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Joined: 4/1/2012
Posts: 269
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My iPad street GPS app Has a "Send location" button.
It opens iPad email compose screen with subject preconfigured to "come find me" and the content of the email being a map sleep with a pointer to the iPad"s coming location and the GPS coordinates.
Touch send, and if the iPad has internet access, it sends that out to whatever contacts you put in the "too" field.
If there is no Internet connectivity when you click send and it sends out the email as soon as genetic connectivity is restored, automatically. Of course the email itself indicates the time and date it was sent.
Alternatively "Send location" will send location via SMS
When flying with iFly iPad we don't always have internet connectivity, but sometimes we do, thru a cellular data plan that is getting reception. Same on ground ...whether at civilized FBO and just wanting someone to know we touched down without a long conversation, or rural strip, or crashed and really needing help in the boonies or rugged backcountry , we _might_ have cellular or other internet connectivity in the iPad..
(FWIW: hiking in rugged country in the high Sierra's 20 miles from the nearest cell phone tower at 12,000 feet I still had cellular reception. Often do OVER parts if backcountry. Point is don't rule out the possibility of cellular data plan working in a tablet or smartphone even in backcountry.)
You can see where this is going.
It would be nice to have a Send Location feature .... Even just GPS coordinates.... For both social and potential emergency uses.
Could be set up to default to a owner configured worst case recipient and message with no data entry to be keyed in for a two click send.. One to send, second big red "are you sure?"
I suspect that iPad development tools have standard hooks into the iPad email.
So may be a simple thing to implement.
Maybe even have it configurable to send location every, say, 10 minutes, if connection available.
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Joined: 2/9/2014
Posts: 109
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ComputerDoc, your idea sounds good at first blush but as an experienced SAR pilot and CAP Air Branch Director I well tell you that it is not good at all for emergencies. The reason is that the message doesn't tell where you are, it tells where you were. Where you are is wherever your phone found a connection. Depending on the nature of the emergency that might be quite a ways from the coordinates in the message. Or the emergency might have abated a long time ago and the message still gets fired off.
Despite it being a violation of FCC rules against leaving cell phones turned on, we often get very good cell phone forensics when there is a missing aircraft. The cell phone records tell us the locations of all the towers where the phone has "checked in" during its travels. When we are dealing with a 1200 squawk we can often correlate a specific 1200 radar track with the cell tower hits and identify the airplane. So we don't need a potentially misleading email all that much. Yes, I fly with my phone left on.
Your best bet in an emergency is to be on an IFR flight plan, ideally with radar services. Then your location is known to good accuracy and, even absent radar, your route and your likely position on the route is known. Next best is to be on flight following with your route known to ATC or someone on the ground and with your flight sticking exactly to the route. Leaving your cell phone illegally "on" is frosting on the cake.
It is also good to install a 406Mhz ELT. WIth these ELTs the SARSAT constellatiion can give us very precise location information, even if the ELT is not GPS-coupled. For belts and suspenders, carry a certified PLB. (Not a consumer toy like SPOT.) I happen to have a McMurdo FastFind. But understand that in a bad crash the ELT or its antenna may be damaged beyond operability and you may also be serously damaged and unable to trigger your PLB. So these are not substitutes for being on a discrete squawk, on a known route, and on ATC radar.
HTH
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Joined: 4/1/2012
Posts: 269
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Tinker wrote, in part:
ComputerDoc, your idea sounds good at first blush but as an experienced SAR pilot and CAP Air Branch Director I well tell you that it is not good at all for emergencies. The reason is that the message doesn't tell where you are, it tells where you were. Where you are is wherever your phone found a connection. Depending on the nature of the emergency that might be quite a ways from the coordinates in the message. Or the emergency might have abated a long time ago and the message still gets fired off.........
......Despite it being a violation of FCC rules against leaving cell phones turned on, we often get very good cell phone forensics when there is a missing aircraft. .......
.....Your best bet in an emergency is to be on an IFR flight plan, ideally with radar services. ....
It is also good to install a 406Mhz ELT......
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Hi Tinker,
Your report of some of the SAR considerations is fascinating. I hadn't thought of the use of the cellphone signal in locating the cellphone (probably should have) and now have yet ANOTHER reason to keep my cellphone on in flight. (I have on occasion used it to call an FBO and get a real LOCAL human being's report of on ground VFR conditions.)
