Let’s hope that pilots have visual contact with the ground around a 175 nautical mile radius from Las Vegas from May 16 – 27. It seems that with the FCC’s blessing, LightSquared will be conducting tests of its terrestrial broadband service within this area at that time. But in a bizarre twist of Federal Government oversight, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) yesterday released a “Flight Advisory” for the vicinity announcing that there would be “LightSquare (sic) Testing” and warned that GPS signals may be either unreliable or unavailable during this time frame. Further, the FAA strongly encouraged pilots to report anomalies during testing to the appropriate ARTCC to assist in the determination of the extent of GPS degradation during tests.” As one EWA member commented after reading this alert, “I hope nobody ends up navigating to Nome, Alaska rather than to Las Vegas as a result.” Doesn’t the DOD test launch a variety of sharp objects out in this general vicinity? Perhaps they have a need to issue an advisory alert as well.