Roadway GPS Systems in Ground Vehicles & Aircraft

[RADIOMAN015]

Sat back and listen to recent mission (as standby radio relay station, just in case).  Apparently aircraft scanner/observer had GPS road map device in aircraft and was easier to direct responding ground teams with actually street/road names as they boxed in area.   Ground team lacked GPS mapping which would have made it much easier to just plug in the street name and town and let the GPS let them know how long it would be until they were in the area.

I've noted that CAP operations principles makes no mention of typical road type direction GPS being used portable in aircraft as well as ground vehicle.   This might be especially helpful during night/darkness missions.
RM       

[vento]

An Android, iPhone, or [insert name] smartphone will easily function as a GPS unit with moving map for UDF or GT.

[davidsinn]

An Android, iPhone, or [insert name] smartphone will easily function as a GPS unit with moving map for UDF or GT.

I've even got mine set up in such a way I can even legally(all radios off) use it in an aircraft to look at maps.

[Al Sayre]

Most of our Pilots carry the DeLorme State atlas...

[Eclipse]

I've used a Garmin III+ for position information and flight tracks for about a million years.
Tested my Xoom Tuesday during AS Highbird sorties, worked great.

With that said, no ground team should be leaving mission base without at least one GPS (in fact I think my wing presumes they are required equipment),
and assuming they do, translating a quick long / lat to a street location should be quick work in mission base.

There are also several proper and trained techniques for A/G signaling that should be in common practice.

[RADIOMAN015]

I've used a Garmin III+ for position information and flight tracks for about a million years.
Tested my Xoom Tuesday during AS Highbird sorties, worked great.

With that said, no ground team should be leaving mission base without at least one GPS (in fact I think my wing presumes they are required equipment),
and assuming they do, translating a quick long / lat to a street location should be quick work in mission base.

There are also several proper and trained techniques for A/G signaling that should be in common practice.

Why make things difficult, a simple vehicle mapping/GPS will work fine and also will give the teams the capability to let the aircraft know what their estimated time of arrival near the scene, that's a good thing to know.   Remember that a mission base could really only be a IC trying to do everything.   Also with most vehicle GPS/mapping units there's a simple button "Where am I?" that will show coordinates, address, and elevation), so it does offer some additional information.

CAP does not REQUIRE ground or UDF teams to have GPS capabilities, I would not assume anything .  I think the assumption is that in most cases the aircraft will find the target and direct the team(s) to the scene.   HOWEVER, if you throw in a night time actual mission the vehicle type GPS IMHO should be required for both ground teams & air crews (e.g. ensure it can give street names & town/city information), it just makes it much easier for everyone, and that's the reason why we use technology :clap:
RM   

[majdomke]

Exactly... I use my TomTom to get me where I need to go, then I have a Garmin eTrex for in the field. When all else fails, I still have my Gazetteer and iPhone 4.

[jimmydeanno]

Other than the issue of a battery failing, my phone gps works wonders.  Integrated with goggles, I can take a picture of a landmark around me and it'll figure out where I am.  Driving directions, walkingsatellite, terrain,point plotting, there isn't much that I'm missing over a car gps or standard map.

[Huey Driver]

The Garmin Aera Series is an alright driving/flying GPS. It isn't designed for the field though so again, that's where the handhelds and phones come into play.

[starshippe]

my first airborne elt mission using street map software:

. . i was a bit irritated when tom dragged his laptop along on a night elt search a few years back, but i kept my mouth shut. i'm glad i did, as the elt ended up in the south east georgia backwoods. the ground team did not have maps of the area with lat lon coordinates. (please hold ur criticism of this, we have debriefed it several times, and it is not the point of this post.)

. . having the delorme street map software along, with its usb gps, we were able to give them turn by turn instructions along the rural georgia backroads, in the dark of night, with few lights of any kind helping out. this would not have been possible without the laptop.

. . although topography is not a problem around here, the usb gps can also drive the delorme topo software. having topo info available in the aircraft could be useful. on a number of occasions, not having it has proven fatal.

the delorme serial emulator:

. . u might as well download delorme's serial emulator, which will allow u to drive up to three additional gps applications, in addition to the street map and topo software, using the comm ports.  i am driving the anywhere map pro software, which is an aviation based navigation system. this laptop display is 104 square inches, which beats the 8 square inches of the panel mount gps, and the software allows immediate access to many functions, without sequencing thru successive big knob little knob iterations. i have a 7 inch usb driven monitor enroute which should allow me to put the pro display where it is convenient for the pilot. this is of course used for situational awareness. god forbid we should use it for actual navigation.

. . i will follow this with a few comments on adis/ap software and some sarex uses we have found for the delorme streetmap software.

bill

[starshippe]

adis (airborne digital imaging system) and ap applications:

. . as long as we have let a laptop creep into our mission equipment, we might as well also consider the following.....

. . the adis sqtrs were, to the best of my knowledge, never published, although alabama had done an excellent job of creating a set. the adis functions have been incorporated into new, published, sqtrs for the aviation photographer.

. . the adis/ap functions involved taking sortie pictures and tagging their internal data files with the lat and lon, as determined from a gps track log, and also possibly stamping both this info and the cap seal onto the picture itself.

. . the software that does this is robo geo. and, its very nice to have on the "airborne laptop." someone needs to spring for the $80 price tag.

. . the required gps track log for robo geo is a gpx file, which is standard in garmin gps'es. typically the gps is connected via a usb cable and the track log is downloaded to the laptop. this allows for faster internal processing, and frees up the gps. the pictures are typically downloaded in a similar fashion.

. . if u want to use the delorme track log, u need only download gpsbabel. this is neat software that will convert between the delorme gpl log, the garmin gpx log, or raw nema data, and over a hundred and fifty other formats. the conversion is instantaneous. if u can afford it, make a donation.

. . i will post a link to quick instructions for both robo geo and gpsbabel.

bill

[starshippe]

ok one more airborne gps comment and i will hush:

. . having the delorme streetmap software with its gps active and breadcrumbing  while locating an elt has several advantages. 

. . the mission aircrew can devote what time they spend looking inside the cockpit to the df unit, and pay no attention to the gps. the pilot just centers and flies over the gps, continuing outbound for 40 seconds. he then starts a standard rate turn in either direction, until he can once again center on the df, and fly across it. this sequence is performed three times, and results in a pattern resembling a three bladed prop, with the elt at the center. yes, all the turns should be made in the same direction.

. . once on the ground, the position can be shown to the local law enforcement personnel, who are usually much more familiar with their streets than they are their latitude and longitude.

. . the tracks can be saved for future replaying, for training. also, the display can be saved and emailed.

bill

[ECHO35]

Here are a few programs and apps that might help with these problems.

Mobile atlas creator allows you to download and create your own maps that you can store on your phone so you are not limited to cell service to receive map data.  http://mobac.sourceforge.net/

Backcountry navigator: this is a android app which works well with the mobile atlas creator and allows you to use your phones gps rather than its cell connection.

GPS essential for android: this app is great highly recommend this if cell service is fairly consistent

[starshippe]

the promised links:

. . heres a link to a single page instruction sheet for robo geo...

. . . www.datahavenlabs.com/starshippe/robo geo classroom instruction.doc


. . and one for gpsbabel...

. . . www.datahavenlabs.com/starshippe/gpsbabel training.doc


. . it looks like there is a problem with the spaces in the doc names, but i was able to copy the line and paste it into the address window, and it worked fine.


bill