Ahhh, the dawn of aviation....like that's a bad thing. You know, they still use wings on those planes. Kinda old fashioned. You know, like sails on a ......ahem. Moving right along.
There's a lot of griping about Loran being a regional thing. Gripes my butt every time I'm off the coast of Africa....well, it will if I'm ever there. Last time I checked, much as I wish it did, my boat doesn't fly. And while the aviation industry moves technology via clout, I don't care what their airliners are using. Since it appears they're not interested in Loran anymore, why talk about them?
As for jamming, the key difference is, when one is about to be bombed, one tends to want to jam the bomb's guidance system. Jamming
GPS near the target (more likely than space-based issues) would affect the target area, and then the counter-offensive would begin to "un-jam" things. The key point is, attempts to jam
GPS would be OVER THERE at the battle site, not here as we (some of us, at least) cruise along using what is essentially now a military afterthought. If we're getting hit at home, having a viable electronic navigation system is pretty much a moot point.
Wanna complain about taxes? $1.3 billion for WAAS/LAAS correction of GPS or $28 million for differential correction of GPS with Loran (remember, Loran has data channel capability, GPS doesn't)....the Europeans have been at it for several years now. Having both also means if one part goes down for any reason, you still have navigation capability with the other part. $28 million for an active system, less for an at-sleep, quick startup system is a bargain. That being said, again, I expect Loran to get tossed in favor of the latest tech. Most of the time, I'm all for progressive attitudes on things, but something about the Loran deal has me dragging
anchor. And finally, I bet if we compared the transcripts of our gov't on this subject, we've done a helluva lot better job at fleshing out the subject at hand (regardless of the overall concensus) than the politicians who are supposed to be handling this sort of thing. Sorry. I'm in a mood today.
