Glad you did not. :eek: Now if you are on first name basis with the tower controller and it is 3AM, you might have fun with it. 
If you’re on final and trim for the numbers and their ain’t no numbers then…
It’s not hard to cue up on the wrong runway in poor visibility but with the advent of the ipad a lot of the guesswork is removed. The various moving map programs simply extend the runway line out.
$$$$$$$$$$$$ vs good piloting skills and paying attention.
I have been in the wrong place and touched down in the wrong place several times. Every time it was under the direct instruction of approach control or the tower. Early days, so I learned that it was still all on me no matter what or who & what gizmo I did or did not have with me. 
Agreed. If you’re flying in SNA’s VFR pattern looking at an iPad you’re a hazard to yourself and everyone around you.
I don’t know you you possible came to that conclusion. A modern moving map display gives you a straight in approach that is accurate to a coupe of feet. It gives better information than any instrument approach. With ADS B it also provides collision avoidance.
At 15 miles out I agree with you. But …
This whole stupid event happened in the last 500 feet = 1+ miles of a visual approach from a visual rectangular traffic pattern at one of the busiest GA airports in the USA. That taxiway and runway are so close together they’re only a few pixels apart on a moving map at max zoom.
Eyes outside, head on a swivel, and brain fully engaged are how you avoid stupid moves like lining up on the wrong surface and also how you notice there’s a large airplane taxiing towards crossing your nose as you get below 100 feet.
Never mistake having a “smart” screen in the cockpit for having situational awareness in your head.
yes but at 15/10/5 miles out you’re on what is effectively a map drawn localizer with something like an ipad. You can even display it as such. This isn’t a cockpit toy. It’s state of the art and it’s significantly cheaper and more accurate than 20th century approach procedures.
Unlike an approach using traditional equipment a modern moving map display changes with the approach. As the plane gets closer to the airport the display zooms in so accuracy is easy to maintain.
And Ford asked the tower about the plane taxiing across his bow. How many commercial planes have landed at the wrong airport? Where was the airliner’s call asking about a plane lined up with the taxiway? I’ve never once approached a runway from a taxiway without looking for traffic. Shit happens and it happens ALL THE TIME. where was the tower in all of this?
Absolutely. That’s how I was taught to fly and it applies equally to traditional panel gauges. what has changed is nothing short of a technological leap with the ipad in the cockpit. It adds an incredible level of accuracy along with weather and traffic avoidance. It does it in a way that is SOOOOO much easier to monitor than previous GPS systems. Every other navigation gauge in the plane can fail and an ipad replaces them.
Clearly Ford screwed up but he showed more situational awareness than anyone else. It would have been nice if SOMEONE interacted with the situation.
Does your iPad have RAIM? Does it alert you if the HDOP goes outside of limits? Does its course display progressively scale as you transition from enroute, to terminal, to the final approach?* Does it have an externally mounted GPS receiver so that cockpit windows, ceiling, wings etc don’t shield the antenna?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with using an iPad’s moving map display as a supplement to normal visual procedures, but it shouldn’t be used as primary nav.
*I don’t mean the map display zooming in.
There is nothing in “normal visual procedures” that remotely compares to the accuracy of a GPS.
Paul Mantz and the billboard. Like to see a civilian navigation system of any kind or cost do that. Ipad or tablet, he he he … VFR is was.
Most of the time yes, sometimes no. GPS is good most of the time but if you don’t maintain visual SA then you won’t know when the GPS is good or not. GPS with out WAAS or similar is still not as good as old fashioned ILS.
You didn’t answer my questions about RAIM etc. Does the app you use monitor the performance of the GPS and alert you if it gets out of tolerance? Does it monitor satellites and inform you if a satellite is giving bad info? Does it then drop the bad satellite from the Nav solution? These are the types of things an IFR GPS will do. If the iPad doesn’t do that stuff then it is just a cockpit toy, no more.
What are you basing this assertion you’re making on? Any GPS system will deliver a more accurate picture than manually triangulating off VOR’s. Whether it’s off 6 inches or 3 feet doesn’t change it’s usefulness as a navigation tool.
For no particular reason you’re spinning this thread sideways in response to an observation that a moving map GPS would have provided sufficient information for Ford to navigate to the correct runway. It’s an incredibly cheap tool for VFR flghts.
