[SiDawg]

We "know" GPS satelites send three signals: a unique ID, a location (where it is over the globe) and a time stamp for each signal it sends. A "receiver" uses signals from three or more GPS satelites to calculate position, based on the "Delta" or time passed between the time stamp in the signal, and the time on their GPS device. From the delta, you can work out how far you are from each satelite, and with three or more, you can determine the point where that delta "holds true" for all satelites. From the location information of each satelite, you can relate that information to a map of the globe, and "know" your position on that globe.

As far as flat earth is concerned, GPS can be "faked" from ground based locations. And it's true: triangulation is possible from ground based antennas. You can use cell phone towers to locate people for example, in exactly the same way as described above (time stamps, deltas, know location of the tower, map)

However, we also "know" GPS satelites move: they are not in geosyncronous orbit. Therefore, for two receivers (Fred and Wilma) measuring their location at different times (a and b), I'm saying it is impossible for land based signals to "spoof" that information



Diagram above shows what happens with GPS: each satellite continuously sends signals giving it's ID, Location and a Timestamp for that information. We can see two receivers held by "Fred" and "Wilma"... They haven't moved, and they're some distance apart (5km say). Each satelite is moving, and each delta changes as that satelite moves. I've only shown delta from "Sat2". There are two ways this could be "spoofed" or mimicked by Flat Earth conspiracy agents, but neither makes sense:



In the above, the stationary tower "Fixed2" sends an ID, Location, and Timestamp. However, Fred and Wilma are considerable distances apart, so their "Delta" changes quite a lot between each signal. The stationary antenna could "pretend" and give a fake time stamp to Fred the first time (T2a), and then give the real time stamp T2B the second time... but Wilma will receive those same time stamps, and Wilma would think they're much further away with the first signal, and then the correct distance in the second signal? Or the antenna could give the "correct" Time stamp the first time, and Wilma will have the correct delta, and then the antenna could "spoof" a time stamp for the second signal so Wilma still gets the correct delta, but then that would through Fred completely out of whack. It is not possible to spoof for one receiver without confusing the second. It is impossible for both to calculate the "correct" location for both signals.



Option two: with two fixed antennas, the flat earth agents could "pretend" that the GPS has moved, simply by changing the ID part of the signal sent by antennas 1 and 2: in the first signal, Antenna 1 says "I'm Sat2!", and then on the second signal, Antenna 2 says "I'm Sat2!" and us globetards are fooled in to thinking this is a moving GPS. Everything else (the delta, calculated distance etc) holds in exactly the same way as for the first "known" diagram of GPS. However there's a huge problem: that only works to explain the two points shown in my diagram! What about the signal sent half way between those two points? A third antenna? What about half way between that? A fourth antenna? Obviously impossible without "infinity antennas"(!)

This is a little tricky to "conceptualise" with moving GPS vs Fixed Time Stamps vs Deltas etc: I found this hard to turn that in to clear diagrams, and perhaps they are not clear enough I don't know. However what I found completely impossible, is how it can be possible to mimic GPS with fixed antennas. Given they are constantly transmitting DIFFERENT locations and time stamps, it's simply impossible to spoof. You could argue that the GPS receivers themselves are in on the conspiracy, but there's any number of free open source aps for your phone to directly read the GPS data, and a LARGE part of the data is not "the data itself" it's simply a time stamp... you can not "spoof" a time stamp for selective people: time stamps get broadcast to everyone, it's up to the receiver to compare that time stamp to their individual device. It's simply impossible to spoof data for one receiver without throwing out a second receiver.

[Round Eyes]

Long range, high altitude, potenially solar powered airplanes.  Nasa website even has a page showing one and even says its used to "test" satellite technology.  Trying to formulate a conspiracy theory utilizing ground based system is overly complicated.  Occams razor.

ask yourself, which of these two scenarios is easiest:

1.  having a large number of airplanes that can fly along pre-determined paths and sustained speeds for a long time utilizing solar powered engines. as planes need more fuel or maintenace another plane takes off and resumes its path; or
2.  having a large number of satelittes launched into space as the exact speed and trajectory needed to balance falling back to earth and its velocity matching the rotation (orbit), and also having to do constant micro-adjustments to their atomic clocks to account for time dilation that is related to both gravitational influence and velocities relative to those on earth.  these satelittes also have to stay in orbit with no maintenance ever needed.

pretty obvious which one is simpler.

