Nokia Eseries @ 777km/h
Inspired by a previous post on this blog about the Nokia E61i in the air, I decided to try something similar.
Bored out of my mind on a flight back from Redmond, I took out my Nokia E61i, paired it with my GPS module and fired up TomTom to see where we were flying and how fast we were going.
OK, perhaps not the most exciting form of inflight entertainment but I couldn't resist the temptation to see how easy it would be to acquire a gps signal in the plane.
It worked pretty well. I dropped the signal once but apart from that encountered no other issues.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Gonna try that on my next flight to NJ.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
My flight was half empty and I had whole row to myself.
However, I wouldn’t recommend doing this if you are on a jam packed flight. You never know what your fellow passengers will think that you are up to. In these days you don’t want to cause concern or panic on a flight so be careful!
Cheers
Ed
August 13th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
You’re right. N95 would’ve been much safer
August 13th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Cool now you could land the plane if you needed to!
Are you allowed to operated BT devices inflight? I though it might mess with the plane controls.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Do these bars actually indicate that you had cellphone coverage up there?
August 13th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Hi X-man.
Oops, you might be right. Glad we landed safely.
Hi Alexander,
Nah! it is just the battery indicator when you use TomTom.
Cheers
Ed
August 13th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
hmmm, I don’t know whether you are even allowed to use GPS in planes, forget what other people think.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
GPS is allowed as well, see this nice overview (Don’t know if it’s valid in every airspace): http://www.airsafe.com/issues/ped.htm
Seems that radiofrequenties are mainly prohibited
August 14th, 2007 at 12:24 am
that’s awesome! May I ask what GPS module are you using? I’ve been planning to get one myself for my move to Japan
August 14th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I tried doing the same on my flight from Bijing to Dubai but the guy next to me was like please shut down your phone , please turn it off , I even told him it’s Off line i.e. no signals but he didn;t let me use it , beside all those funky lights on my GPS module sure made it look suspicious , will use it next week on my flight from Karachi to Islamabad and on mountain tracking at bhurban will be fun
August 14th, 2007 at 4:48 am
GPS receivers are fine because they don’t emit any signal. The problem is that sometimes you use Bluetooth to communicate your mobile phone with your GPS receiver module so you’re not just receiving in this case. I’ve seen some discussions about this time ago on Slashdot:
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/1915237
Also remember some airlines planning to deploy bluetooth on planes so most probably it isn’t a big issue. Bluetooth has very low power.
Federico
http://parkingonline.blogspot.com/
August 14th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Cool now you could land the plane if you needed to!
August 14th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Whatever helps pass the time!!! That does sound pretty cool. I’ve never used a GPS on an airplane, my only experience is with them in the car. I noticed you said you fired up your TomTom. I have been using the ONE XL. Would that work on an airplane? I mean, it works great in the car, but I’ve never thought about taking it on a plane for fun.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I have tried this on a couple of EU flights with Nokia Maps on an E70 and a Holux 236 bluetooth receiver. Basically, if you are sitting by the window and leave the GPS receiver on the elbow support you have no problem with the signal.
It is also cool to use it during take-off and landing to observe the attitude-speed pattern. It seems that most planes stay at take-off speed of 260-280 km/h until they reach 500 m altitude then gain a little bit of speed then go to a mixed speed and attiude gain.
Regarding the bluetooth/phone/wifi not use during flight. It is all bullshit. You should not use the cell phone during take-off and landing because it confuses the terrestrial towers. However the impact on the plane system is nil. I reckon 2-4 years from now all use will be freely allowed.
August 16th, 2007 at 2:11 am
Back in the early days of gps i tracked a few flights with a magelan 315. Prepared in advance a written request for pilots explaining the passive nature of a gps receiver. Permission was always granted at cruising altitude. It was fun although back then the magelan had a hard time locking onto 3 or more satellites. Glad to here technology makes it easier today, especially with an e-series device!
August 16th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I beat you on the speed
It was a BITCH to get the signal though. I was in business class and the f/a looked at me and shook her head but I put her at ease by telling her the phone radio was off.
http://ordxpres.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/high-in-the-sky/
Maciek
http://www.symbiosis60.com
P.S. I’m trying to get some readers on my blog - all are invited to comment / link to my site.
August 18th, 2007 at 7:33 am
admin, I am sure those bars are the signal strength of the GPS fix, not the battery
August 18th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Karl,
I stand corrected. You are right, those bars represent the signal strength of the GPS.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Cheers
Ed
August 18th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Interesting.
On a loosely related note: what cradle/mount would you guys would recommend for the car (with E61i)? I need it for travel, so it needs to be easy mount on the windshield (and light).
Any thoughts/experience?
August 19th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Hi Boris,
Check out this blog post:
http://www.e-series.org/archives/358
Cheers
August 21st, 2007 at 1:56 am
Cool. Can you tell us what version of TomTom you are using please? I tried V6.02(0) on the latest E61i firmware and the app wouldn’t start up. Feedback from other forums says TomTom 6 won’t work on an E61i…. Cheers, Mark.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hi MarkT.
I was actually using my Nokia E61, I made that my dedicated GPS device after I bought the E61i. I am using App version 6.01.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
What is really cool is to use sports tracker from nokia and track the whole flight. Then export to google earth and watch your journey.
September 8th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Been there done that
On a short one hour flight from Vienna to my hometown 
PS: hope that simple html works here in the comments
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27735086@N00/271632896/
October 25th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
[...] did it again. But this time faster. My previous post about using TomTom with a GPS receiver on my Nokia E61 while flying generated a lot of good [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Mates,
See my screenshots… I thing that is a new record
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vmartins/sets/72157603383701054/
Regards,
Vinicius
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:47 am
Hi, I have E61i. Should I have extra module to use GPS.?