On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:32:16 -0700, mark.lenox wrote:

Robert's point is very good. No matter what the naysayers say, having
a chance is better than having no chance, which is exactly what you have
if you don't have a good 406MHz ELT onboard.

I fly with a conventional transponder, a 406 MHz PLB with GPS, and SPOT.
And according to you, that gives me "no chance". I don't suppose you're
prone to wild exaggeration, are you?

The SPOT in this case unfortunately didn't perform well, but still
narrowed the search down to a few square miles. Mine works a lot better
than that. In a survivable crash, the odds are quite good that a SPOT or
InReach will survive also.




A SPOT is a good idea in addition to an ELT, but shouldn't be considered
a primary emergency device in my opinion. SPOT is for realtime
tracking when some inaccuracy is acceptable, no more, no less.

If I bail out, the SPOT is going to give extremely precise info on where
I land. Your ELT, if it survives and activates, is going to end up with
the wreckage. Which one do you think is going to give more accurate
information for recovering me?



The expectation that S&R can find you immediately without accurate
positioning information is misplaced.

In any case, someone getting to you quickly isn't going to happen, at
least where I fly. It is silly, in this day and age, not to have a GPS
sending data up to satellites. There's different ways of doing that,
they have their strengths and weaknesses. ELT's are fine, but they're
not the only solution as you seem to so strongly feel. Nothing is
perfect, and ELT's have certainly had their share of failures.

SPOT Gen3 can give 2 1/2 minute tracking, InReach can give 2 minutes if
you pay for it. Having a trail like that recorded before the crash can
be invaluable if the worst happens. In a mild crash, I'd certainly
rather have the messaging capability to direct the crew, rather than the
all or nothing signal from an ELT.

-Dave