Tracking App ?

[Thermal-Soarer]

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick question, i was just wondering if anyone use's a mobile smartphone as a live tracker so someone can follow your flying while on the ground with a Ipad/laptop ?

[Monocock]

Find My Friends






PS That wasn't a command, it was an App suggestion.

[richard_ha]

I use Glympse for the car.

[27/09]

I'd recommend "Spot Tracker". It's not an app and it not free, BUT, it's very affordable and is extremely reliable.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'm playing with Flightrecorder24 at the moment - not specifically for that purpose, but it seems to do that quite well (I'm interested in it as a cheap flight data recorder - on which the jury is still out at the moment). Various gliding / paragliding / etc. competitions seems to be using it for tracking purposes.

It costs a bit over £2 on Android, and may be what you're after.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tost.frederic.pro1flightrecorder&hl=en

https://plus.google.com/communities/104818071607184334239

G

[Genghis the Engineer]

Neither GPS nor so far as I know 3G have to be disabled in flight in a light aircraft, although the 3G signal quality may be a bit variable.

G

[9 lives]

I second the SPOT tracker, I've used it for years, and am very happy. My wife will save off an image of where I flew for week long trips.

Extra benefit is communication home from anywhere on earth, at no additional cost, as long as you work out the code with the limited messaging function. I brief my passengers, mostly my 11 year old daughter, as to how to use the message functions, and emergency buttons, so they can help themselves, if I cannot help them after a crash.

[Monocock]

Unless you have the Internet on the plane the person on the a/c won't be able to send their location ans I think the GPS has to be disabled on the phone while in flight.
If you want to track an aircraft use flightradar it's an app plus a website where you can track aircraft pretty much everywhere in real time. I use it for when I pick friends up from the airport to see if they are delayed and when to leave my house!

:confused:

[Thermal-Soarer]

Evening all - Thanks for the replies all very interesting but to be honest we are struggling to get the apps on the phone to work at the moment :oh:

[RatherBeFlying]

LiveTrack24 works on Android phones. The basic service is free and quite adequate:ok:

The private owners at our gliding club are all using it.

Search for Flight Tracking apps. There's several others.

[airwave45]

DeLorme in reach.
Has a companion app that works on Iphones and Android, relies on a separate stand alone tracker, this is all sattelite based.
Does not need nor use phone signals.

Costs 10 or 15 quid a month, tracks you at all times and allows anyone you want to find you in real time, at any time.
Will also upload your location to (if you want) a public website, you'll show up in real (ish) time with alt, spd, heading showing also.

It is possibly overkill, but I fly out in the boonies in Scotland and we have previous of it taking days to find people crashed in the hills.
You can also pull the SOS pin and have a nominal Mayday sent out, as long as it can see a sattelite, it should get out.

For me it bridges the gaps between being tracked on flightradar24 (Via Flarm) Mobile phone tracking (phone records can be accessed in an emergency to find your last mast check in and probably triangulated from there)
Scotland just has far too much area not served by Groundstations so I rely on a sat based service to find me if it all goes a bit pete tong.

[glider12000]

RocketRoute has this currently developed for their android application, you can click the tracking function and then you can share the tracking link with your friends and family. I used it on a glider flight and my family were able to track my progress.

[BackPacker]

So, to summarize, four basic solutions here.

1. Make use of transponders/ADS-B/Flarm. Both Flarm and a Mode-S transponder (with 'enhanced' surveillance) will emit a signal that contains your GPS position. This is picked up by ground stations and submitted to a central server at FR24. From there you can draw tracks and whatnot. This will only work if you have such a transponder/Flarm and there are sufficient ground stations nearby.

If necessary, the hardware to setup a transponder receiver yourself is 15 euros incl. P&P from China - all you need is an antenna and A/D converter to capture the right frequency, plus some (free) software. But you do need an "enhanced" surveillance transponder. Any Mode-S transponder can emit the signal, but getting the GPS position out of your GPS unit and into the transponder is a major certification hurdle, in case of certified aircraft.

2. Use a tracking app (such as Find My Friends) that runs on your smartphone, captures the GPS signal and sends it via a data connection (GPRS, UMTS, 3/4G, whatever) to a central server. This will only work if you have a data connection while flying. Which is generally an issue if you fly higher than about 3000 feet.

3. Use SPOT or another satellite based system. This is completely independent of the cellphone network: A SPOT tracker will directly send your position to a satellite, which will forward it to an internet-connected server. It's up to you to decide what that server should do with that position - I met a guy who was hiking in Iceland who set things up so that his position would show up on Facebook immediately.

4. Use a tracking device in the aircraft, and publish it after the flight. Almost any standalone GPS can do this, and there are tons of tracking applications for smartphones that can do this too. The functionality is also incorporated in SkyDemon, RocketRoute, Air Nav Pro, EasyVFR and so forth. But it's not "live" and cannot be used for SAR purposes.

[Heebicka]

airnav pro offers this but I don't know how "live" it is. (refresh speed)


Air Navigation Pro ? Live Flight Tracking | Xample (http://www.xample.ch/air-navigation/flight-tracking/)

[Sam Rutherford]

Tripfixx


Do a google...

[Heebicka]

tried tracking in airnavpro today, looks to be instant.
Xample (http://services.xample.ch/users/Heebicka/tracking)


it's also possible to export a file which can be imported into google earth and see full 3d path