Victor’s Vectors: Record your flight with GPS tracklogs

Several years ago, I took a ride with a designated flight examiner.  It was a beautiful day; not only because of the weather but also because I passed the test with flying colors.  One thing that stuck in my memory about the flight was that the DE placed a handheld GPS up on the dash and let it sit there during the flight even though he did not reference it once.  I asked about it after passing and he said that he used the GPS to record the flight information for the test.  If there was any argument or legal battle about the flight, he could pull up the track and use it to prove his case.  He then showed me the flight we had taken on his laptop.  It included all types of information about where we had gone, our altitude, and our ground speed.  I could immediately see the advantage of having this information and I learned that he saved every tracklog for every flight test on his laptop and backed up the files.  The reason for this trip down memory lane is because I was recently reminded of the flight by a customer downloading track information to use as proof for patrolling pipe lines.  He would download the track information as proof of the flight and email the file to his employer.  Tracklogs are very handy for a multitude of reasons and are available on all of Garmin’s portable GPS products.  Also with the latest software on a GPSMAP 696 you can import and export tracklogs with the use of an SD card.  These files are gpx files and can even be viewed in Google Earth.  Do you use tracklogs for your job?  If so I’d like to hear about it in the comments below.   

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