REVIEW: THE AVIATOR'S GUIDE TO GPS by Bill Clarke TAB/McGraw Hill 1994 The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System, or GPS for short, is a space-based radio-navigation system, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1980s. It provides basic information on PVT which stands for position, time and velocity. Originally available only to the military, modern receiver techology has made GPS available to anyone. Hand-held GPS radios are available for under $500.00 and are being used for many other applications besides PVT, including measuring heights of mountains and tracking wildlife. One of the more interesting uses of GPS is to interface the receiver output to a computer's serial port and with suitable software, you have a mapping program that actually tracks the movement of your airplane, boat or car. More about that later! It is not the intention here to explains the hows and whys of GPS technology; rather to review a fine book on the subject. To be sure, it is a complex subject and highly technical at that. Bill Clarke's book does a fine job of explaining the theory of GPS, its history, hardware and so on. This book, written for civilian aviators, is obviously aimed at pilots, but it should also be of great interest to sailors, hikers and others who need to know exactly where they are, their speed or even their altitude. Aviators will find the chapter on alternatives to GPS navigation familiar but it never hurts to review these principles, such as VOR. DME, NDBs, TACAN- based systems, RNAV, ILS and even the old A/N radio beacons of the WWII era! There are chapters on the FAA and GPS, airplane navigation with GPS and moving maps that are driven by GPS. Finally there is a comprehensive overview of aviation and hand-held GPS receivers on the market as of the date of writing. Appendices include abbreviations, chart reference systems, datums used around the world and federal policies and plans. As mentioned earlier, one of the uses of GPS is to interface with a notebook computer to drive a moving map. Peacock Systems' LAPMAP and other software companies produce aviation moving maps that are quite remarkable. For on-the-ground use, Delorme Mapping of Freeport Maine publishes MAPEXPERT whose database contains every street in the U.S.A.and a GPS interface that shows exactly where you are - right down to the block you're in! Although quite technical in scope, Bill Clarke's fine book very ably explains everything a pilot or sailor needs to know to understand GPS concepts and to choose, install and use one of these very sophisticated radio-location/navigation systems. %T Aviator's Guide to GPS %A Bill Clarke %I TAM/McGraw-Hill %C Blue Ridge Summit PA %D 1994 %O $17.95 %G ISBN: 0-07-011272-X %P 235 pp paperbound %K Aviation, navigation, Global Positioning System (C) 1995 Michael Crestohl Nahant Massachusetts USA mc@shore.net DISCLAIMER: I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the success or failure of the book or materials reviewed herewith, nor have I received any compensation (other than a review copy requested by me) from anyone who has. All opinions expressed are strictly my own. Other Internet and Aviation book/software reviews by me can be obtained by anonymous FTP from: x2ftp.oulu.fi in the /pub/books/crestohl directory.