Can you still use GPS after civilization falls?

cbenoi1 said:

> Related - what about plane navigation in this situation, where the pilot has nothing from the ground to help?

Pilotage & dead reckoning. It's part of basic training for pilots.

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She is a veteran bush pilot, so she probably thinks using anything but dead reckoning is soft.

cbenoi1 said:

> But they've gotta have that plane to get them across the roadless wilderness that is northern Ontario!

You can pretend they are following the power lines, one that happens to end at Thunder Bay or some other town on Lake Superior. They could refuel there, then follow the coastline to Duluth.

Also, I'm seeing a few NDBs along the route from Ft Severn (CYER) and Thunder Bay (CYQT), all within reasonable range to one another. NDB stations are cheap to operate, and they were the backbone of the Canadian artic navigation system for decades before GPS. Most general aviation planes with the older 'steam gauges' avionics still have that clunky ADF radio finder on their instrument panels, so it's not unreasonable to fly some old airways from Hudson's Bay to Lake Superior.

-cb

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Thanks!

At the minute I've got them flying from Moosonee, so I was thinking that they could follow the railway line from there for a good long way. The pilot will find other landmarks after that. And of course as you say the coastline of Lake Superior to their destination.

blacbird said:

Without somebody to constantly maintain the GPS satellites (of which there are twenty-some), GPS is quickly useless. Among other things, to keep time correctly on these satellites, the effects of relativity to time have to be dealt with.

caw

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That's what I suspected. That there must be adjustments being made from the ground and without that they'd become unreliable.