GPS on Planes?

[eagle06]

So heres the situation with Portable Electronic Devices...

PEDs gain there authorization for use from 14CFR 91.21. That particular law only authorizes the following items: Portable voice recorders; Hearing aids;Heart pacemakers; Electric shavers and "any other devices the company has determined will not cause interference. Some companies may choose to get an item approved and some may not. After a quick glance at my companies manual we do not allow GPS's to be used but have many other items listed.

Depending on the item it can be difficult and costly to approve it. Although it falls under a different set of guidance my company has been trying to gain authorization to use small tablet PCs to carry our 50 pounds of paper navigation charts. This is a long process which includes things like taking the tablet to "altitude" in a pressure chamber to insue the computer can survive an explosive decompression. I doubt anyone has had to do this to approve a GPS but if I was airline management it would be pretty darn low on my priority list.

Long story short: GPS recievers are Illegal unless the company has taken the time to determine they wont interfere with navigation or comunication. If they say its ok then have fun. If they say its not then best advice would be to follow their policy.

Other tidbits for ya-

The FCC prohibits the use of cell phones in airplanes (they usually dont work anyway) as they are licensed as "land mobile devices" and increased range while airborne could cause interference with others. The FAA simply supports that.

Cheers!

Eagle-
ATP
CFI/CFII/MEI

[somethingrandom]

Haha, thanks bud, I have been sporadically scouring the FAR/AIM for a couple of days since the amusing E-tirade to find that CFR (see below), but what Eagle quoted indicates the FAA's particular take on the situation and as he said, airlines may seek special permission, but generally speaking, the regulatory agency overseeing air travel has forbid them.

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2002/ ... r91.21.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nice find C!

Part91 pilot.

So heres the situation with Portable Electronic Devices...

PEDs gain there authorization for use from 14CFR 91.21. That particular law only authorizes the following items: Portable voice recorders; Hearing aids;Heart pacemakers; Electric shavers and "any other devices the company has determined will not cause interference. Some companies may choose to get an item approved and some may not. After a quick glance at my companies manual we do not allow GPS's to be used but have many other items listed.

Depending on the item it can be difficult and costly to approve it. Although it falls under a different set of guidance my company has been trying to gain authorization to use small tablet PCs to carry our 50 pounds of paper navigation charts. This is a long process which includes things like taking the tablet to "altitude" in a pressure chamber to insue the computer can survive an explosive decompression. I doubt anyone has had to do this to approve a GPS but if I was airline management it would be pretty darn low on my priority list.

Long story short: GPS recievers are Illegal unless the company has taken the time to determine they wont interfere with navigation or comunication. If they say its ok then have fun. If they say its not then best advice would be to follow their policy.

Other tidbits for ya-

The FCC prohibits the use of cell phones in airplanes (they usually dont work anyway) as they are licensed as "land mobile devices" and increased range while airborne could cause interference with others. The FAA simply supports that.

Cheers!

Eagle-
ATP
CFI/CFII/MEI

[dan_spors]

Yes, but (almost) nobody believes that standard RF leakage from devices is a real problem - we're allowed to use laptops and other electronic devices while in the air.

I'd wager that if one were able to obtain real usage and configuration statistics about the devices people use on aircraft, it would demolish the idea that these devices will interfere with the plane's operations. A large percentage of people don't know how to turn off the wifi on their laptop or ipod or phone, or put the phone into airplane mode - yet these things are out and in use all the time. There have got to be hundreds of thousands of people a year who fly with their devices transmitting in the blind with no adverse side effects on the operations of the aircraft or air traffic control. Certainly there would be far more people who do it than incidents caused by people who do it.

I beg to differ...

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*Edited to quote the wrong user, fix typos, correct quote of the wrong user to the right one, etc.

[Doug Shaw]

Hmm, I think you still managed to quote the wrong person but that's okay.

Regarding "landing this baby in Excel"... sort-of...

[dan_spors]

Sorry Doug. When I went to preview my post, it quoted you quoting KentonB, which I thought was odd but I went with it and deleted your name. My apologies!

[mountaingoat-G]

I can confirm that Southwest airlines allows GPS above 10,000 feet. With a window seat, I had good X,Y accuracy, but my GPS altitude would not stick when I chose to use "GPS Altitude" but instead reverted to barometric altitude. The barimetric altitude was obviously way off due to cabin pressure (reading in the 7,500 range) and occasionaly I would check the GPS altitude and it would be around 38K, which matched what the pilot told us, more or less. Kind of annoying that Garmin wouldn't let me leave it in GPS altitude mode and instead always reverted to it's barometer "corrected" mode.

There seems to be a lot of fear of devices and perhaps the agencies err on the side of banning something if they have any doubt. A bit paranoid methinks...

The accuracy was quite good as we flew over several landmarks I knew well and the GPS showed us right where I knew us to be. It was even more apparent after uploading the tracks to Google Earth.

[paully]

I have an eTrex Vista and I've done what you are suggesting. It makes the flight more interesting, and you can confirm that that giant swath of blue is indeed the Mississippi! Have fun!