$100 GPS

More airline safety.

In the airline business, we have something called runway incursions. That is a very bad thing. A runway incursion is when an airplane goes onto a runway without being cleared onto that runway. If there is another airplane taking off or landing on that runway while you make your gigantic screw up, you could go bang, boom and that is really a bad thing. If you don't go bang or boom, you will be in deep doo doo with the FAA.

Why do runway incursions happen? Part of it is that we are confused on where we are exactly on the airport. Most of us are taxiing around using a paper map of the airport with all of the runways and taxiways on it. We have to figure out where we are on the map and where are we cleared to go. Just like you used to do when you got the AAA map out to go to Grandmas. But guess what you can buy at Best Buy for $100? A GPS. It knows exactly where you are. We have GPS in our airplanes for flying but not for on the ground. Why? Paper maps are cheaper than a moving map in the cockpit. They can do it if they want to. But they don't want to. Money money money.

With a moving ground map in the cockpit you would really have to work hard at getting lost or going the wrong way or interpreting the map wrong. There is your airplane, on the moving map. That's where you are. If they were really serious and they're not, we would have a data link with ground control that would issue the taxi clearance on our moving ground map and we would simply follow the yellow brick road where ever they want us to go.

So it's money money money in exchange for a lower level of safety.