I would suggest you carry a cell phone ( turned on) with you when you fly and possibly a new type of portable ELT, such as the Spot or other such type.
In the event of an accident, and you do not have your transponder set on 7700 or even 1200 to where we ( Civil Air Patrol) have some means to locate you, at least we can get "pings" from your cell phone and our Satellites can pick up the 406 ELT signal. In over 90% of our searches we cannot pickup the 121.5 signal on our DF quipment in our aircraft as the antenna is usually broken off upon impact. Best thing is to decide you are going to have an accident and what means do you have to insure you can be located as soon as possible. I carry a cell phone, portable VHF radio, and as I fly in the DCA ADIZ I am required to have transponder. We still have the old 121.5 ELT and when prices get down will get the 406 which is the only freq the Satellites monitor. But we would still have the problem of a broken antenna and no signal. I was involved in a recent search for a missing aircraft and we had 4 States participating in the search. No ELT signal was heard due to impact but the pilots cell was on and we were able to locate the aircraft due to triangulation of the pings from the cell towers. Another reason we could not locate it from the air was it went into a large area of tall pine trees, which only bend and usually do not break. Thus we could not see the aircraft as the trees just swallowed the aircraft and returned to their normal appearance. See you at the EOC Convention on June 25. Jim N3439H - 415C FDK ----- Original Message ----- From: Nick King To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 8:17 AM Subject: [ercoupe-tech] panel Thanks guys, I use a handheld radio and have no need or desire for a transponder. I am thrilled to know I can get rid of all this ugly weight ( no reference to my wife or my butt !!) .
