trackers for paragliding emergency situations
Use case: you were paragliding in Switzerland and just crashed somewhere that you won’t be able to get out by yourself.
FANET
idk
mobile phone
limited to range but still pretty good within many area of Switzerland
Rega app can speed up localisation considerably
see Swissglider from July-August 2023 page 22 for related story
beware of battery usage
SPOT
monthly fee
doesn’t work well under trees
satellites just bounce the signal to ground station
inReach / Iridium
monthly fee
protegear has a “tracking day” plan at 49€/y + 2.48€/d of use
bit better than spot under tree?
better coverage / more reliable than spot
no monthly cost
need to pay for battery replacement every 5-7y
no custom non-emergency message
tiny range (80m?), completely passive
Tom wrote:
We all understand that live tracking systems have two major benefits in case of an accident:
1. The emergency rescue services know where to look, which massively increases your chances of being found while you're still saveable.
2. The search services know where to look, which massively reduces the costs of the search and means that your loved ones don't have to create a gofundme page to find you and they get closure on your death much more quickly, saving them both stress and money.
There are at least five live-tracking systems that I'm currently aware of:
1. Mobile phone data-based systems like XCTrack, Burnair, Google Maps location sharing, SafeSky, and so on. These have very good coverage in Switzerland and are no-brainers. Please, run at least one of these apps, even if you don't use it as your flight computer.
2. FLARM-based systems. FLARM has pretty good coverage through projects like OGN and SkyLens. The coverage is not necessarily better than mobile phones, but it is different, so you increase your chances.
3. FANET is pretty much the same as FLARM, but has an extra repeater step from aircraft near you. You should get better coverage than FLARM, assuming that there are aircraft near you.
4 and 5. InReach and Spot. These have been well covered above.
Please know that if something happens to you then your friends and the authorities will use every means to find you. When a pilot disappears we get a call at FLARM to see if we have data on their last possible location.
Short-range inaccurate localization like Recco and scanning for your mobile phone is generally not enough to save you. At best, it might help people find your body in a gorge or forest two weeks after your accident.
So, please do turn on whatever live tracking systems you have. Even a little helps a lot. You, your friends, and your family will be grateful.