNETIC from the BUM VOR.

But...

It's not even close to being 52 NM at the 57 degree RADIAL of BUM...which is is a point about 5NM ESE of Whiteman.

WTF FAA? You can't be more precise than that? You seriously don't understand that magnetic bearing and VOR radials are distinct and separate?

or...

What am I missing? Do I deserve a lashing for being the idiot here?

Not that it really matters in this case but it really smacks of a sloppy attitude in general if I'm right.
 
I got an e-mail about one of these for the Minot area this morning. Skyvector plots the lat/long and the MOT radial/DME just under 2 nm apart. The reason appears to be the same as you noted: Use of magnetic bearing to determine the VOR radial without taking into account station declination. (MOT is 13E in an area of 7E variation. BUM is 7E in an area of 2E variation.

Given the 60-mile radius just above ground level, I don't think your 5 miles or my 2 miles will make any difference. But it still triggers my OCD nerve a bit. Thanks for pointing it out. I never would have checked or known otherwise. o_O
 
There's one centered near Cheyenne WY which distrupts everything around Denver. I sent an email to the USAF group,doing the testing asking them to please consider testing around various parts of the country, such as NYC DC, ORD. Obviously no one in charge of the testing believes the west is civilized. Certainly we don't have indoor plubming or other modern conveniences, hence we're not impacted by all this testing - we wouldn't even know it's happening, we're so backwards.
 
There's one centered near Cheyenne WY which distrupts everything around Denver. I sent an email to the USAF group,doing the testing asking them to please consider testing around various parts of the country, such as NYC DC, ORD. Obviously no one in charge of the testing believes the west is civilized. Certainly we don't have indoor plubming or other modern conveniences, hence we're not impacted by all this testing - we wouldn't even know it's happening, we're so backwards.

You have a bunch of ICBM launch silos in your neighborhood, around 50 of them I think. Might be related to those.
 
You have a bunch of ICBM launch silos in your neighborhood, around 50 of them I think. Might be related to those.
Cheyenne (90th Missile Wing), Minot (91st Missile Wing), and Great Falls (341st Missile Wing) each have 150 Minuteman III ICBMs. Minot also has a GPS disruption test scheduled. I bet Great Falls does, too. Whiteman AFB has the B-2. D.C. has the B.S. I'm sensing a pattern to these GPS outages.
 
There's one centered near Cheyenne WY which distrupts everything around Denver. I sent an email to the USAF group,doing the testing asking them to please consider testing around various parts of the country, such as NYC DC, ORD. Obviously no one in charge of the testing believes the west is civilized. Certainly we don't have indoor plubming or other modern conveniences, hence we're not impacted by all this testing - we wouldn't even know it's happening, we're so backwards.

If you insist, here's one for DC.
 
FLIGHT ADVISORY - GPS Interference Testing
AIR FORCE SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT OFFICE (AFSMO) 18-07
26 February – 06 March 2018
Washington, DC
Centered at 384821N0765216W or the EMI184042


Not unusual in or near DC; used to be regular and fairly frequent around PAX River
 
we have these notams all the time out here in the west - I've never noticed a problem with GPS . . .
 
Can pretty seriously affect guys doing high resolution survey stuff, differential GPS, etc.

The aerial mapper and and gps ground surveyor types.

Typically even though our data will be all jacked in a short burst, the pilots up front never notice a single hiccup on the trusty G530, etc.
 
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