[Aussie Dasher]

So much for national security!!!

[Diogenesis]

way to go Fox News, now for al Qaeda and Romney and Obama
all the time.

[darkwing104]

AN electronic device small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and big enough to bring down an airplane can be easily bought over the internet for just $55

You are kidding, right?

[James C. Bennett]

“Fox News was able to buy GPS jammers for as little as $55 from numerous online sources.”

AND

“The devices pose serious societal risks and they are illegal to buy and use in the United States.”

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

[Boiler Plate]

The counter measure is just as simple, If it emits a signal it can be found with an inexpensive hand held directional receiver.

[TexasTransplant]

Hey I want one... two weeks from now it might come in handy

[dalereed]

At this point GPS is only a backup navigation device but they are planning to use it in the NextGen ATC system.

GPS routes can be flown but all aircraft today still have all the ground based navigation instruments in use.

There are currently GPS instrument approaches but not at commercial airports.

I would expect that the so called jamming device would have to be activated on board the aircraft to be effective

[Fresh Wind]

How would jamming the Internet bring down a plane?

[Star Traveler]

[Star Traveler]

It does have a use for someone who thinks they may be tracked by someone planting a GPS device on their car. You just plug this baby in and you jam anyone trying to track you... :-)

[DemonDeac]

If the flaw is true then Fox is acting like the New York Times and should be ashamed over the story.

[Star Traveler]

GPS Jammers, Cel Phone Jammers, WiFi Jammers ... all for sale ...

[MediaMole]

Zero chance this works on military GPS. ...and very little chance it will work on mission critical aviation grade GPS in general.

Yeah, it’ll screw with the tiny chip and antenna in an iPhone, but that wasn’t designed to keep an airplane on course.

[Star Traveler]

[Never on my watch]

Let’s see, since we have the hardwire phone lines at the Capitol jammed, let’s jam all of the cell phones there too. ;)

[Domandred]

There are so many different ways of navigating an aircraft losing GPS would warrant maybe a shrug and a “well that sucks”.

[Jack Hydrazine]

The radar appears to be...JAMMED!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcArnepkhv0

[seastay]

This would be a short range jammer, so it would have to used in close range to an aircraft GPS antenna to jam. The GPS antenna would be on the outside and the jammer would be on the inside of the metallic or graphite fiber conducting cabin which would attenuate the jammer signal, so it might be in doubt the wild claims of being able to bring down an airplane from a weak signal that is just used for navigation, its not like the noise would cause a nose dive. Furthermore the whole idea that cell phone emissions can bring down an aircraft is false as well, although true there can be noise that could effect electronics, the attenuation is high, cell phone bans are as much or more a reason for keeping people quite as much as a safety issue which is blown out of proportion. IMHO

[njslim]

Last night had moron drive car into flooded street next to Pasaic River. Cops asked why he was driving there and
avoiding barricades. Said GPS told himt to go that way...

[NonValueAdded]

But what about Blonde*star?

[Myrddin]

So much for national security!!!

National security will be just fine. It's the folks with commercial GPS that will be impacted. The military uses an encrypted channel that runs at 10x the data rate of the C/A channel used by a common GPS. The encryption sequence is unique over a 2 week period and the keys are not available to the public.

Any pilot worth his salt can fall back to using VOR or TACAN for navigation. Many high end aircraft also have inertial navigation that is completely independent of other systems on the aircraft. This is nothing but a sensational "scare" story to sell some fish wrap.