400 Starlink Internet for Pilots: Safety, Costs, and Future Tech with Sporty’s Bret Koebbe

Interactive Transcript

Speaker A Have you ever wished that you had reliable Internet in the cockpit when you fly instead of that spotty connection we sometimes get on our phone? Today, Brett Kobe of Sporties tells us how to use Starlink in most any GA aircraft. He talks about the benefits, the cost, and the safety risk involved. And to make it easier for you to buy the various bits and pieces we'll talk about, I've included links for all of these devices@aviationnewstalk.com avoid Internet hello again and welcome to Aviation News Talk, where we talk general aviation. My name is Max Prescott. I've been flying for 50 years. I'm the author of several books and the 2008 National Flight Instructor of the Year, and my mission is to help you become the safest possible pilot. In episode 399, we talked with Civil Air Patrol's Cyril Cronenberg about the common mistakes that delay crash pilots from being found and the simple steps you can take that could one day save your life. So if you didn't hear that episode, you may want to check it out@aviationnewstalk.com 399. And if you're new to this show, welcome. Now if you would, take a moment right now in whatever app that you're using and touch the subscribe key, or if you're using Spotify or the Apple podcast app, the Follow key so that next week's episode is downloaded for free. Also, I'm excited to announce that this week we're going to have NTSB board member Michael Graham featured on Episode 13 of the NTSB News Talk Show. And just to give you an idea of the kind of attention that show is getting, the NTSB reached out to us to see if we'd like to have member Graham on the show. And of course Rob, Mark and I said yes. And you can check out that show and all of our other shows at our network website, which is aviationnewstalknetwork.com or wherever you get your podcast. And if you'd like to support this show, boy, this would be a really great time to do it. And I'll tell you why. It's the end of the month and every month we always lose some supporters whose credit cards expire. So we're always looking for new supporters just to replace the ones we lose each month. So if you haven't done so already, please sign up now to support the show. It's so easy to do. Just go out to aviationnewsdoc.com support and when you do, I'll read your name on a future show Coming up on the news for the week of September 29, 2025aman who crashed a drone into a firefighting plane gets prison time Proposed rules would give drones right of way under 400ft AGL and we have a story about a pilot who landed his plane at a Navy base without permission not once but twice. All this and more and the news starts now from Gizmodo.com, la Man sentenced to 14 days in prison for accidentally crashing drone into a firefighting plane 57 year old man has been sentenced to federal prison and 30 days of home detention for flying a drone that collided with a firefighting aircraft during the Palisades fire in Los Angeles back in January. The man pleaded guilty in February to recklessly operating a drone that crashed into a Super Scooper firefighting plane. That aircraft, a Canada Air CL415, was damaged and grounded when it should have been fighting the fires that were raging just north of la. He was charged with one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, a misdemeanor which potentially carried a term of up to one year in prison. As part of a previous plea agreement, he will also complete 150 hours of community service. His lawyers shared a message saying that he was deeply sorry about damaging the aircraft and he accepts responsibility for his graveyard judgment and is cooperating with the government in efforts to make amends. From generalaviationnews.com Proposed rules would give drones right of way under 400ft AGL an analysis of the Notice to propose rulemaking released in August aimed at enabling Autonomous Unmanned Aerial System operations or uas, beyond visual line of sight or BV loss shows the proposed rules will have implications for all users of the National Airspace System in large and small ways, according to officials from eaa. EAA paid particular attention to areas of concern to GA pilots, they wrote. Of critical importance to GA pilots, the NPRM proposes changes to 91.113 right of way rules giving the right of way to UAS conducting operations under part 108 unless a manned aircraft is equipped with the either rule compliant ADS B or a proposed portable beacon. So what that means is if you're flying out there without ADS B out, you will have to give way to the drone. According to this continues that drones must also avoid airports, heliports and seaplane bases and must have secondary avoidance systems called Detect and Avoid when operating in Class B and Class C airspace. Quote in all other airspace within the part 108 operating regime of 400ft AGL and below, a drone would have the right of way over manned aircraft not broadcasting a signal, EAA officials said. We have significant issues with the practical day to day application of right of way rules with manned aircraft obliged to avoid a drone unless equipped, they continued. A balloon, for example, may well be incapable of avoiding a drone, even with plenty of warning. See and avoid has always been a mutual obligation regardless of who has the right of way, the analysis noted. We believe that UAS should similarly see and avoid in all airspace. Comments on the proposal can be accepted through October 6, 2025 at regulations.gov from AVWeb.com no Age Cutoffs with new insurance model that's important to all of us as we get older and find it's a little bit more difficult to get insurance, it says. Minneapolis based 5x5 Aviation Insurance has entered the market with a direct consumer model focused on high end owner flown aircraft. The company is launching underwriting services in Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois and Virginia with plans to expand to all 48 contiguous states within a year. The leadership team, made up of pilots and aircraft owners, said the goal is to simplify coverage while offering customized options. 