Originally Posted by sluggoaafa
it's not so much about knowing where the exact location of the plane is.....there are web sites that pretty much track the planes up to 100 miles.
When the GPS personal unit first started becoming popular, pilots themselves started buying them and playing with them in the cockpit. Well, low and behold, planes started getting off course becuase they were actually interfering with the navigational systems in the cockpit. THAT is the reason they aren't to be used on board, in flight.
There is no reason to believe this is true. The FAA doesn't expressly prohibit GPS recievers in the FARs. One would think if they caused interference, the FAA would prohibit them.
And if this were really a problem, you wouldn't see other airlines allowing GPS usage and we'd have a lot of flights off course.