Use in an Aircraft

[Bigstoo]

british midland (bmi) are trialling non restricted gsm phone usage soon on their flights.

its the same with petrol stations and mobile phones, there has never ever been any instance of a mobile phone causing a fire (any one see brainiac? :p)

[mikealder]

What upset the petrol stations was the CB radio units, at the correct frequency when transmitting close to the pump you got more than you paid for (or so i am told ) the mobile won't cause the same problem as its low powered - on aircraft the wifi can cause problems - so keep the flight mode on and fly safe - mike

[Skippy]

You can use GPS on planes, it works fine and I have done it dozens of times in a number of different aircraft types. Of all the ones I have tried it in (Airbus 318, 32X, Boeing 727/737/747/767/777, BAE146 etc) I have never found one where it didn't work.

The view out the window is limited so you have to hold the receiver against the window for it to work. It does take a while to get a fix, it helps if you have a good GPS fix within a few hours of boarding the plane. Make sure you get a good lock on all the visible sats before you go into the terminal building.

The GPS sometimes has trouble getting a lock at 37,000 feet and 600 MPH, be patient with it while it figures out what the hell is going on.

You are not supposed to use it (or any other electronic equipment) during takeoff and landing, although I have done this many times. It goes without saying that you must switch it off and leave it off if they ask you to. I never ask the cabin crew for permission and I am discrete with it when they walk past, so don't have any problems.

Make sure you record a tracklog of your trip, it's cool to play it back and see the flight path, approach, glide slope, take off speed etc. If your GPS supports it then make it display the vertical speed. Also, compare your GPS speed/height against that reported by the pilot during cruise.
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Gone fishing!

[Ice_coffee]

I must admit, I flew to italy last month and managed to log (using TT5 & globalsat bt338) a take off of 190 mph and cruising speed of 520 mph , as an added bonus we didn't crash :-)

[Skippy]

[PompeyDave68]

[Skippy]

[cartman]

Not cheap, but WinPilot VFR here :
http://www.winpilot.com/VFR/generalvfr.asp
has good avaiation maps of large portions of the world.
Worked well en-route Glasgow -Orlando

[martike]

[Synth]

[Skippy]

A good many airlines have no objection to people using a GPS reciever on their aircraft, under the normal rules for using devices like laptops, PDAs iPods etc. It goes without saying that you have to switch it off if the crew ask you to.

Going by the responses, I can only presume that Synth and martike are nervous or infrequent flyers. Relax, guys you won't get put in jail for using a GPS and you won't cause the plane to crash either.

I'll be in seat 1A if you are looking for me
Have a good trip!
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Gone fishing!

[Synth]

People have been jailed for using mobile phones on aircraft.

I do fly frequently and have survived an aircraft crash. Don't go telling me it will never happen.

[martike]

I’m not as frequent a flyer as I used to be, unfortunately, but that’s beside the point. I wanted to draw attention to Skippy’s attitude.

Skippy clearly knows the rules, deliberately breaks them, and then gloats about it afterwards. Grow up, Skippy, and act responsibly.

[etters]

Hi All
I'm just wondering what you would do if you found yourself flying the wrong way to where ever you were going
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Takara GP56 igo primo 1.1
Dont rely on them use your brain as well

[Skippy]

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