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satelitte coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

[BlueMachine]

Long range, high altitude, potenially solar powered airplanes.  Nasa website even has a page showing one and even says its used to "test" satellite technology.  Trying to formulate a conspiracy theory utilizing ground based system is overly complicated.  Occams razor.

ask yourself, which of these two scenarios is easiest:

1.  having a large number of airplanes that can fly along pre-determined paths and sustained speeds for a long time utilizing solar powered engines. as planes need more fuel or maintenace another plane takes off and resumes its path; or
2.  having a large number of satelittes launched into space as the exact speed and trajectory needed to balance falling back to earth and its velocity matching the rotation (orbit), and also having to do constant micro-adjustments to their atomic clocks to account for time dilation that is related to both gravitational influence and velocities relative to those on earth.  these satelittes also have to stay in orbit with no maintenance ever needed.

pretty obvious which one is simpler.

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satellite coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

The satellites are simpler, pretty obviously.

1: Energy - the amount of power we can harness from solar is limited, especially when you look at the technology when we were first launching satellites. They are just starting to develop planes that can fly on solar now, and they aren't at a level to be mass produced. Satellites take no energy to maintain their velocity and all their power can go towards other functions.

2: Pathing - To fly a plane along a predetermined path inside the atmosphere would involve constant monitoring and adjusting due to wind, weather and probably a million other factors. Seriously, how are you supposed to keep an unmanned flight on its course with no GPS? Satellite paths are predictable because there's no random variables in play. Once it's in space, the needed velocity for orbit can be calculated using high school level physics. The atomic clock is not necessary for its pathing, but again, time dilation can be calculated without difficulty.

3: Logistics - just to have a third point. Don't really feel like fleshing this one out.

[Round Eyes]

Long range, high altitude, potenially solar powered airplanes.  Nasa website even has a page showing one and even says its used to "test" satellite technology.  Trying to formulate a conspiracy theory utilizing ground based system is overly complicated.  Occams razor.

ask yourself, which of these two scenarios is easiest:

1.  having a large number of airplanes that can fly along pre-determined paths and sustained speeds for a long time utilizing solar powered engines. as planes need more fuel or maintenace another plane takes off and resumes its path; or
2.  having a large number of satelittes launched into space as the exact speed and trajectory needed to balance falling back to earth and its velocity matching the rotation (orbit), and also having to do constant micro-adjustments to their atomic clocks to account for time dilation that is related to both gravitational influence and velocities relative to those on earth.  these satelittes also have to stay in orbit with no maintenance ever needed.

pretty obvious which one is simpler.

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satellite coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

The satellites are simpler, pretty obviously.

1: Energy - the amount of power we can harness from solar is limited, especially when you look at the technology when we were first launching satellites. They are just starting to develop planes that can fly on solar now, and they aren't at a level to be mass produced. Satellites take no energy to maintain their velocity and all their power can go towards other functions.

2: Pathing - To fly a plane along a predetermined path inside the atmosphere would involve constant monitoring and adjusting due to wind, weather and probably a million other factors. Seriously, how are you supposed to keep an unmanned flight on its course with no GPS? Satellite paths are predictable because there's no random variables in play. Once it's in space, the needed velocity for orbit can be calculated using high school level physics. The atomic clock is not necessary for its pathing, but again, time dilation can be calculated without difficulty.

3: Logistics - just to have a third point. Don't really feel like fleshing this one out.

its not that difficult, at any given time there are tens of thousands of airplanes in flight, following a pre-determined paths...and most are utilizing auto-pilot during the flights (less takeoff/landing).  not complicated and we have been doing that a long time.   You think its more complicated than managing the thousands of flights travelling thru one of the large airports on a given day?   you are trying to make it sound more complicated than it is to just justify your position.  weather?  i am pretty sure thats negligible with the altitudes they are flying.

