Using mobile GPS in flight

[stevelup]

Originally Posted by F4TCT

When you look at the specs on these mobile phones, they are intact assisted gps, therefore requiring the help of triangulation from the phone masts, as well as the basic gps hardware in the phone.

That's not what AGPS means. Assisted GPS can use a data connection to get a quicker first fix, but it doesn't require it.

[peterh337]

It doesn't require it but there are a fair few devices which are totally incapable of getting a GPS fix if turned on while already moving at some speed.

I have seen this in multiple PDAs, in a Thuraya 7100 satphone, and some other stuff.

I think the Ipad GPS, which is superb on the ground and even working pretty well indoors, is so good because it gets the fix over GSM first. In the aircraft it is much worse.

[Odai]

Hello,

Apologies for taking so long to respond, and thanks once again for all the helpful responses.

I did give the GPS on my phone a go during a recent flight. I allowed the phone to get a fix first (using a data connection) before getting in the plane. Then, when it was all stable I enabled Flight Mode (therefore disabling what was alternating between a GPRS and an EDGE connection) and leaving the GPS feature enabled.

I thought it worked OK, but when I got home and reviewed the track what I found was bizarre. The initial position was fine, and the track shown as I taxied around the airfield, took up position for power checks, and finally lined up for the runway was fine. However, after that, the software indicates I did not go further than 1.17km over the course of an hour and the track simply shows the flight doing zig zags all over the airfield for that time (I did in reality end up about 30 miles away on a navigational exercise).

Not sure what happened exactly, but I get the sense the phone's hardware simply isn't up for the job.

I don't intend to buy any hardware just for the purpose of tracking my student flights at the moment. I may in the future (after my PPL) get a proper GPS and in that case I would look for one that has software capable of producing logged tracks in a format I could use for purposes mentioned in this thread.

Thanks anyway guys!

[stevelup]

You never said which phone you had?

On Apple devices, the GPS doesn't work at all when you are in flight mode.

[dublinpilot]

And on Android they are often turned off by default and you need to turn it back on after going into flight mode.

Also where did you put your phone? Leaving it in a position where it doesn't have a reasonable view of the sky will most likely mean that it won't work.