It's like Daylight Savings time or Y2K. In theory, it could wreak all kinds of havoc on buggy software. However this isn't a surprise. It's a known thing that happens every 1024 weeks. I would be astounded if GPS receivers used for aviation purposes don't test for this. On the other hand, I was astounded when I heard that F-22s stopped working after flying across the international date line.
And I was slightly less asounded when the Nexus S phones spat out broken GPS NMEA sentences on leap years
On the other hand, I was astounded when I heard that F-22s stopped working after flying across the international date line.
It's a pretty big oops, but they rebooted the computers, and the planes kept flying. That's the second place where these disaster predictions fall down. These systems are rarely designed with a single point of failure.
The articles I read made it sound like they continued to have nav and comm issues after rebooting, and that things could've been worse if they hadn't been able to follow their tankers home.
I'll admit that I don't know the details, but I'll point out that they would not have been so far from land without tankers. If they were closer to a base or had longer range, a complete navigational failure would be far less of a problem as there are still pilots on board who know roughly where they are and what the heading is and where to find emergency airfields. They can make decisions and come up with a plan to get out of the situation. Perhaps, I'll claim that as the third error in doom predictions. When any real problems do come up, there are intelligent people working the problem.
My local airfield is at -19ft and the landed altitude reported by Mode-S varies from -25ft ( GNSS sourced ) to -275ft ( pressure based on 1013hPa ). Hence why asking for the local air pressure QFE is essential.
And I was slightly less asounded when the Nexus S phones spat out broken GPS NMEA sentences on leap years