5x5's policies will initially cover light jets and turboprops such as the TBM Piper M Class, Pilatus PC12, Cessna Citation and Cirrus Vision Jet, along with modern piston singles and twins from the likes of Cirrus, diamond and Cessna. Unlike traditional insurers, the company is removing blanket rules such as age based restrictions and instead tying underwriting decisions to ongoing training and safety practices. This comes at a time when industry premiums are reaching 20 year highs. The company's technology driven process includes an instant estimate tool, which 5x5 sets can provide a ballpark figure within minutes and and detailed quotes in about 10 minutes. Pilots can also qualify for larger discounts by sharing flight data and demonstrating regularly recurring training or holding certain association memberships. And also from AVWeb.com, sling Pilot Academy announces rollout of flight training AI Sling Pilot Academy has partnered with Navi AI that's n a V I to bring artificial intelligence into its accelerated pilot training programs. The Torrance, California based school said the collaboration will give students and instructors access to tools supporting ground school preparation, real time flight analytics and post flight debriefs. The system will also provide tailored post flight feedback through what the company says are data driven analytics with the aim of helping students to move more quickly through key competencies. Navi AI's predictive technology will be used to support scenario planning, risk analysis and decision making. Sling Pilot Academy said the integration reflects a broader shift in aviation toward technology driven training. Earlier this year, US Aviation Academy in Denton, Texas introduced what it called the first AI driven aviation knowledge system for student pilots, largely based on ground knowledge training. From Aeronews.net NTSB Final Report on a Cirrus SR22 this reports about November 858 Romeo Charlie occurred on December 26, 2023 6:13pm which would have been in dark night conditions at Canton, Texas. The analysis reads the pilot was attempting a night visual approach to a private airport that had solar deck lights as Runway lights. The witness heard the pilot make radio transmissions for the downwind base and final approach legs of the traffic pattern before the airplane impacted trees and terrain east of the Runway. The plane was destroyed by impact forces and the pilot was killed. Non volatile data from the airplane showed the approach was approximately parallel to and about 340ft east of the Runway before the tree line which the airplane struck. So essentially the aircraft was making its approach on final while offset from the Runway by about the width of a football field, which tells us the pilot must have had something else in sight that he believed was the Runway. The data also showed that the engine operated with no anomalies throughout the approach and impact with terrain. Based on available evidence, it was undetermined why the pilot performed an inadequate and visual approach. Probable cause the pilot's failure to attain the Runway while landing at night, which resulted in an impact with trees. From generalaviationnews.com Cessna 150 crashes after student pilot Fails to Relinquish Controls the CFI and the student pilot were landing the tailwheel equipped Cessna 150 at Noonan Coeta County Airport KCCO near Atlanta. The CFI told investigators the student's wheel landing was at the proper speed and aligned with the Runway but with a slight left drift. The student applied right rudder along with inadvertent right brake pressure. The CFI announced eye of the aircraft but felt significant resistance on the flight controls. He repeated the call as the airplane approached the right side of the Runway. As the airplane progressed toward the grass off side of the Runway, the flight instructor again verbalized that he was trying to take control of the airplane as the student pilot applied both brakes. The airplane then abruptly stopped and nosed over. Probable cause the CFI's inadequate remedial action and the student pilot's failure to relinquish the flight controls as directed by the CFI resulting in a loss of control and nose over from AVWeb.com Bristol B23 receives FAA type certification BRM Aero, the Czech based manufacturer of Bristol aircraft, announced its two seat Bristol B23 has received type certification from the FAA under part 23. The aircraft already certified under EASA in Europe has logged more than 1100 deliveries worldwide since 2009, the company says. There are nearly 100 other Bristol aircraft already operating in the US used by both private owners and flight schools. Equipped with a 100 horsepower Rotax 912 S3, the now certified B23 features a 2000 hour TBO and fuel burn of about 4.5 gallons per hour with approval for both 100 low lead and unleaded automotive fuel, according to