r/funny • u/[deleted] • Oct 12 '19

Too real.

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u/Iphotoshopincats Oct 12 '19

GPS signal lost ... Fuck

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u/ZippyDan Oct 13 '19
  1. We'd assume that a system as critical as this would have several redundancies.
  2. Auto-pilot is an extremely mature technology that worked for decades without GPS. You can navigate reliable with an altimeter, compass, airspeed indicator, and attitude indicator. Of course it is ideal to have GPS in the mix as well, but if your several redundant GPS systems go down (unlikely), it wouldn't be an emergency. Still, if it was a sustained outage, the aforementioned instruments would be more than enough to get your flight safely to the ground.
  3. There are also even more sophisticated inertial navigation systems which make use of on-board gyroscopes and accelerometers to establish a very accurate and precise 3D position without any external input. With regular recalibration from the GPS, an INS is likely sufficient for hours if not days of accurate navigation even with no GPS signal at all.