Finland and Norway are preparing pilots to fly without GPS due to Russian interference

During the recent NATO military exercise Trident Juncture 2018, NATO's largest military exercise since the end of the cold war, planes experienced many issues with their GPS systems.

The premise of the exercise was a Russian invasion of Norway which would cause the alliance to invoke Article 5, the mutual defense clause.

During the exercise, there were multiple disruptions to the GPS system signals in Northern Norway and Finland. These disruptions were not limited to military aircraft and carried over to commercial aircraft as well.

A press officer for Widerøe, a Norway-based airline operating in the Nordics, told The Barents Observer at the beginning of November that pilots reported the loss of GPS while flying into airports in the northern Norwegian region of Finnmark, near the Russian border, though the officer stressed that pilots had alternative systems and there were no safety risks.

Norway’s aviation authority, Avinor, issued a notice to airmen of irregular navigation signals in airspace over eastern Finnmark between October 30 and November 7, according to The Observer.

The director of Norway’s civil aviation authority told The Observer that the organization was aware of disturbances to GPS signals in that region of the country but there is always notice given about planned jamming.

“It is difficult to say what the reasons could be, but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities outside Norway’s [borders],” the director said.

While there is not a clear indication that the jamming was from Russia, it is implied heavily. One of the reasons that Russia may have chosen to be provocative during these exercises is because the exercise took place right on their doorstep and because two non-NATO members participated in the exercise. Sweden and Finland both participated in operation Trident Juncture and Russia has warned both to NOT join NATO in the past.

Russia has made electronic jamming one of it's main priorities going as far as jamming it's own troops.

LINK

a reply to: BlackJackal

No surprise here. The west has been flexing on Russia since 2015. It's in no interest for anyone to escalate any further.

We'll instead let out steam in proxy wars at the expensive of weaker countries.

Seems stupid to let others see what they can do!

You know, it's a little off topic but also covered in the article is this quote:

Yet this military revival is accompanied by political malaise. For one thing, no one these days is quite sure whether the alliance’s principal member would actually show up to fight in a crisis. The platoon of Montenegrin infantrymen at Trident Juncture, part of the Spanish battalion defending Oppdal, might reasonably have recalled President Donald Trump’s scorn for their “very aggressive” country during this year’s nato summit, and asked how it squared with the transatlantic spirit on display in the Norwegian hills.

With Trump being as close as he is to Putin, I wonder if he would do anything if Russia invaded Norway or Finland.

So back to using Vor's?

a reply to: BlackJackal

With Trump being as close as he is to Putin, I wonder if he would do anything if Russia invaded Norway or Finland.

How do you explain our role in Syria then if our governments are so buddy buddy?

Remember about a year ago when we killed 100~ Russian mercs?

Was that just for show?

Every pilot should know how to read a sectional chart and find their way with just the compass. Not to mention a basic understanding of weather to identify potential problems ahead.

Imagine the chaos on the roads if GPS went down or even had a deliberate error introduced. We had to use key maps to plot our way around city before GPS.

originally posted by: BlackJackal
During the recent NATO military exercise Trident Juncture 2018, NATO's largest military exercise since the end of the cold war, planes experienced many issues with their GPS systems.

The premise of the exercise was a Russian invasion of Norway which would cause the alliance to invoke Article 5, the mutual defense clause.

During the exercise, there were multiple disruptions to the GPS system signals in Northern Norway and Finland. These disruptions were not limited to military aircraft and carried over to commercial aircraft as well.

A press officer for Widerøe, a Norway-based airline operating in the Nordics, told The Barents Observer at the beginning of November that pilots reported the loss of GPS while flying into airports in the northern Norwegian region of Finnmark, near the Russian border, though the officer stressed that pilots had alternative systems and there were no safety risks.

Norway’s aviation authority, Avinor, issued a notice to airmen of irregular navigation signals in airspace over eastern Finnmark between October 30 and November 7, according to The Observer.

The director of Norway’s civil aviation authority told The Observer that the organization was aware of disturbances to GPS signals in that region of the country but there is always notice given about planned jamming.

“It is difficult to say what the reasons could be, but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities outside Norway’s [borders],” the director said.

While there is not a clear indication that the jamming was from Russia, it is implied heavily. One of the reasons that Russia may have chosen to be provocative during these exercises is because the exercise took place right on their doorstep and because two non-NATO members participated in the exercise. Sweden and Finland both participated in operation Trident Juncture and Russia has warned both to NOT join NATO in the past.

Russia has made electronic jamming one of it's main priorities going as far as jamming it's own troops.

LINK

Interesting.

I do wonder how badly it would cripple our military if GPS went out. I know it would cripple society and couple that with nobody having print maps available at stores for the most part....it would be pretty disastrous.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: BlackJackal
During the recent NATO military exercise Trident Juncture 2018, NATO's largest military exercise since the end of the cold war, planes experienced many issues with their GPS systems.

The premise of the exercise was a Russian invasion of Norway which would cause the alliance to invoke Article 5, the mutual defense clause.

During the exercise, there were multiple disruptions to the GPS system signals in Northern Norway and Finland. These disruptions were not limited to military aircraft and carried over to commercial aircraft as well.

