GPS is not involved in this change really. Solar storms affect the magnetic field of earth to. Magnetic north is just a sensor going through software like everything else. Less risk... not more.
Er... I get it that it's about changing the "reference system" and not primarily about GPS. But the difference between "magnetic North" and "true North" depends on your position, and how are you going to get your position if not using GPS?
Using a wide variety of "traditional" techniques that range from dead reckoning (or "pilotage" which is dead reckoning corrected by landmarks) to politely asking a controller if they have you on radar. Airplanes operated under challenging conditions without falling out of the sky for a long time before GPS became a ubiquitous flight instrument (pretty recently, really).
Wouldn't it be possible to broadcast local magnetic declination over ATIS or other automated broadcast systems?
As far as I know (and according to the article), modern navigation systems contain databases of the local magnetic declination anyway; instead of updating maps and navigational databases, we could just update these declination database instead every once in a while if I understand it correctly.
rob74|4 years ago
jcrawfordor|4 years ago
chrisseaton|4 years ago
How do you determine true north without a GPS system?
lisper|4 years ago
lxgr|4 years ago
As far as I know (and according to the article), modern navigation systems contain databases of the local magnetic declination anyway; instead of updating maps and navigational databases, we could just update these declination database instead every once in a while if I understand it correctly.