Flight Following Made Simple with FindMeSpot!

For those of you unfamiliar with missionary aviation and all it entails, flight following is one of the more tedious, and important activities of the non-flying partner(s). My non-flying partner happens to be Jennifer, my wife. She actually is a pilot and also a great navigator too - but most of the time, when I am flying, her role is that of flight-following and dispatching.

We have an HF radio in the house and in the plane. In the past, when I had a flight, Jennifer would keep the radio in the house turned on and listen to the static while doing her thing with the kids or around the house. Every now and then I would transmit my position or a landing or take-off or situation and Jennifer would write it down and acknowledge the transmission. Listening to HF static for hours on end is, to say the least, tedious. It also means that she can't walk across the road to shop at the tienda or clean cloths at the creek, etc...

When I am responding to a medical emergency, I must talk to her and ask her to arrange to have ground transportation at my destination, and that might change depending on the nature of the patient. At other times, multiple emergency flights might be requested while I am airborne. When that happens, Jennifer determines which are most important and tries to coordinate my flight accordingly. At those times, an HF radio is indispensable. The rest of the time, when I am simply making position reports, it is not.

Newer, better... We recently started using a new system that allows me to notify Jennifer of my position while I am flying or on the ground, by pushing a button. The device, from "Find-Me-Spot", is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It transmits my check-in position to a "low-earth-orbit satellite" that relays the information to a server on the internet. That server stores a copy of my position and also will e-mail a copy of it to anyone I want, including Jennifer's Cell Phone (or you)!

This map shows each airstrip GCA has served since beginning here in Guatemala. Our home is marked by the YELLOW HOUSE in the upper center area (mostly covered by other airstrips). Yellow balloons indicate airstrips that are currently not usable due to poor maintenance. Blue tacks are for reference only. You can click on this map, zoom in, and generally explore with it.
Click Here to View a Larger Map

FindMeSpot also has a "Help Me" button, in case I happen to land in a place from which a take-off is not possible, and I need help. The recent installation of a solar-powered digital cell tower in our village has made it possible for Jennifer to receive text messages on her phone in this way. Technology is cool, ain't it?

All this for $150 a year (plus $150 for the SPOT unit). We bought it with help from you, GCA donors. It's making flying safer, Jennifer's job easier and improves communications overall. Thank you!

For those of you that are technically inclined: The check-in messages that FindMeSpot sends to Jennifer's e-mail includes coordinates of my location. The e-mail message includes a hyperlink that allows her to view my position on a Google Map page. That map page is also populated with the coordinates of all the airstrips that Great Commission Air has served in the past.