ELT replacement advice?

I have a real world example, Steve Fossett. His ELT was destroyed in the crash, if he had had a spot or InReach, there would have been a trace to him, or within five minutes of flight time.


On Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 8:48:41 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I have a Kannad Integra installed in my Discus CS. The fiberglass fuselage does not require an antenna of any sort in addition to the built in antenna in the unit. It works fine, I have tested it. It's an easy install and good insurance. Installation of the remote panel controls is a good idea, and also not particularly difficult.

I also have a SPOT attached to my parachute harness. I use it mostly for live tracking but it's a good backup.

I personally do not understand why people would choose a PLB over a properly installed ELT. Modern ELT work very well and are automatically activated. Assuming that you are gong to be conscious after a crash hard enough to set off an ELT is not valid in my opinion. If you are conscious, then great, manually set off your SPOT/InReach and your ELT as well!

I read some research awhile back from the NTSB, I believe, that reported less than half of the airplane crashes the transponders go off. If it wasn't mandatory I wouldn't have one in our 170B. I use a spot gen 1 attached to my parachute on the shoulder strap and looking at my traces it seldom misses a track, like once in several hundred tracks. Also Steve Fosset had two ELTs one was a wrist watch ELT that also failed.

Also Steve Fosset had two ELTs one was a wrist watch ELT that also failed.

I seem to recall from somewhere in the media that Steve was not wearing that particular ELT watch as quoted by his wife. Could be wrong.

XCSoar, Oudie and likely other soaring software offer methods to Bluetooth

position to an app on your phone which sends packets to a tracking website.


Cell coverage is often pretty good a few thousand feet up, even over areas

where there is no coverage on the ground.

At our club private owner flights go to Livetrack24. Position reports go
out
every 30 seconds or so.

Fossett was not wearing the ELT watch and would have had to been alive to activate it. I have seen the photos of the crash, he hit extremely hard and would have died instantly.

There was a show reconstructing the accident with CGI, does anyone know which channel produced that show? I have tried to find it and could not, seems like it was, Discovery, History, Smithsonian or similar.


On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 8:11:54 AM UTC-8, Duster wrote:
Also Steve Fosset had two ELTs one was a wrist watch ELT that also failed.

I seem to recall from somewhere in the media that Steve was not wearing that particular ELT watch as quoted by his wife. Could be wrong.

....Or a PLB, since he crawled away from the crash.

On 1/4/2017 10:13 PM, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
I have a real world example, Steve Fossett. His ELT was destroyed in the crash, if he had had a spot or InReach, there would have been a trace to him, or within five minutes of flight time.


On Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 8:48:41 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I have a Kannad Integra installed in my Discus CS. The fiberglass fuselage does not require an antenna of any sort in addition to the built in antenna in the unit. It works fine, I have tested it. It's an easy install and good insurance. Installation of the remote panel controls is a good idea, and also not particularly difficult.

I also have a SPOT attached to my parachute harness. I use it mostly for live tracking but it's a good backup.

I personally do not understand why people would choose a PLB over a properly installed ELT. Modern ELT work very well and are automatically activated. Assuming that you are gong to be conscious after a crash hard enough to set off an ELT is not valid in my opinion. If you are conscious, then great, manually set off your SPOT/InReach and your ELT as well!

--
Dan, 5J

Here is another great example of why I would prefer a tracker, Spot or InReach, over an ELT, Flight MH370!!!!

On Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 8:48:41 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I have a Kannad Integra installed in my Discus CS. The fiberglass fuselage does not require an antenna of any sort in addition to the built in antenna in the unit. It works fine, I have tested it. It's an easy install and good insurance. Installation of the remote panel controls is a good idea, and also not particularly difficult.

I also have a SPOT attached to my parachute harness. I use it mostly for live tracking but it's a good backup.

I personally do not understand why people would choose a PLB over a properly installed ELT. Modern ELT work very well and are automatically activated. Assuming that you are gong to be conscious after a crash hard enough to set off an ELT is not valid in my opinion. If you are conscious, then great, manually set off your SPOT/InReach and your ELT as well!