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Had a nav system decide it was in the wrong hemisphere yesterday
The GPS on a Cessna 172 kept insisting we were over the Indian Ocean, not Ohio. I had to pull the circuit breaker and do a full power cycle on the ground. Anyone else had a unit just completely lose its mind like that?
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jesseb201d ago
Wasn't there a story about a military drone doing something similar? I read that bad GPS data can make units revert to a default location, sometimes at the zero coordinates. Sounds like your unit picked a really wrong default spot.
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fisher.diana1d ago
That's a scary situation, but I have to push back on the idea it's always a system failure. Sometimes the unit is getting correct data we just don't understand. @jesseb20 mentioned bad GPS data, but what if the signal was actually fine and the unit was reporting a legit, if weird, backup location from a system test? Pilots are quick to blame the tech, but we should consider if there was any odd atmospheric interference or a temporary satellite glitch that resolved itself. Maybe the full reboot was needed, but it might have just been waiting for a clearer signal lock. Have you checked all the possible external factors before calling it a total unit failure?
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