[BlueMachine]

its not that difficult, at any given time there are tens of thousands of airplanes in flight, following a pre-determined paths...and most are utilizing auto-pilot during the flights (less takeoff/landing).  not complicated and we have been doing that a long time.   You think its more complicated than managing the thousands of flights travelling thru one of the large airports on a given day?

Standard autopilot doesn't maintain trajectory, watch out for weather, or monitor systems. If you want an automatic system to maintain your course on a plane, you'd need GPS. So what came first, the GPS or the planes that made GPS?

you are trying to make it sound more complicated than it is to just justify your position. 

Pot meet kettle

weather?  i am pretty sure thats negligible with the altitudes they are flying.

I'm pretty sure it's not.

'Many general aviation as well as air carrier and military aircraft routinely fly the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Weather phenomena of these higher altitudes include the tropopause, the jet stream, cirrus clouds, clear air turbulence, condensation trails, high altitude “haze” layers, and canopy static.' https://www.aviationweather.ws/075_High_Altitude_Weather.php

[Tom Bishop]

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satelitte coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

Good point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiver_autonomous_integrity_monitoring

Receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) is a technology developed to assess the integrity of global positioning system (GPS) signals in a GPS receiver system. It is of special importance in safety-critical GPS applications, such as in aviation or marine navigation.

We are constantly told by fly-by RE'ers that GPS coverage is constant and everywhere.

There is even a movie about lack of satellite coverage and the problems it causes. In Lone Survivor, a true story depicted in a movie and a book of the same name, a major plot point is that the team's Satellite Phone got no signal on the top of a mountain in Afghanistan.

[Curious Squirrel]

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satelitte coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

Good point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiver_autonomous_integrity_monitoring

Receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) is a technology developed to assess the integrity of global positioning system (GPS) signals in a GPS receiver system. It is of special importance in safety-critical GPS applications, such as in aviation or marine navigation.

We are constantly by fly-by RE'ers that GPS coverage is constant and everywhere.

There is even a movie about lack of satellite coverage and the problems it causes. In Lone Survivor, a true story depicted in a movie and a book of the same name, a major plot point is that the team's Satellite Phone got zero signal on the top of a mountain in Afghanistan.

Tom you were corrected on this last time you brought up Lone Survivor. The pivotal scene you are referring to did not use 'the top of a mountain' but it was required for him to move to an exposed position. Which, as mentioned the last time, is to be expected with a sat phone, a device that requires line-of-sight to the 'eye in the sky' of the satellite.

[Tom Bishop]

Tom you were corrected on this last time you brought up Lone Survivor. The pivotal scene you are referring to did not use 'the top of a mountain' but it was required for him to move to an exposed position. Which, as mentioned the last time, is to be expected with a sat phone, a device that requires line-of-sight to the 'eye in the sky' of the satellite.

From what I've read about it, I believe that they tried making contact with command at planned extraction points on mountain peaks before that end scene in the valley you are talking about.

http://sites.psu.edu/baderrclpassion/2014/03/26/lone-survivor/

Lone Survivor is based of the true story of Operation Red Wings, set during the Afghani war, and dramatizes the Navy SEAL counter-insurgent mission, where a four man surveillance team was tasked with tracking Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. To sum up, the four man team goes to reach their position when they stumble across local goat herders. After releasing the herders and realizing that the mission is compromised, they fall back and go to call for extraction, except communications are down and the mountain they’re on has no signal for the SAT phone.

This one calls it "radio contact," but the story is about a satellite phone with no signal:

https://moviegoersview.com/2014/01/lone-survivor/

Time on the base is spent fraternizing and talking wedding plans when they get the mission call from Lieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen played by (Eric Bana). The mission is plagued from the beginning with continual difficulty communicating with operations base. From poor to barely audible radio signals to no signal at all,  the men decide to hunker down and proceed later to a different peak location to try making radio contact again.

[Bobby Shafto]

We are constantly by fly-by RE'ers that GPS coverage is constant and everywhere.

I'm sorry that happens and causes confusion, but I've been told "xxx said a thing" does not contribute to the conversation. There are outages in GPS coverage. RAIM is used to detect faults and navigation error calculations due to a variety of conditions. Whoever said or implied GPS coverage was complete, constant and omnipresent wasn't accurate.

