The Flying Critic

Air Traffic Controller in Ireland Uses SMS Texts to Guide Plane

The Irish Times reported last week that a controller at Cork used text messages to help a pilot down safely after the pilots twin-engined Piper lost all electrical power and radio communications:

He then lost audio telephone contact but the air traffic controller switched to texting and told the pilot that he had a primary radar signal on the aircraft and that Cork would allow them to land there. He then used texts to guide the 30-year-old plane in.

Another reason to not forget your mobile phone.

Wi-Fi On Delta's Entire Domestic Fleet By End of 2009

According to PC World, Delta will add wifi to their entire domestic airline fleet:

GoGo will cost Delta flyers $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 for flights that are longer than three hours. Delta says it expects to begin to offer in-flight Wi-Fi early 2009.

The plan is to upgrade Delta's MD88/90s during the first half of 2009 and the 737s, 757s, and 767s in the second half of 2009.

Travel Tip: Use Noise Canceling Headphones for a Better Flight

Noise canceling headphones help drown out engine noise and let you to listen to your music or movies with clarity and at lower volumes.  I even use mine when I'm not listening to music just to keep the engine noise down. 

Getting noise canceling headphones is the best $90 you can spend on yourself to have consistently more enjoyable flights.

Unlike what some of the ads you see might make you believe, noise canceling headphones don't give you silence on an airplane.  But they do make a huge difference.  I bring mine with me on every flight.

They work by adding a white noise at frequencies that cancel out the background noise of the plane engines.  If you listen to them in a quite room with the noise canceling on you will hear a hiss.  Annoying on the ground.  Wonderful in the air.

I don't use the Bose headphones that a lot of people love.  I find them big, heavy, and expensive.  I wanted an on the ear headphone because I wear glasses.  I didn't want in-ear buds because I wanted to be able to easily take them off to talk to flight attendants.  After hours of research two years ago I decided to get the Sennheiser PXC 250 Active Noise Canceling Headphones pictured above.

My Sennheiser noise canceling headphones are comfortable.  They sound great on a plane.  I think they sound better than the Bose QC2/3s that I've tried.

The headset is so light because the two AAA batteries are not in the headset like the Bose.  Instead there is a battery case that is about half way between the cables going to the headset and the audio plug.  Some people find this annoying.  It works for me as I set the battery case on the side of my seat and forget about it.  It also has a belt clip or you can put it in your pocket if you prefer to keep it attached to you. 

When people ask me what noise canceling headphones they should get I recommend the Sennheisers.  There is a newer model - the PXC 300 - that costs around $120 more than the PXC 250.  I'd go with the older PXC 250.
 

Get a free month of desktop sharing / web conference service from Glance Networks

I'm sent PR requests regularly. In other words, people asking (or begging) me for a free word about their website, product, or service.  Most of the requests are for things you would never be interested in.  But every once in awhile there is something that might help some of you.  Like this one:

Glance Networks, an online meeting service, asked me to pass along their offer of a free month of their desktop sharing service.  If you tell them about a delay or other airline problem you've had you get a free month to try out their service. Normally they only give a 7 day free trial. 

Yes, there are lots of online meeting services out there.  You've probably heard of GoToMeeting. But Glance is easy to use, gets good reviews, lets 100 people watch for the same price, runs two diverse datacenters for increased uptime, works with PCs and Macs, and isn't cluttered with unnecessary features.

Online meeting / desktop sharing services are useful if you are doing product demos, webinars, or just need someone in a different city to be able to see what is on your computer screen.  These services show other people everything that is on your computer screen on their computer screen. Often you combine the desktop sharing with a telephone conference call to have a complete web meeting experience.

Inflight WiFi? Several airlines have announced plans to start testing

The San Francisco Chronicle published an article today on the status the testing of inflight WiFi on airplanes in the USA.  It's an interesting read.   Here is their list of the status of WiFi testing by US domestic airlines:

-- Alaska Airlines: Testing wireless Internet access this summer

-- American Airlines: Testing service on 15 planes by mid-year

-- Continental: Testing limited wireless next year

-- JetBlue: Currently testing one plane offering limited Yahoo e-mail, IM chat and BlackBerry e-mail service

-- Southwest Airlines: Testing service on four planes in late summer

-- Virgin America: Testing service late this year

I question the reality of AirCell's claim regarding speed and network capacity:

The company said the setup can deliver 3 Mbps to the plane, which is compressed and allows travelers to share the equivalent of a 15 Mbps connection.

I have a hard time believing that they can deliver network capacity that is equivalent to a 15Mbps connection when the plane only will have 3Mbps of bandwidth.  Most pictures and other components of web pages are already highly compressed.  Compressing an already compressed file doesn't generally make it any smaller.

This service will work great when there are only a couple of people using it - but the more popular it becomes the worse it will be.  Don't get me wrong, I think inflight WiFi is a great idea and should be pursued.  I just don't like vendors who make promises they can't keep.

How to use your phone in other countries

An article by Jeremy Kressmann at Gadling describes how to use your cell phone in other countries.  If you are paying international roaming rates (often over $2/min) to use your cell phone in other countries you should consider getting a local SIM card in the country you are visiting. 

My normal cell phone doesn't support GSM, so I have a cheap GSM phone that I use with local SIM cards when in other countries.  I then use a VOIP call forwarding service (I currently use Vonage, but there are many other low cost providers out there) to forward my US phone number that I give to family and friends to whatever the international phone number of the SIM card that I get in the foreign country. 

This lets my family and friends call a US phone number and because of the low VOIP rates, I only pay a few cents per minute for the call to be connected to the international SIM card.  Because most international cell phones have unlimited free incoming minutes, this is a great way to save money while staying connected.