Your Pre-Flight Facilities

[1800ed]

I was just wondering; At your local base, what facilities are there for your pre-flight briefing? The club I fly from provides members with a PC with an internet connection as well as the usual local info pinned up on a board for everyone to read.

I was wondering how common it was for the smaller flying clubs/airfields to provide this kind of setup? If you don't have this kind of thing, what do you use?

[BackPacker]

Two internet PCs with a printer, plus a telephone.

Usually the NOTAMs are printed and lying on the desk but since this list includes everything, I typically use the Dutch homebriefing.nl site to make a relevant selection.

At our (controlled) field we need to supply a flight plan for every flight so we need to logon to homebriefing.nl anyway.

[IO540]

Zilch, zero, nowt, nuffink at all :)

Like most pilots that go places, I am self sufficient, with a laptop etc. It's the only way.

Usually the NOTAMs are printed and lying on the desk but since this list includes everythingPresumably you mean local notams, not all notams :)

[BackPacker]

Presumably you mean local notams, not all notams.

They typically print all NOTAMs for the EHAA FIR, including all airfields and the ones that will only be valid months in the future. (Fireworks at 31 december - no kidding!)

It's a waste of paper but that's how the system currently works...

[1800ed]

IO540: Do you use a 3G dongle/mobile phone or do you get info from the internet at home and then use flight planning software on your laptop?

I've noticed that a lot of the airfields I go to have pretty bad mobile reception though...

[Hireandhire]

Nothing whatever.

I try to remember to do the notams, weather and airspace upgrades before I leave home.
When I get to the farmstrip, I sometimes look at the piece of string where the windsock used to be attached before it blew away.

Oddly enough the aircraft flies just as well with, or without, all this information. Especially if you don't turn the radio on.

:O

[rans6andrew]

I do the internet stuff before I leave the house and then rely on 0500 354802 before engine start.

Not so easy when coming back from camping in France.

Rans6...

[IO540]

IO540: Do you use a 3G dongle/mobile phone or do you get info from the internet at home and then use flight planning software on your laptop?

All of the above.

Well, actually I don't currently use any USB dongles; I use a mixture of

- a bluetooth connection phone-laptop (the simplest, usually)
- a laptop with a built-in GPRS/3G radio (they are not common)
- a Huawei E585 (http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4874/3-mi-fi-mobile-wi-fi-e585) GPRS/3G to WIFI radio

There are various ways to get mobile internet access e.g. (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/mobile-comms/index.html)

If you can't get GPRS/3G then you are a bit stuffed... but the "dongle" products tend to not have the best reception anyway. Using a phone is thus better because you can position it somewhere higher up.

[whirlwind]

Hireandhire - I'm with you on that! Grass strips, the green alternative :ok: WW

[Jan Olieslagers]

As said in another thread, down here I found a PC with internet access available to pilots at every airfield I visited. Printers are rare though. An especially complete briefing room is available at EBAW Antwerp, just next to the meteo office.

[Rod1]

I use a similar solution to IO540. The strip has no facilities

Rod1

[flybymike]

Leeds has full facilities ( I imagine) but I never use them, have never seen them if they do exist, never visit the "club", and am entirely self sufficient.

[IO540]

I found, soon after I bought the plane, that owners are not exactly welcome to hang around schools/clubs, so have not been in any school/club since then. The schools/clubs to have internet etc facilities, I am sure. But standalone owner-pilots have to be self-sufficient.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I fly from three airfields, one prints relevant stuff out and sticks it on the board, one has a PC, one has nothing and I use my Nokia E63 "blackberry clone", which does the job nicely.

It's important to be able to be self-sufficient, but some half decent facilities are always nice to have use of.

G

[IO540]

it would be nice to be able to print when away too...any ideas on this front?On long trips I carry a Canon IP90 printer. You can find them on Ebay, cheap.

It has a battery option, and my current IP90 has this too (my original IP90 was in a backpack which got sat on :) ) but while it seems to last a suprisingly long time I don't find it that useful and it doubles the weight of the printer.

It also has a bluetooth option which merely replaces the USB cable so there is little point, IMHO.

Now there is an IP100 (http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Printers/Inkjet/PIXMA_iP100_with_battery/) - and is not exactly cheap, but these are excellent printers for travelling, for printing off plogs, enroute charts, approach plates. The cartridges are expensive (per page) but one doesn't print huge amounts when travelling. It prints on plain paper.

If you are happy to use an A6 printer (really small) then there is the Pentax Pocketjet, now sold by Brother (http://www.brother-usa.com/mobile/mobile-printing-solutions.aspx). These are very slick, but expensive, use expensive paper, and don't print colours. Anyway, there are loads of A6 "photo" printers...

There are no A5 printers, AFAIK, though that size would be ideal.

[IO540]

Sitting in a hotel in Crete... you can see why the battery option is not worth a lot to me, this being the typical application:

http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/crete2/laptop.jpg

[Nipper2]

Please tell me, what part in all this do the wire-cutters/pliers play?

In response to the original question, I'm with hireandhire,

[IO540]

For cutting my nails :)