There is even a movie about lack of satellite coverage and the problems it causes. In Lone Survivor, a true story depicted in a movie and a book of the same name, a major plot point is that the team's Satellite Phone got zero signal on the top of a mountain in Afghanistan.

The movie Lone Survivor (or the account of the real world Operation Red Wings) is off topic because Satellite phone (Irridium) is a completely separate system from GPS. RAIM has to do with GPS, not satellite phone.

[Round Eyes]

We are constantly by fly-by RE'ers that GPS coverage is constant and everywhere.

I'm sorry that happens and causes confusion, but I've been told "xxx said a thing" does not contribute to the conversation. There are outages in GPS coverage. RAIM is used to detect faults and navigation error calculations due to a variety of conditions. Whoever said or implied GPS coverage was complete, constant and omnipresent wasn't accurate.

There is even a movie about lack of satellite coverage and the problems it causes. In Lone Survivor, a true story depicted in a movie and a book of the same name, a major plot point is that the team's Satellite Phone got zero signal on the top of a mountain in Afghanistan.

The movie Lone Survivor (or the account of the real world Operation Red Wings) is off topic because Satellite phone (Irridium) is a completely separate system from GPS. RAIM has to do with GPS, not satellite phone.

Fine, here is the map for iridium satellites and outages then :  http://downdetector.com/status/iridium/map/

Interesting they used a flat earth map with Antarctica shown as an ice wall.... 

But feel free to keep clutching for straws

[SiDawg]

A network of solar planes travelling at 14,000km/h? If you believe they're NOT travelling at 14,000km/h (i.e the speed of GPS satellites), it's exactly same argument as above: impossible to spoof.

Besides, it's NOT simpler to run solar plane fleet than orbiting satellites... Orbits are very predicable: atmosphere is not. Planes are mechanical, satellites are not. Mechanical things fail, especially those constantly adjusting for weather conditions. If you're saying they fly "above weather" the amount of additional power required to stay airborne on very thin air would be significant. If it were easy to run a fleet of solar planes, there would also be fleets of commercial/passenger solar planes. Planes fall out of the sky all the time: do you think solar planes never would? Do we keep that quiet somehow?

Adjusting GPS for time dilation, although extremely awesome and surprising, is also pretty trivial to calculate. Giant chunks of metal orbiting around a globe at 14,000km/h is extremely awesome, but reasonably simple. Don't confuse "awesome" for "complicated"

[andiwd]

Let's look at the money side of things as well. We've been regularly told that the myth of space flight is just a money making scheme for launch agencies such as NASA. The trouble is that although launch agencies do charge money to launch a companies satellite this is simply a one off cost. If every time NASA launched a satellite into a new orbit they had to take money out of their own funds to setup a new chain of super planes with associated maintenance, fuel, wages and other expenditures plus an amount of backup so that we don't catch on when the inevitable happens and a plane is grounded, how exactly do they run a profit?

[Round Eyes]

A network of solar planes travelling at 14,000km/h? If you believe they're NOT travelling at 14,000km/h (i.e the speed of GPS satellites), it's exactly same argument as above: impossible to spoof.

Besides, it's NOT simpler to run solar plane fleet than orbiting satellites... Orbits are very predicable: atmosphere is not. Planes are mechanical, satellites are not. Mechanical things fail, especially those constantly adjusting for weather conditions. If you're saying they fly "above weather" the amount of additional power required to stay airborne on very thin air would be significant. If it were easy to run a fleet of solar planes, there would also be fleets of commercial/passenger solar planes. Planes fall out of the sky all the time: do you think solar planes never would? Do we keep that quiet somehow?