the company. Training organizations can expect up to 35% lower operating cost compared to many traditional trainer models, Bristol says the B23 offers a 700 nautical mile range, 1,654 pound maximum takeoff weight, 662 pound useful load and a 51 inch wide cockpit, the widest in its class, according to the manufacturer. It also includes a BRS parachute system. Deliveries of this certified B23 are scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025 through Bristol's North American dealer network and finally from military.com man landed private Planet Navy base twice, causing California island lockdown A San Diego man who was previously warned against landing his private plane on a Pacific island that is part of a U.S. navy base flew there again in April and stole a truck, causing a lockdown. The man, aged 37, landed his glass star on a San Clemente island naval airstrip for the second time on April 6 when he abandoned the aircraft, drove around the military installation in the stolen Navy truck and evaded capture overnight. While driving the vehicle, he destroyed multiple gates and visited different locations that had been blocked off on the island, which is a part of LA county and Naval Base Coronado. The pilot is now facing prison time. He pleaded guilty to theft of government property in excess of $1,000 and illegal entry into a naval installation, according to a press release. Quote, whatever the pilot's intentions were, the military did not know them. They responded as one might expect the military to respond to an unknown threat. They assumed the worst. The island went on a complete lockdown. The man was detained by federal authorities after prosecutors said, quote, he violated the terms of his bond by cutting off his ankle bracelet earlier this year. According to prosecutors, the man first flew his plane to San Clemente without permission on October 29, 2023. In court documents, his attorneys argued his, quote, curiosity got the most of him. San Clemente island, owned by the Navy since 1937, is home to the Navy's Sol Live Firing Range. There, the Navy and Marine Corps train in all aspects of warfare, including gunnery, bombardment, aerial defense and anti sub and electronic warfare. After first flying to the Navy base, the Navy told the pilot not to come back. He was issued a letter, which he acknowledged and signed, informing him that it's a federal offense to visit San Clemente island without Navy approval. But he went back on April 6. The pilot is now facing up to 10 years in prison on the charge of theft of government property and up to six months in prison on the charge of illegally entering a naval installation. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of six months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The pilot has agreed to give up his private plane, to not renew or use his pilot certificate, and to avoid San Clemente Island. No word on where he's now going to go to get his hundred dollar hamburgers. Coming up next, a few of my updates, including where I've been the last couple of weeks. And then we'll talk with Brett Kobe about how you can fly in most any GA aircraft with reliable Internet service. And of course, we have links for all those devices you'll need@aviationnewstalk.com Internet but first, and now, here's a headset Minute by Lightspeed with Derek Schmidt. Derek, sometimes when I fly with a pilot who's just bought a new headset, they'll tell me that they're only hearing out of one of the earcups and not the other. Explain to us what's going on.

Speaker B Well, the first thing I would ask this pilot is if they had tried adjusting the mono stereo switch on their headset. Radios and intercoms are wired to send either a single audio signal to the headset, which is called mono sound, or two separate audio signals to the headset, which is called stereo sound. If the radio and intercom sends two separate audio signals to the left and right ear cups, but the pilot's headset is set to receive only that single audio signal. It'll receive the audio signal in just one of the ear cups, leaving the other one blank. Luckily for most pilots, especially those who own premium AR headsets, they have the flexibility to receive either in mono or stereo sound. All the ANR headsets at lightspeed, for example, have a mono stereo toggle switch located in the controller. They open the controller's battery box and remove the batteries. There's six switches in most of our headsets underneath there, and the one on the far left is the mono stereo switch which they can adjust from one position to the other just using a small toothpick or tool really. For close to 20 years or more, most headset and intercom manufacturers have been making equipment with stereo options in it. And while you don't need the two separate audio signals to necessarily hear ATC better, they will make your favorite flying playlist sound much fuller and more pleasurable when listening in stereo versus mono sound. Stereo sound is also allowed for the development of newer technologies like 3D audio, which allow COM1 to play louder in one ear of the headset and COMM2 to play a little louder in the other. Really, whether you're just looking to get the latest equipment or new technologies like 3D audio, or you just want that playlist to sound the best while you're flying, stereo options are usually the way to go for most pilots.

Speaker A Derek, thanks so much for that quick fix. Hopefully that'll save somebody a trip to the avionics shop.

Speaker B Happy to help Max.

