Using a handheld GPS in an airliner ?

[noblues]

Has anyone managed to get a signal on their handheld GPS whilst in an airliner ?

I sit at the pointy bit of an airbus and tried my Garmin Pilot III the other day but couln't get a signal ...... probably due to the shielding and heating elements in the glass windows blanking out the signal (although my colleague did sugest I open the window but that would have spilit my coffee !).

Just wondered if anyone has tried it in the pax cabin and managed to get a signal ?

[Bluebeard777]

Yes I have done this a few times, for curiosity. No problem with signal, on Garmin GPS III Pilot, just holdit it up to the window. Cabin crew enquired what it was once, didnt seem to mind.

[Lucifer]

As it's not wired in, you are bound to get interference and inaccurate signals being in a metal tube.

[Hersham Boy]

The safety announcement on a bmi flight from Edinburgh this week lead me to believe I would not be permitted to use... treated in same ilk as if I was sitting there listening to transmissions on my transceiver...

Maybe I misunderstood...?

Hersh

[Keygrip]

The in flight magazine of "Air Tran Airways" specifically prohibits the use of GPS in the cabin at any time.

[bar shaker]

My daughter used my 196 on an Easyjet to Spain and back, last week. Signal strength was almost on max for all satelites it locked onto. Cabin crew looked and weren't bothered.

It even left a breadcrumb trail of where the pilot missed the stand at Stansted and had to drive around the taxiways to get back to the right alley :\

[david viewing]

I have done this several times with a GPS92 while riding in working class on Virgin to LAX and found it possible to get enough satellites for a fix by manoevering the stick on antenna in the window. Latterly though I was stopped from doing this by cabin crew, and after all perhaps other passengers were getting restless about it.

One reason for taking an interest in this is that I usually track the daylight inbound flight over the US by reference to my trusty Rand McNally road map as a good way to learn more US geography and on one occasion both the captain and the in-flight map display gave a position report that was 100mi in error!

Nowadays I think twice about even opening 'suspect' aviation related materials like sectionals on these flights and stick to road maps and FarAim, reading which whiles away a 10hr flight quite nicely.

[Tall_guy_in_a_152]

I have used my cheapo GPS12 on commercial flights a few times (near the blunt end). I had to hold it right up against the window to get a sufficient signal for a fix and it took about 5 minutes instead of the usual 45 seconds. Unfortunately it is impossible to do this discretely so it tends to attract attention from other pax and cabin crew.

I always check the smallprint in the in-flight magazine these days and have found that more and more airlines are banning "all radio receiving equipment" or words to that effect which obviously includes GPS.

In the good old days it would have probably been sufficient to ask the cabin crew to check with the Captain if he had any objections to me using the GPS. In these days of locked cockpit doors it is probably too inconvenient.

TG

[Aim Far]

In the real "good old days", sailors on ships were not allowed to take an interest in navigation and it was considered a capitol offence to be second guessing the navigator. Could this explain the airlines attitude?;)

ISTR a story about one particular sailor on the Navy's flagship at the time (before the longitude thing was solved) who secretly kept a nav log and got so worried that the ship was off course and heading for the rocks that he told the officers and was promptly hung. The ship (and others with it) then got stacked on the rocks. I believe this was the "one loss too many" which lead to the creation of the longitude prize.

[drauk]

Not opening a sectional (or other flying map) whilst on a plane? I think this is ridiculous and hands a further victory to terrorists.

[Hen Ddraig]

Used a Garmin Pilot III in the back of a TCX A332 all the way from MAN to YYC earlier this summer. It worked fine all the way across Iceland, Greenland, Labrador and Hudson Bay.
No problem with the cabin crew, I asked them to check with the flight deck and told them who I was before we left MAN, captain asked if it had worked when we arrived ay YYC.
Told him "yes, but the seat back tracking map wasn't to accurate"

Time to spare. Go by air.
HD

[rotorcraig]

I flew Britannia earlier this year, Birmingham to Verona.

Flight safety video and card definitely said "no GPS".

Why is that ...

- Fear of interference with aircraft systems?

Surely they are OK, no high power transmitter, otherwise the CAA would issue "no mobiles or handheld GPS in aircraft" safety notices ;)

- Fear of use by terrorists?

Do they represent a risk over and above seat back tracking maps and pax VFR / look out the window??!!

RC

[redsnail]

It's possibly because a GPS usually looks not unlike a mobile phone to the untrained eye. Easier just to ban them and be done with it.