Adjusting GPS for time dilation, although extremely awesome and surprising, is also pretty trivial to calculate. Giant chunks of metal orbiting around a globe at 14,000km/h is extremely awesome, but reasonably simple. Don't confuse "awesome" for "complicated"

Way off, that speed is needed to orbit earth in 12 hours at the supposed altitude of 12,000 miles above earth.  If the planes are traveling approx 15 miles about earth, that works out to around 2,200 mph, or Mach 3....based on round earth math.  Reasonable, try again

Planes fall out of the sky all the time??!!  Did you seriously just say that.  You round earthers will say anything to try and prove themselves right.  Wow

[inquisitive]

Long range, high altitude, potenially solar powered airplanes.  Nasa website even has a page showing one and even says its used to "test" satellite technology.  Trying to formulate a conspiracy theory utilizing ground based system is overly complicated.  Occams razor.

ask yourself, which of these two scenarios is easiest:

1.  having a large number of airplanes that can fly along pre-determined paths and sustained speeds for a long time utilizing solar powered engines. as planes need more fuel or maintenace another plane takes off and resumes its path; or
2.  having a large number of satelittes launched into space as the exact speed and trajectory needed to balance falling back to earth and its velocity matching the rotation (orbit), and also having to do constant micro-adjustments to their atomic clocks to account for time dilation that is related to both gravitational influence and velocities relative to those on earth.  these satelittes also have to stay in orbit with no maintenance ever needed.

pretty obvious which one is simpler.

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satelitte coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

Satellites work for broadcast and navigation.  A tv dish points at one.

[SiDawg]

Way off, that speed is needed to orbit earth in 12 hours at the supposed altitude of 12,000 miles above earth.  If the planes are traveling approx 15 miles about earth, that works out to around 2,200 mph, or Mach 3....based on round earth math.  Reasonable, try again

Planes fall out of the sky all the time??!!  Did you seriously just say that.  You round earthers will say anything to try and prove themselves right.  Wow

Sorry yes you're right... i was lazy in my googling. So OK you think we have solar powered planes travelling at Mach 3? That's less impossible than 14,000km/h but still impossible. Think of the solar panel size for a start... and if only 15 miles up, pretty easy to spot the giant solar wings...

As for planes falling out of the sky: OK sure i didn't even bother researching that. But looks like figure is about 90 commercial flights a year? God knows how many total (incl private). Sure there's only 24 GPS "planes" but if they're travelling 24 hours a day... at Mach 3 (!), for the last twenty years... Haven't done the maths but thinking odds of at least ONE falling in a populated spot are pretty high... Could be wrong.

[Round Eyes]

Way off, that speed is needed to orbit earth in 12 hours at the supposed altitude of 12,000 miles above earth.  If the planes are traveling approx 15 miles about earth, that works out to around 2,200 mph, or Mach 3....based on round earth math.  Reasonable, try again

Planes fall out of the sky all the time??!!  Did you seriously just say that.  You round earthers will say anything to try and prove themselves right.  Wow

Sorry yes you're right... i was lazy in my googling. So OK you think we have solar powered planes travelling at Mach 3? That's less impossible than 14,000km/h but still impossible. Think of the solar panel size for a start... and if only 15 miles up, pretty easy to spot the giant solar wings...

As for planes falling out of the sky: OK sure i didn't even bother researching that. But looks like figure is about 90 commercial flights a year? God knows how many total (incl private). Sure there's only 24 GPS "planes" but if they're travelling 24 hours a day... at Mach 3 (!), for the last twenty years... Haven't done the maths but thinking odds of at least ONE falling in a populated spot are pretty high... Could be wrong.

mach 3 speed is based on using RE geometry and assuming the satellites are going around the circumference of earth, which obviously isnt true.  the paths would be much different and shorter so the speed would be considerably less.  the elevation isnt really known, i just used 15 miles to do the calculations.   most plane crashes occur on takeoff and landing, a very small percent happen during cruising speed.  it does happen obviously.  there have been many news stories about "space junk" crashing to earth

do you also find it odd that all these space agencies are able to crash there satellites into the middle of the ocean at the end of there service life?   the odds of one of only 24 gps planes falling into a populated area?   much lower than  an airplane crashing (thousands in the air at any given time) into a populated area, which hasnt happened very much has it? 

[Tumeni]

Long range, high altitude, potenially solar powered airplanes.  Nasa website even has a page showing one and even says its used to "test" satellite technology.

