Zones of safety
 

A friend of mine once showed me a feature on his GPS called Zones of Saftey, I think is what it was called. It showed areas around the airports that were within gliding distance. If you were allways within the zones of saftey you would always be within gliding distance of an airport. I though this was a great feature. It took into account the gliding distance of your aircraft, and your altitude. As you went higher the zones got bigger. I can't find this feature on any GPS I look at now. I may be calling it the wrong name. Does anyone know of any GPS's that have this, or a similar feature?

Very cool. I was just talking with someone about exactly that concept a couple of days ago and how it could be implemented. I didn't know it already existed.

The Chelton EFIS continuously calculates your gliding range based on airspeed, altitude, wind data and terrain elevations, all of which the computer knows, and shows it as a "circle". I think it also considers turns when looking at the area behind you. Pretty cool.

Two companies implement the feature..
Chelton indicates from the aircraft. AWM indicates from the airport.
Both companies have patents on their respective methods. :(

Oh well.. Maybe someday the US Patent office will wise up on the stupidity of Software Patents. :rolleyes:

Wind?
 

Unless it computes with wind as a factor, it is not very wise, IMHO.

Zones of safety
 

I think it is called cones of safety and I have seen it on some hand held GPS units, but I don't recall which one.

Kacey

Whoa! That's like Commodore 64 terms in handhelds, isn't it? :)