Foreflight & BadElf w/o 3G

jsstevens

jsstevens

Final Approach
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jsstevens
I made a short attempt to use my Wi-Fi iPad with a BadElf GPS to track a flight Sunday. In short, it didn't. When I pressed the start flight button (right pointing arrow at the bottom of the map display), it complained about a slow connection when loading animation. There was no connection as far as I know.

Does this setup require a data feed to work? I understand weather, etc does, but I thought I could use it as a GPS without any data connection.

What am I missing?
John
 
How long did you wait? The bad elf takes about 3-5 minutes to acquire... It's not augmented by cell towers like a cellphone gps
 
And the "start flight button" is the key to tell fore flight to animate the radar pic... There is no start flight button
 
dell30rb said:
And the "start flight button" is the key to tell fore flight to animate the radar pic... There is no start flight button
Click to expand...

Ah! I need to read more. Sigh. That's why it complained. But I still don't understand why it didn't show the "blue dot" or airplane on the chart...
 
Sorry, I'm not too up on FF, I decided to keep WingX instead. What is the GPS status showing for reception when this is going on? That was the main reason I went with the DUAL GPS unit, I can set it in the location with the best 'view' and it BTs to the iPad.
If you didn't "start flight" I would suspect the blue dot/airplane wasn't there because you were still in a planning mode where popping back to your georef is a PITA sometimes? Not real sure like I said, but if I had a good GPS constellation indicating strong, that would be where I'd be looking.
 
dell30rb said:
And the "start flight button" is the key to tell fore flight to animate the radar pic... There is no start flight button
Click to expand...

This.


If you clicked the Map button along the bottom of the screen, you would have seen your aircraft icon and it would start to move as you fly without a plan etc.

It works on the ground, so give it a go for a flight plan on the VFR sectionas\ls for instance and go for a drive to confirm the Bad Elf functions
 
I'm sure you've already done this, but you did load the Bad Elf application, right?

Also, is the light on the Bad Elf green?
 
OzPilot said:
This.


If you clicked the Map button along the bottom of the screen, you would have seen your aircraft icon and it would start to move as you fly without a plan etc.

It works on the ground, so give it a go for a flight plan on the VFR sectionas\ls for instance and go for a drive to confirm the Bad Elf functions
Click to expand...

I'll have to try it again. I was taking a friend's son for an airplane ride (he's interested in either the Air Force or Naval Academy & being a pilot), so I stopped messing with it pretty early.

John
 
Foreflight's technical support is absolutely beyond reproach! Go to blog.foreflight.com and enter an online question. They strive for replies to these questions within 10 minutes and have yet to fail in that 10 minute pledge as far as I have seen.
 
MBDiagMan said:
Foreflight's technical support is absolutely beyond reproach! Go to blog.foreflight.com and enter an online question. They strive for replies to these questions within 10 minutes and have yet to fail in that 10 minute pledge as far as I have seen.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Doc. I'll give them a try.
 
I really think you did not wait long enough... it takes several minutes to acquire. Once it does it does an excellent job of keeping a fix.

Set it on your back porch, turn off wifi, plug in the bad elf and open the foreflight map screen. Go eat a sandwich and come back, I bet you'll have a GPS fix and a blue dot. Then go test drive in your car...

As ozpilot mentioned there is a little button on the very bottom bar of the map screen that will bring up a small info display that gives your groundspeed, gps altitude, track and GPS accuracy. It will say 200m (in red) for awhile before it locks in.. when you see 10M in green you are good to go.
 
jsstevens said:
Ah! I need to read more. Sigh. That's why it complained. But I still don't understand why it didn't show the "blue dot" or airplane on the chart...
Click to expand...

If FF didn't show the dot or airplane on the chart (and the correct portion of the chart was showing), it's because it didn't know where you were. Now, that may mean that the Bad Elf didn't yet have a position solution, or that it wasn't communicating the position to the iPad for some reason. As someone else pointed out, since it's not augmented with the cell network for a quick solution, it may take several minutes to figure out where you are.

If you have the "HUD" up in ForeFlight (the four fields showing various position/track/speed type information) you probably also saw "no fix" for the GPS accuracy if you still have that as one of the fields you show, and --- for track, speed, etc. That's a dead giveaway that the iPad does not know where you are - The GPS accuracy is passed straight through from iOS, so if it says "No Fix" there will not be any app that will show your position.

I definitely agree with the suggestion to try out the entire setup on the ground - Preferably not in your car to start out with, but standing still. Sit near a window in your house, ensure you have good GPS signal, start ForeFlight, and play around with it until you're comfortable with how it works. THEN take it for a flight. :thumbsup:
 
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