In flight signal or gps help

[philipneeper]

Does anyone fly with an ipad or iphone using foreflight based off the phone itself? do you lose signal about a certian altitude? do you recommend a gps reciver? im looking to start using my iphone with foreflight when i fly my trips but im curious if i will lose gps signal above a certian altitude. i seen this on aircraft spruce http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/dualxgps.php. would it do me any good? thanks yall

[N33GG]

I have been using the iPad with ForeFlight and only the internal gps receiver in the iPad for over a year now. My aircraft also has two panel mounted gps units with external antennas, so the iPad is not critical, and I have not purchased another gps to support its operation. However, I am amazed at how well the internal gps in the iPad works. Acquisition is super fast, accurate, and rarely, if ever, loses signal in the cockpit of my C-Model.

If the iPad was my only gps, I would probably purchase an external gps unit such as the one you are looking at. There are several similar units on the market, and I have heard they work quite well, although I have not used one personally. For the money, it would be cheap insurance, IMHO.

[Freight Dog]

You'll lose your cell phone signal if you leave it on, but from what I've seen, as long as you have your Foreflight items downloaded, you shouldn't lose your GPS signal regardless of altitude. Cell reception and GPS signal are 2 different things.

http://www.foreflight.com/support/gps

[philipneeper]

thanks so much for the insight.... and happy thanksgiving ! ! !

[PilotDerek]

I use the dual gps with foreflight. It is my only gps. I haven't had any problems. Where I fly I can't get cell phone reception on the ground or in the air most of the time.

[Jerry 5TJ]

Does anyone fly with an ipad or iphone using foreflight based off the phone itself? do you lose signal about a certian altitude?

I've been using the IPad + ForeFlight with just the IPad3's internal GPS all over the US this year. It has been fine at altitudes into the flight levels. I can't think of any reason it would not work above a certain altitude, unless you were to fly above the GPS satellite constellation. As they are orbiting about 11,000 miles up, that's not a problem in a normally-aspirated Mooney.

[Hector]

Since I ditched paper charts I do use Foreflight on both an IPad mini and my iPhone 5 as backup. I have found the GPS on the IPad/IPhone to be unreliable at times so I currently use a Bluetooth Bad Elf Pro GPS. What I like about this particular GPS is the fact that it can connect via Bluetooth with up to 5 devices so it will drive both the iPad and iPhone simultaneously with room to spare.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[carusoam]

GPS based on satellites, the higher you go, the closer to the signal you get. All good.

My Narco radios were known to bleed signals that would confuse my Portable Garmin 196. Narcos are gone, all good.

Cell phone signals often disappear at altitudes above a few thousand feet, but that is not what supplies GPS location.

You can improve GPS reception as PerezHR has indicated.

Placement of the device or it's antenna may solve your challenge...

Practice with your device to understand it's operation, and obviously don't rely on it for primary navigation...

Best regards,

-a-

[harrispa]

i fly with a friend in a King Air. Early on it was discovered that the Ipad gps was lost at altitudes usually above about 15,000, not always, but it was unreliable. First a Bad Elf was used with success at all atitudes, and now we use the Skyradar ADS-B box which has an internal GPS. I now use the same (IPAD and Skyradar Box) in my Mooney and it works great with weather in flight.

Paul

[Jeff_S]

I have never had a GPS signal problem while using the iPad's internal GPS flying in my Mooney, but it does lose signal when I'm flying inside the big blue and white Delta tubes as they get to cruising altitude. I don't know if there's more interference or what, but it becomes unreliable. Since I bought the Stratus ADS-B device for ForeFlight, that has become the primary GPS receiver for the iPad and it is rock solid, with stated 1m accuracy levels.

[philipneeper]

thank you very much! happy holidays