A press officer for Widerøe, a Norway-based airline operating in the Nordics, told The Barents Observer at the beginning of November that pilots reported the loss of GPS while flying into airports in the northern Norwegian region of Finnmark, near the Russian border, though the officer stressed that pilots had alternative systems and there were no safety risks.

Norway’s aviation authority, Avinor, issued a notice to airmen of irregular navigation signals in airspace over eastern Finnmark between October 30 and November 7, according to The Observer.

The director of Norway’s civil aviation authority told The Observer that the organization was aware of disturbances to GPS signals in that region of the country but there is always notice given about planned jamming.

“It is difficult to say what the reasons could be, but there are reasons to believe it could be related to military exercise activities outside Norway’s [borders],” the director said.

While there is not a clear indication that the jamming was from Russia, it is implied heavily. One of the reasons that Russia may have chosen to be provocative during these exercises is because the exercise took place right on their doorstep and because two non-NATO members participated in the exercise. Sweden and Finland both participated in operation Trident Juncture and Russia has warned both to NOT join NATO in the past.

Russia has made electronic jamming one of it's main priorities going as far as jamming it's own troops.

LINK

Interesting.

I do wonder how badly it would cripple our military if GPS went out. I know it would cripple society and couple that with nobody having print maps available at stores for the most part....it would be pretty disastrous.

And that is incredibly sad to consider that we could be so disabled by not having GPS. Shows that complete dependency on technology without core basics could possibly be a downfall of civilization. Imagine not being able to start a fire without a lighter, or fish without a fishing pole or navigate from one place to another without modern modes of travel. Or not being able to read a letter written in cursive because one doesn't know how. We are so quickly and completely losing independent ways of coping and living, our lack of knowledge will be our own downfall.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

I don’t believe our governments are buddy buddy, quite the contrary actually. I think the pentagon still views Russia as a major threat/potential enemy. I do believe that Trump and Putin are buddy buddy as evidenced by the 2 secret meetings between the two heads of state. Plus, the fact that during the joint conference between Trump and Putin, Trump took Putin’s side over American intelligence. It’s very fishy.

I would hope they are very capable of flying without GPS already. Pretty sure that it would part of their training and cockpits should all have the instruments as backup even with today's Glass cockpits. I would hate getting in a plane if the pilot was not rated with all the instruments available. As for secret meetings with Putin, not very secret if you know about them.

Welcome to the new world. It was only a few years ago that anyone realized how screwed we'd be if we lost GPS, and that it would be the first target to a nation with any ASAT capability. Celestial navigation hasn't been taught to aircrews in many years. The US is beginning to take steps to correct it, but they're also shutting down alternate navigation systems to modernize the airspace.

Not to worry, they still learn navigation by Dead Reckoning, VHF & VOR stations and Loran...

a reply to: manuelram16

Most LORAN systems have been decommissioned and many VOR stations are being shut down in favor of GPS navigation to allow for fuel savings.

I guess that will work well considering their recent successes in navigation activities.
In particular during exercise Dement Juncture ...



Well ... that was a Frigate, but I guess that pooping around in public places is also in vogue nowadays ...

GPS - has become one of the most over relied on technologies of the current era

it SHOULD be an aid - not the primary means of nav

if i had the power - i would make the US and russia give a 2 week warning then switch of thier entire systems for 60 hours

First of all NATO aircrafts and even modern jet liners cannot fly without GPS for various reasons ...
among them that NATO JDAMs operate with GPS, and that's the only thing they have. Including the French air force.

A decisive support from Norwegian, British and Finnish govt and other state institutions, including royals for Venezuelan pedophile rings has been growing during the past 3/4 years at alarming pace.

Even though, their hopes for creating a Pedophilia-controlled/blackmailed opposition oligarchy to Maduro is essentially doomed since the start!

a reply to: Flanker86

First of, bull#. Both aircraft and weapons have non GPS systems for guidance.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I do wonder how badly it would cripple our military if GPS went out

It would reduce accuracy of some "smart" weaponry. But in many cases not as much as you'd expect because even the GPS-guided weaponry is packing an INS system.

Inertial nav systems have come a long way. There are also some really nifty, seldom-acknowledged, automated celestial navigation systems out there that can tie directly into the INS, too. That dates to the 50's, but is way more impressive now.

The Navy, for its part, reintroduced manual CELNAV classes again awhile back. All the armed services carry out exercises without GPS. It's pretty common training, actually. Spoofing, jamming, and ASAT capabilities are well-acknowledged threats and have been for sometime. Noone is shocked.

VOR is basically on life -support/dying, but TACAN transmitters are in abundance and can be set up anywhere. Those can all be spoofed and jammed, too, however.

This also isn't a new thing with Russia. They've been jamming GPS since day one. They were spoofing a decade ago. The Kremlin has a spoof trans that puts you miles off. There was a semi-recent incident in the Black Sea where the Navy was getting GPS coordinates 30 miles off -- onshore!

They used to spoof VOR/TACAN and try to get the ferrets to run out of gas or come within the ADIZ. None of this is really new.

Preparing pilots to fly without GPS ? At this moment they should rather be preparing for their own Islamist pirates capturing and holding cruise vessels for ransom .... The same islamist pirates they have been carefully preparing to become the new generation of pedophile islamist leadership of the European countries !