Yes, I and other who got into this suggestion/thread understand that that under this suggestion the iFly would be sometimes be sending a location where the aircraft WAS not where it IS, but with a time stamp knowing where it was (including potentially as is in the iFly the altitude, ground speed and track, and when, is surely useful information. In fact I'm going to add to the suggestion that it send the tiny text file (e.g., 20140914160440.log) which would have detailed track of whole flight to that point. If you know where the aircraft was ten minutes ago, ground speed, altitude. ground track, that's a hell of a lot more than you in your SRA capacity know about my aircraft if I didn't get out a radio call. As it has no transponder (currently in position 1 on wish list) and is never on flight following. So I can’t agree that this suggestion if implemented would be “not good at all ” in emergencies.
Wonder if my take on this might’ve convinced you to conceed “could be of some good, and better than nothing” in emergencies. ;-)
Other thing is this suggestion was not just for that worst case aircraft-down scenario. Perfectly useful for my wife or co-owner to be able to see that I'm still in the air and enroute and 20 minutes ago was about an hour from home. Not to worry. Comforting Just nice to know. On the other hand, if after noting that I was an hour out from home 3 hours ago and not down yet, maybe try to reach me on cellphone, call the FBO, and if no luck there start considering contacting CAP, etc.
Finally, it would be great if all of us had 406MHz ELTs all linked to GPS, personal locator beacons, transponders of course, always filed formal flight plans and never detoured from them without advising someone, had ADS-B out, whole aircraft ballistics parachutes (why not "dual redundant BRS's <g>) , current IFR ratings so we could and would file IFR flight plans every time, carry complete 10 day wilderness hot and cold weather survival gear, etc. Heck, I'd like to own a Cessna Skymaster twin so the always present probability of having to do an off airfield landing due to an engine in-flight failure would be considerably lower probability. ;-)
In short, sure it's not a perfect solution for either casual tracking or the SAR groups dream, but it could be implemented essentially at no initial cost and no ongoing cost. But I can't see any argument AGAINST that feature being in the iFly.... no one was suggesting it would be a panacea for SRA or a substitute for any of the many other, often costly, tracking and locating devices and practices.
Alex
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Joined: 4/1/2012
Posts: 269
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When I originally posted this suggestion I wrote, in part ---
"It would be nice to have a Send Location feature .... Even just GPS coordinates.... For both social and potential emergency uses."
Based in part on Tinker's contribution to this thread I would like to add these suggestions to this feature if it ever gets off the wish-list into development:
Since current version of iFly obviously "knows" when it has internet connectivity (it now picks up weather updates automatically when Internet is available... even in flight) it is clearer than before it's possible to have it know when it's connected to the internet and every, say, 10 minutes, Send Location to one or more user configured email adresses.
Why not have it insert right in that email not just time-stamp ..... in plain English also email altitude, ground track/direction, ground speed?
Why not have it email ETA to destination? Seems likely not too difficult to implement if implementing this at all?
Wouldn't it be great if YOU were the friend, spouse, CFI, or whomever on the recieving end to be able to get on any internet device that can get your email quickly and easily see where the aircraft last was, direction, altitude, speed, and ETA at any 10 minute interval?
Finally, great to have it automatically email the current flight log text file. These files are typically tiny.
And in a SRA scenairo or a post accident analyis could be invaluable. And in a casual senario the recipient if savvy could use the log file to view the whole flight to that point.
Alex
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Joined: 2/9/2014
Posts: 109
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Actually, when I responded to the OP I was commenting on the specific suggestion that lat/long be sent and not thinking much further than that. If the lat/long were accompanied by a time stamp, then the message would not be ambiguous regardless of when sent. So that would be fine.
In fact, riffing on the thoughts today, iFly could send a complete KML file. There is syntax in KML defined to allow time-stamped track files. This could make iFly a competitor to SPOT, ignoring the current fact of FCC prohibition of having the phone turned on in flight. It could be sold as an add-on application, so generate some revenue as well.
The only caveat on these ideas may be that recipients have to understand that the airplane may "disappear" for extended periods of time due to lack of cell phone connectivity. You don't want them calling the FAA with a missing airplane report!
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