My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

I thought that this was pretty cool. I went to visit my daughter in Virginia last week and I brought my Garmin Venture on the plane. I couldn't get it to connect up with an aisle seat on the way up there so I tried a window seat on the way home and it worked! It was really cool knowing exactly where we were. I was able to get air speed and altitude as well. It was a whole new experience looking out the window and I'd recomend that everyone tries it.

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

I tried it with mine one time and couldn't keep a signal. When I fly between Denver and Phoenix or So California, I always see interesting geological formations, lakes, roads etc as we fly over the mountains. It kills me to not know what they are or be able to find them later.

Spud

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

I bet when you fly east or west that you'll need a window seat on the south side of the plane so that you can get a fix on the satellites since they orbit the equator.

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

I had a window but don't recall which side it was on, but that is a good thought. I will try south next time. I was able to connect with a couple of them but wasn't able to hold the link.

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

Satellites orbit the equator? As in only the equator? I thought satellites orbit the earth in all sorts of orbits.

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

I was thinking of giving it a go with my Garmin but I kinda figured I'd get heck from the flight crew because they thought I was using a cell phone on the plane. Did you get ant odd looks from people? I'll have to try it for myself.

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

No problem at all. Like any electronics you have to turn it off during takeoff and landing, but there's lots of people using I-pods and laptops.

RE: My garmin worked on an airplane!!
 

No, they don't. The GPS satellites orbit on multiple planes around the Earth, all of which are inclined to the equator and on 12 sidereal hour orbits to make the GPS signals of at least 4 satellites available over the entire planet all the time. If they were in equatorial geostationary orbits like most communications satellites, then the GPS signals would be unavailable or unreliable in the farther northern and southern latitudes.

Mike