Thursday, April 16, 2009

SPOT on Nuvi


Thursday was SPOT On!
Flying with the big boys and girl was great fun for Mike and myself. 11:00 at the rock confirmed by text and cell. - It was a day for technology to shine. Dave W., Mer, and Myself all had our SPOTs on.

Nice lift and great looking skies provided a wonderful day of flying at Baldy. Everyone went XC except Chris A who was testing out his new pod and arriving late took a toplanding option. Mike took his first ride to exit 11 - nice work. I had a Big up and Big down dusting on the top of Manastash ridge while Mer, Dave, Stefan and Steve P went toward Windmills and points north.
This blog is more about retrieve technology than flying. 7 minutes after landing on top of the ridge I got a phone call from Bob Bunger who had noted my landing on my SPOT page. He was checking to make sure I was ok and was able to answered a critical question for me: "Is it a shorter walk down the ridge or hike along the ridge to the north?" I didn't know but he did because he had me on my SPOT map. The answer was to go down the ridge directly to I82.
My phone was low on power so when I got to I-82 I turned it back on to find Mike 10 minutes away and a text message from Mer's SPOT with her Lat/Lon - I punched it into the her Nuvi on the dash and we followed the line right to her. Stefan was on the same road and we picked Mer up just as she got to the road after a 20 min drive right to her!!!
A couple of phone calls and once Dave forwarded his SPOT Lat/Lon to Mer we were off with a new target on the Nuvi and got to him 14 min later just as he finished packing his wing. - Next catch was Steve P who got a ride to E-burg and his Lat/Lon was a Texaco station and the finish line on the Nuvi brought us right to him. -
For No Brainer Retrieves:
Get a SPOT, a texting phone and a Nuvi!!!!!

LEO seems down - will post flight when it is up.
Check out this little video of Mike McIntyre from the day before.

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