[f-AA] SPOT GPS locator

[Fred Steadman]

At the TSA (Texas Soaring Association) safety meeting yesterday, two different presenters talked up the Spot tracking and locating service.   Seems to make a lot more sense than ELT's, and is a lot cheaper.   

You carry a little (GPS) device that costs  less than $200, and subscribe to a tracking service.   Anyone who wants to or needs to know your location can click up the application and track your progress, or stopping place, as the case may be.   The device works even if the pilot is incapacitated, but does not require a crash to set it off, and emits no false alarms, 

http://www.findmespot.com/en/

Fred Steadman

200 Lark Court

Irving, TX   75062

214 762 6376

fst...@mac.com

[Vand...@aol.com]

In deciding whether to buy a locator to augment the required ELT it is important to know the difference between a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) and a tracking and locating device.

 

The PLB emits a 406 MHz signal sent to a satellite that is continuously monitored.  Activated PLB coordinates are sent to the Air Force where search and rescue services are coordinated among feds and locals. There is a one time cost for the unit and its registration is free and monitoring is free.

 

A locating and tracking device (such as the Spot) is sold as a part of a service offered by a private, free enterprise company.  The company provides services including notification of search and rescue services in the event of an emergency.  As Fred correctly says, other services include monitoring of the device location that can be monitored by the user or anyone else on computer, IPOD, or web accessing mobile devices, etc.  The cost of the device is less than the cost of a PLB but the tracking and locating services are sold as an annual subscription.  Locating only is the least expensive and tracking is more.

 

Most importantly, both the PLB and the locating and tracking device must be activated manually by the user.  This is a critical point since activation is designed to be somewhat complex to avoid setting it off accidentally.  I you are injured and/orunconscious or you can't get to or find the device, you're out of luck.

 

I chose the PLB because I was not interested in the tracking services.  The soaring community and others clearly have good reason to be tracked.  I, actually, prefer that my wife not know where I am while flying. 

I expect that the PLB service may outlive the companies that offer locating and tracking in this fragile economy.  And as after a year or two of the locating and tracking subscription, the prices equalize.

 

Finally, it is unlikely that either of these options will be adequate to meet any regulation the FAA may issue to require a 406 MHz ELT's to replace the 121.5's ( which are now obsolete).

 

I hope this is helpful.

Dan vdM

 

At the TSA (Texas Soaring Association) safety meeting yesterday, two different presenters talked up the Spot tracking and locating service.   Seems to make a lot more sense than ELT's, and is a lot cheaper.   

You carry a little (GPS) device that costs  less than $200, and subscribe to a tracking service.   Anyone who wants to or needs to know your location can click up the application and track your progress, or stopping place, as the case may be.   The device works even if the pilot is incapacitated, but does not require a crash to set it off, and emits no false alarms, 

http://www.findmespot.com/en/

 

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[Fred Steadman]

I don't know if the SPOT type tracking and locating is a better fit for glider ops than other aircraft, but it may be.   As you point out, there is value in being able to locate and capture the track of any given glider flight.   There is, for example, an "OnLine Contest" where pilots post their flights and group up into teams to try and out score other teams, based on distance and/or duration of flights.

On a more serious note, our club, and I suspect many others, have a person designated on each in season weekend flying day to record the take-off and landing times of every glider launched from our field.   At the end of the day, if a glider does not have a landing time noted, it's time to go looking for that airplane.   First step, of course, is to check it's parking place.   If not there then try to raise the flight on the radio, or a cell phone.   If the flight has a SPOT (or PLB for that matter) that would be the next place to look.

If a glider has landed out somewhere, it is much less likely to be an extreme emergency than if a powered airplane lands out somewhere, but the pilot is as likely to need help, if nothing more than a retrieve.   We probably don't want to get the USAF or the local police involved.