The aide said the plane suffered disturbance to its GPS system due to jamming signals from the North's southwestern cities of Haeju and Kaesong as it was taking part in the annual US-South Korea drill, Key Resolve.When I was a jedi tanker, we knew that the force was strong with us, but we couldn't rely on the electronics in the vehicle. Simple map and compass navigation was the key. Even when they installed GPS devices a good tank platoon leader kept one finger on the map, scrolling across landmarks as we traversed terrain.
I like a GPS as much as anyone, but good navigation skills are necessary for mobile combat, and I'd certainly think that aviation qualifies as mobile combat. As does the naval service.
Getting jammed is good training, and hopefully our guys are learning from it.
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Even with radar and fancy-schmancy SRN-9 (GPS precursor- ONE satellite) and LORAN, we still kept pit logs and had a zillion charts and navigated by ded reckoning when I was a salty sailor. And we still got lost... Damn kids had better learn how to read a map, is all I'm sayin' grumble mumble where are my glasses? No, dammit, if they were on my forehead I'd know it, wouldn't ..um...nevermind.
Chart, plotting tools, and remembering how to navigate... Kinda key to success... Just sayin...
In the Olden Days, BEFORE GPS, once we Navigators were SAC-umcised (assigned into the Strategic Air Command), we REALLY believed that somewhere, somehow, a Commie jammer would pop up and jam the Pilot's VOR & TACAN, so we flew everywhere, even in the USA, keeping a ground plot on a paper chart the old fashioned way. We practiced doing precision instrument landings without reference to the Instrument Landing System, too (did that by radar, using the bombing computer to compute time to touchdown).
Some of us got pretty good at no-ground-reference navigation. I could fly 1.5 hours (about 700 miles) by celestial navigation and dead reckoning only, predicting our arrival at a point and time at the start, and make it to that point at that time under 2 miles from the exact point on land.
The only reason for doing that was that by rule, we were never allowed to navigate by "radio" (anything with a generated signal) outside of the CONUS.
Mid '70's, Hawaii. I had a C-5A nav who was REALLY upset that upon arrival from the mainland his inertial nav was off by a half mile. Oh, horrors!! The way he was carrying on you'd think he was likely to miss the entire Hawaiian chain.
Two things:
1) Do the Norks have anything we can jam just to let them know we know?
2) I was wandering around a State Natural Area recently with GPS in hand, keeping the display and terrain aligned as the secret to not getting lost is always knowing your location. My long-winded point: the damn thing was useless trying to pinpoint anything within a 100 foot radius so I had to actually use my brain. It hurt.
Update, US officials today announced that a US reconnaissance plane was NOT 'downed' due to GPS jamming. i wrote the entire thing in my blog, citing all the reports. http://toinformistoinfluence.com/2011/09/10/gps-jamming-by-north-korea/
Wartime:He who radiates first, dies first. Naval Air will be more than happy to send a HARM right back down the emitter's azimuth.
Peacetime: He who radiates gets emitter details recorded by VA birds and logged for future reference (see "Wartime" above).
ach "VQ" birds.
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