After some initial hesitations, the direct georeferencing (DG) of airborne sensors by GPS/INS is now a widely accepted approach in the airborne mapping industry. Implementing DG not only speeds up the mapping process and thus increases the productivity, but also opens the door to new monitoring applications. Although the system manufactures tend to claim that DG is a well established technique and no longer a research topic, the technology users often encounter pitfalls due to undetected sensor behavior, varying data quality and consistency. One could almost clair that the reliability of DG is the Achilles'heel of this otherwise revolutionary approach in civil airborne mapping. EuroSDR has recognized this problem and would like to address it in several phases. First phase of this effort are some preliminary investigations, charting the current situation and making suggestions for further research. The investigations are divided into the following technology fields: GNSS, inertial sensors and estimation methods, integrity and communication, calibration and integrated sensor orientation. Each field describes the current situation with respect to DG and discusses additional existing possibilities. These do not claim to be complete or exhaustive; however, they claim to address the essential features, methods and processes, the combination of which could increase the reliability of DG substantially without setting large side penalties.