If you want to know what happens when signals to a GPS are lost they stop working like every other system with a lost signal. It doesn’t stop the plane from flying or the pilot from using common sense.
I compared it to ILS, not VOR.
And if it’s off by a few miles? That’s the point. You seem to think “but it’s GPS, it’s never off by a few miles”, but sometimes it is. If my IFR GPS has bad satellite geometry it tells me and then I know not to trust it. If your non-IFR GPS does the same thing then you don’t know (unless it does have RAIM, you haven’t told me if it does or not.)
Because it’s a bit worrying reading a pilot putting what I think is unwarranted faith in a consumer grade GPS. See, I don’t think a moving map display would have been of any use to Harrison Ford. He was given RWY 20L and landed on the adjacent taxiway. He was, at most, off by 120 meters. You don’t need moving map to spot that error, you need eyes and a quick self briefing on what you expect to see in front of you on finals.
No it doesn’t. That is not what happens. What happens if you have bad satellite geometry is that you start to get large position errors and you don’t know about it unless you have the type of GPS that tells you this is happening. Does your GPS tell you if its position error is getting out of tolerance? The difference with VOR, DME, ADF, and ILS is that if it idents correctly, is not notamed as u/s, and is used within the rated coverage of the aid then you can be reasonably confident it is giving good information. Not so with GPS, GPS can be giving you a position 100 miles wrong and you wouldn’t know unless your GPS unit is fitted with certain monitoring and alerting functions, OR you have some other nav solution to compare it with (your eyes looking out the window for instance).
Again, I have no problem with iPads and moving map displays for VFR aircraft, I think it is a great tool and an excellent aid to situational awareness and backup to visual procedures. Just remember the GPS is there to supplement good visual procedures, not the other way around, and when you are getting setup on final approach when VFR, the place to be looking is the runway, not your moving map display. If you want to make sure you land on the correct runway then brief yourself what the runway and taxiway layout is.
What he needed was an extended runway line. An ipad gives you that along with an approach plate layout of the airport. it’s literally a VFR chart with the ability to add additional visual information of the airport. Instead of wrestling a paper map while still trying to fly there is a map centered on the pilot’s current location that can be zoomed in and out to make it easy to identify surrounding terrain.
Even in failure it’s still a better VFR chart than a paper VFR chart.
It seems to me that much VFR flying is to small uncontrolled airports with much training traffic or aircraft with no radio at all so how does the moving map you are watching make you aware of other traffic, conflicting traffic, etc.?
I don’t think you can fly safely in VFR conditions near an airport with only a sort of unicom everybody is supposed to use but don’t with your head down looking at a moving map of any quality when eyes out side are way more safe.
I’m an old pilot. I did not get nore would have got that way with my eyes inside when they should have been outside. YMMV
It’s helpful because it displays the exact view of a paper map with the plane properly located on a programmed course. It frees the pilot from triangulating a position manually. LESS time is spent looking at it than looking at a traditional map. The software also includes airport layouts as well as a full database of frequencies at a touch and they’re customization. With ADS-B they also provide weather uplinks as well as collision avoidance with other aircraft with ADS-B which will eventually become mandatory.
I have mine set split screen with a standard map view along with a digital HSI. Along with that it displays ground speed, time en-route, programmed course, actual course, and corrected course. In the event of equipment failure I could add any other gauge in the cockpit to the screen with almost no effort because it’s all touch screen.
When I get 20 miles out from an airport I can touch the screen for airport frequencies along with a layout of the airport. It’s already set to display runways by extending them out 10 miles.
gone are the days spent talking to weather stations enroute. The information is already on the screen. Prior to flight I get my weather briefing on the ipad and it uploads active TFR’s to avoid. I can SEE them on the map. If I want to change my route while flying it’s a matter of touching the line and dragging.
Ipads with ADS-B represent a tremendous reduction in cockpit workload an that provides more time to watch for traffic, not less.
i was more critical of Harrison Ford until i saw what the markings on the respective taxiways and runways looked like too. The non-precision runway markings are badly faded and the taxiway was same way. Looks like John Wayne needs to pay for pavement rejuvenation/re-painting.
It does have that bag-lady quality going for it.
Some great WWII aviation photographs: http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/581/The-Right-Place-at-the-Right-Time.aspx
A marvellous collection of photos!