So I flew from Reno -> Dallas -> RDU yesterday. Flying from Reno to Dallas, we saw some pretty amazing geography...somewhere. I think it was Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Anyway, on the Dallas -> RDU leg this spurred the crazy idea to turn on my Garmin Nuvi to see if it would actually work from the plane and to trace the path we were taking. I had a window seat, and sure enough, it worked the entire way home. Takeoff speed in the McDonnell-Douglas S80 we were on was right at 200mph. We hit a top speed of about 620 mph just before we got to the NC mountains. Landing speed was in the 170 range. From Dallas -> RDU we draw a path that took us over Texarkana, Memphis, Johnson City, and finally came into RDU from the North.

For those tech geeks among you, you'll like to try this if you can.

9/29/2009 11:54:22 AM

You son of a bitch. You could have caused an airplane to crash.

9/29/2009 11:55:31 AM

Awesome You should use your Nuvi to track 286 next time we go around It would be interesting to see the actual path...

[Edited on September 29, 2009 at 11:56 AM. Reason : .]

9/29/2009 11:56:44 AM

PLZ STOW ALL ELECTRONIKS

9/29/2009 11:56:45 AM

Quote :

"Flying from Reno to Dallas, we saw some pretty amazing geography...somewhere. I think it was Canyonlands National Park in Utah."

I've flown that route and agree that it is crazy cool. I'd love to figure out where it is and take a trip there sometime. I have pics on the laptop at home, but they're taken out of the window of a plane with a point-and-shoot digicam so they don't really capture the depth and awesomeness of the terrain.

Is the GPS unit on the list of "approved devices"?

[Edited on September 29, 2009 at 12:00 PM. Reason : l]

9/29/2009 12:00:13 PM

You son of a bitch. You could have caused an airplane to crash.

Fail Plane

9/29/2009 12:02:09 PM

Quote :

"Geeky shit on the airplane ride "

more like ILLEGAL shit on the airplane ride, amirite?

9/29/2009 12:05:07 PM

I've done that before flying between RDU and LAX. 618mph FTW!

9/29/2009 12:15:45 PM

I wish our FMS had a map database. The best we can do is compare our position to a chart.

9/29/2009 12:16:15 PM

Quote :

"Is the GPS unit on the list of "approved devices"?"

I doubt it. But it only receives signals, no emitting, so I went ahead and tried it. It honestly makes no sense that they make you turn off your iPod at any point during your travel.

9/29/2009 12:38:03 PM

I've done this too, but only for a few minutes. I had to hold it as close to the window as I could, and I never could get a speed, just location. I would have left it on but stewardesses kept walking by and I kept getting nervous.

9/29/2009 12:47:40 PM

From my flight out to san fran last summer... It worked pretty much the whole way, I was in a window seat, and it worked sitting on the tray table.



[Edited on September 29, 2009 at 1:23 PM. Reason : d]

9/29/2009 1:22:26 PM

dat interference boosta

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this message.

9/29/2009 1:23:32 PM

This is awesome

9/29/2009 1:56:59 PM

On the flight to Costa Rica they actually displayed this on the tvs. Showing our speed, temp, wind direction, distance from seal level, and flight path. It was cool as Hell. I was glued the entire time.

[Edited on September 29, 2009 at 2:34 PM. Reason : MOAR]

9/29/2009 2:33:24 PM

Quote :

"On the flight to Costa Rica they actually displayed this on the tvs. Showing our speed, temp, wind direction, distance from seal level, and flight path. It was cool as Hell. I was glued the entire time."

Pretty much any long flight that I've been on has this, but it's not very detailed (just gives larger cities and mountain ranges/bodies of water). With the GPS though, it's a lot more detailed as to what your flying over...

[Edited on September 29, 2009 at 2:39 PM. Reason : x]

9/29/2009 2:39:19 PM

Quote :

"Kickstand All American 2869 Posts user info edit post it's been my experience that a Garmin is a lot more accurate than my factory speedo btw, I once turned on a Garmin GPS on a plane and it got up to over 600 mph. lol 7/1/2009 1:45:19 PM "

OMF, I'm so coolsuch a rebel!

9/29/2009 2:39:27 PM