The presence of that one doesn't support or even imply the presence of multiple others. 

ask yourself, which of these two scenarios is easiest:

1.  having a large number of airplanes that can fly along pre-determined paths and sustained speeds for a long time utilizing solar powered engines. as planes need more fuel or maintenace another plane takes off and resumes its path; or
2.  having a large number of satelittes launched into space as the exact speed and trajectory needed to balance falling back to earth and its velocity matching the rotation (orbit), and also having to do constant micro-adjustments to their atomic clocks to account for time dilation that is related to both gravitational influence and velocities relative to those on earth.  these satelittes also have to stay in orbit with no maintenance ever needed.

pretty obvious which one is simpler.

Yes, the second one. Satellites have fewer (if any) moving parts, so don't require maintenance. Planes are subject to the vagaries of weather, atmosphere, and have many moving parts, so need much more maintenance. They're more difficult to keep to position and timetable. Again, citing the ISS - nobody EVER sees it fail to turn up on time. Nobody sees the "replacement plane" moving into position, nor the plane being replaced dropping out of position

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satelitte coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:

Atmospheric/weather interference?  Electrical storms between satellite and ground?  Solar activity?  Doesn't that webpage tell you? 

[Tumeni]

Fine, here is the map for iridium satellites and outages then :  http://downdetector.com/status/iridium/map/

Interesting they used a flat earth map with Antarctica shown as an ice wall.... 

What else would they use for display on a flat-screen monitor?

[Tumeni]

do you also find it odd that all these space agencies are able to crash there satellites into the middle of the ocean at the end of there service life?

No. Most/all satellites of any size have a de-orbit provision, wherein mission control can determine a path at end of life to avoid populated areas. Sometimes this fails, and we have (for instance) a Chinese space station ditching in the Indian Ocean, and Skylab leaving debris over huge swathes of Australia. But mostly, the controlled re-entry works.

[TomInAustin]

Long range, high altitude, potenially solar powered airplanes.  Nasa website even has a page showing one and even says its used to "test" satellite technology.  Trying to formulate a conspiracy theory utilizing ground based system is overly complicated.  Occams razor.

ask yourself, which of these two scenarios is easiest:

1.  having a large number of airplanes that can fly along pre-determined paths and sustained speeds for a long time utilizing solar powered engines. as planes need more fuel or maintenace another plane takes off and resumes its path; or
2.  having a large number of satelittes launched into space as the exact speed and trajectory needed to balance falling back to earth and its velocity matching the rotation (orbit), and also having to do constant micro-adjustments to their atomic clocks to account for time dilation that is related to both gravitational influence and velocities relative to those on earth.  these satelittes also have to stay in orbit with no maintenance ever needed.

pretty obvious which one is simpler.

also, why is it that areas have random times of no satellite coverage?  i mean, supposedly these things are hundreds/thousands of miles up:   http://www.nstb.tc.faa.gov/24Hr_RAIM.htm

The satellites are simpler, pretty obviously.

1: Energy - the amount of power we can harness from solar is limited, especially when you look at the technology when we were first launching satellites. They are just starting to develop planes that can fly on solar now, and they aren't at a level to be mass produced. Satellites take no energy to maintain their velocity and all their power can go towards other functions.

2: Pathing - To fly a plane along a predetermined path inside the atmosphere would involve constant monitoring and adjusting due to wind, weather and probably a million other factors. Seriously, how are you supposed to keep an unmanned flight on its course with no GPS? Satellite paths are predictable because there's no random variables in play. Once it's in space, the needed velocity for orbit can be calculated using high school level physics. The atomic clock is not necessary for its pathing, but again, time dilation can be calculated without difficulty.

3: Logistics - just to have a third point. Don't really feel like fleshing this one out.

its not that difficult, at any given time there are tens of thousands of airplanes in flight, following a pre-determined paths...and most are utilizing auto-pilot during the flights (less takeoff/landing).  not complicated and we have been doing that a long time.   You think its more complicated than managing the thousands of flights travelling thru one of the large airports on a given day?   you are trying to make it sound more complicated than it is to just justify your position.  weather?  i am pretty sure thats negligible with the altitudes they are flying.

Well, these planes would be a problem since we have no map, no idea how far it is from point to point, or how fast they are going.  Right?