GPS at 30,000 feet

[Gecko]

I was on a business trip to Greece this week and I took my new 60c along. I checked with the pilot if I could use it on board and on the way there no problem but on the way back they said no Clearly some pilots are better clued up that GPS is just a receiver and does not transmit. Any way it was very interesting to be able to track the aircraft altitude and speed and see where we were. Flying over the alps was interesting too as I could not only see the mountains but also knew where we were. It gave a whole new dimension to flying. A bit sad I know but it killed some time on any otherwise boring 3 hour flight
Coverage over Albania was almost non existant and Greece wasn't much better but I now have a maximum speed on the odometer recorded and logged at 915 kmh

 

[MikeO]

A bit sad I know

Ah, the gift of understatement...

Mike

 

[PanEuropean]

Gecko:

It's true that the GPSR's don't transmit, but they do have the potential to create electro-magnetic interference (EMI) that can interfere with the VHF navigation systems installed on all aircraft.

I use my GPSR's (2650 and 296) all the time when I fly (and I sit in the left front seat), but you can be darn sure I make sure they are turned off and unplugged if we are making an instrument approach in bad weather, or flying a complicated procedure in good weather with the aircraft under the control of the flight management system and the autopilot.

Portable CD players don't transmit either, but they are the worst offenders for EMI. There are lots of well documented reports of EMI interference to aircraft navigation systems from CD players. I well remember one dark and stormy night in Burma about 12 years ago when the nav system on the aircraft I was commanding went totally tits up in the early stages of the approach, and things were starting to look pretty grim - it was only after I made a PA announcement about late arrival, and a passenger asked me to repeat it because he hadn't heard the complete message (he was listening to a CD) that the penny dropped and the problem was solved. Worth noting that half the pax were geologists returning from siesmic work up north - maybe the dude with the CD player was Rocks?

A friend of mine made an unscheduled landing (complete with fire trucks waiting, brace position, the works) following warning system indication of a baggage compartment fire - after landing, the firefighters opened the baggage compartment door - no fire, but there was a cell phone in a canvas bag right under the fire sensor, and it was ringing... (they "extinguished" it, I can assure you of that).

Policies vary greatly from one airline to the other, and the Captain always has the last word on the subject. Since the fall of 2001, airlines are nervous if you so much as fart on the aircraft, as a result, some airlines (and crews) are clamping down pretty tightly on anything that could even be remotely considered a security threat. Have you tried to take a nail clipper on an aircraft lately?

PanEuropean

 

[richie]

Have you tried to take a nail clipper on an aircraft lately?

PanEuropean

My wife yes, and she was not allowed to...

Gecko, I did not take mine to Venice a week ago, but I wish I had just for the flight to break the boredom.

By the way did you look up NLS on the system and make a waypoint to share with us???

 

[Gecko]

By the way did you look up NLS on the system and make a waypoint to share with us???

I asked every Greek 12 year old I could find if his name was Stavros and if his father was Turkish and they all said yes...... so I'm none the wiser

 

[Gecko]

Gecko:

It's true that the GPSR's don't transmit, but they do have the potential to create electro-magnetic interference (EMI) that can interfere with the VHF navigation systems installed on all aircraft.
Policies vary greatly from one airline to the other, and the Captain always has the last word on the subject. Since the fall of 2001, airlines are nervous if you so much as fart on the aircraft, as a result, some airlines (and crews) are clamping down pretty tightly on anything that could even be remotely considered a security threat. Have you tried to take a nail clipper on an aircraft lately?

PanEuropean

Scarey stuff Pan - thanks for the explanation - it makes sense now. I made a point of asking the cabin crew to ask the captain and showed him the GPS (which was off at the time) .I did of course turn it off when we started the descent as you are asked to do with all electrical devices but even though I fly around a lot with my job this gave me a new dimension to air travel that I hadn't experienced before. It was better than watching the in flight movie for sure

 

[Howard Millichap]

I had a very aggitated stewardess on a flight to New Zealand recently.
I'd been given permission to use my E-Trex Vista on the way to the USA and, therefore, assumed it would be OK to use it from the USA to NZ. She, however, didn't know what a GPSR was, and raced off to tell the senior steward that I was being a naughty boy.
She came back, all sheepish, to tell me "it was OK".

My max speed was 554mph. I reset the elevation whilst in NZ but I think it was around 35000ft. Twas a Boeing 777.

 

[waterhouse]

I too am a pilot (but just an amateur) and have been following the discussions with some fascination. I fly very frequently, but mostly as self-loading cargo with a variety of european airlines

The rules for use of electronic kit by passengers vary immensely, even where the same aircraft type is in use. Lots of passengers - especially the business crowd - simply don't seem to believe that mobile phones can cause colossal interference. You will always here SMS messages being received as aircraft taxy in. And the introduction of GPRS systems like the Blackberry which is a mobile phone that does email as a primary function makes it worse.

The worrying thing is that most ordinary people are now carrying around a load of electronics with them for day-to-day use which can predictably interfere with major aircraft systems such as fire detection and pressurisation. The design of such systems (frequently many years ago) never considered this type of interference.

I use GPS when flying but I have twice had complete failures aloft (over the Black mountains and near Stansted) so I don't rely on it for primary navigation. Both failures were Garmins, and both were replaced (actually one upgraded) though just out of warranty. The GPS affects my magnetic compass if too close but it's pretty good.