Hurricane Lessons - The Impact of Computer Technology on Flying

When we heard that Hurricane Rita was accelerating past a Category Three and supposedly headed for Houston, we made a decision to fly our airplane out. I had been planning to fly out and see my sons in Alabama and Florida; and so, we decided to head off in that direction. Flying that far east seemed to make sense; it wasn’t impossible that the hurricane would turn that far east. But no matter where we went, the decision to fly the airplane out meant I had to plan the flights out.

We flew to Troy, Alabama from Friendswood, Texas and spent a few days there waiting for the hurricane to do its worst. Luckily for us but unluckily for the folks just a touch to the east, the hurricane turned more to the north than expected. Yet, during the whole time we watched and waited, we had instant access to the latest information via television or the Internet.

Some form of computer technology positively impacted every phase of the flight out, our time there, and the flight back.

I belong to the Airplane Owners and Pilots’ Association, and they provide me with a Real Time Flight Planning software tool. Running on Windows, the software hooks up via the Internet with servers at AOPA and downloads the latest flight restrictions around the country, plotting them on a map of the United States. (I actually run this software on my 1.5 GHz G4 PowerBook under Virtual PC 7.02 and Windows XP SP2.) This allows me to plot my routes around these areas, and this is a critical task at this time in our country’s general aviation history. While the FAA does have a website where these areas are depicted, being able to actually plot routes around them adds a whole different and more usable dimension to my abilities.

Likewise, the use of Global Positional Satellites as a navigational aid in light aircraft has become a major factor in keeping pilots cognizant of where they are and how a flight is progressing. Advances in computer technology now means I can haul on board my aircraft a portable GPS unit with a 256-color display that shows me my flight path, the terrain, and even superimposes weather radar depictions over my current moving map display. I no longer have to figure out my groundspeed or my wind correction angle; the GPS’s computer can do it for me.

If I owned a PDA running Pocket PC software, I could load it with a software application named “Anywhere Map” that, once hooked up to a GPS, will provide a moving map complete with the aircraft’s current location, projected path, a ring graphically depicting the aircraft’s glide range, and even graphical depictions of the FAA’s Temporary Flight Restrictions updated daily. This software can be run with other packages that also superimpose weather radar information over the moving map and the package also contains all the airport information one would ever want. My GPS or my PDA could display runway length and width, a graphic showing the runway orientations, communication frequencies, pattern altitudes, what facilities are located on the field, and even what restaurants and hotels may be nearby.

Additionally, when I’m on the ground, I use my laptop or a computer located within a FBO (Fixed Base Operator, a business that sells aircraft related services at an airport) to check the latest weather reports, find out what the forecasts for anywhere are, look at the current weather radar pictures for that area, and check for new flight restrictions. I can even use my cell phone, which has a color display, to get the same information via the web or via subscription based services available over my phone’s digital network.