Speaker A Now let's get to the good news. First, this comes from Julie da Cruz. She wrote I just passed my commercial this morning. Your show was of great help. I listened to your 2020 podcast with Jason Blair on the commercial pilot checkride. At the beginning of my training I thought I would never be able to learn how to master lazy eights. I took his advice pitch, pitch back and make sure the first 45 degrees of the maneuver looked great. I practice it so much in the air or chair flying that I became pretty good at it. Funny story, I was never asked to demonstrate it during my test. Lastly, I promised myself that if I passed the test I would treat myself to the lightspeed headset. To confirm, I need to click on the link on your site for you to receive the donation. Julie First, I love your name. That's the name of my oldest daughter. Second, congratulations on passing your commercial. That's great. And thanks so much for buying a lightspeed headset in a way that supports the show. Just to remind everyone else to do that, go first to that special link that we've set up and you want to go first to aviationnewstalk.com lightspeed and if you do that, that will take you to the Lightspeed website and they will send a check to help support the show. And I just want to say I'm so sorry I was unable to produce new episodes for you during the last few weeks. That occasionally happens when my life gets crazy busy. As you know, I also create episodes for our three other podcasts, NTSB News Talk, the Rotary Wing show, and UAV News Talk, and that has taken a lot of time. And then there are the unusual things that crop up, such as my need to migrate my MaxRescott.com blog to a new site before the company that used to host it shut down and unfortunately it was not in a common format, so that required a lot of work to transform it into a more common WordPress format. And I don't post as much as I used to on the blog, but I wanted to keep it around as I'd made over 300 posts over a 17 year period and I didn't want all that work to disappear. And then there are the funky family things that crop up as well, like spending nearly a week at my daughter's home while she and her husband were away at a wedding. And so while we were there we had full responsibility for their two kids, ages 2 and 4, which is a lot of work. So as they say, sometimes life just gets in the way. But I'm back and I thank you for sticking around. I already have next week's show recorded, which is good as I'll be in the Boston area for almost a week flying around with a listener who just bought a Vision Jet, so we'll be flying around the country to help him gain experience. Those trips are always a lot of fun and I'll share more details about what that was like after the trip. And as you know, I write a monthly column for Flying Magazine. In addition, I occasionally write feature articles for the magazine and a few months after these columns and articles appear in print, Flying off and post them online where everyone can read them for free. And the feature article I wrote on my first flight in Electric Airplane is now available online. In it, I wrote in 2011, I glimpsed the future when I saw an electric airplane fly at EAA Airventure in Oshkosh. Fourteen years later, I've finally flown an electric airplane for the first time. It's the Bristol B23 Energic, which is now touring in the US giving demonstration flights. Now that of course is the electric version of the Bristol B23. A few minutes ago in our new segment, I mentioned that the piston version of the Bristol B23 has just been certified in the US under Part 23. It was a very fun airplane to fly. If you'd like to read the full article, just go out to our show notes@aviationnewsdog.com 400 speaking of 400, I just want to mention that this is the 400th episode of the show. I know hard to believe I started the show back in April of 2017. So we've been around for eight and a half years and the show has become popular beyond my wildest imagination. As I've mentioned before, There are over 250 aviation podcasts, and while the rankings change almost on a daily basis, the show typically ranks among the top couple of shows. And you have contributed a lot to that success and I want to thank you for that. For example, I get lots of email from you and other listeners and you send me many great suggestions that I would never have thought of. For example, one of our Patreon supporters, Philippe Archambault, contacted me a few weeks ago and suggested the topic for today's show, which is all about using Starlink to bring Internet into your airplane. Now, I'd seen a few postings in various forums about this, but it never occurred to me that this would be a fun topic to explore. So sometimes all it takes is for someone like Philippe or you to contact me and suggest something that I just hadn't thought about for a show topic. But I wish I had time to reply to all of the emails that I received. So I do apologize for that. I do read all of your emails, but please realize that it's just me here that does everything. I don't have any staff or helpers to share in the workload, so unfortunately, responding to email is one of those tasks that's down at the bottom of the list. I often don't get to. And by the way, responding to social media is something that I never get to. As I say at the end of every show, the best way to reach me is to go to aviationnewstalk.com and click on Contact at the top of the page. If instead you try to reach me via social media, well, there's a chance I won't even see your message. So please contact me through the website. Coming up next, our conversation with Brett Kobe of Sporty's about how easy it is for you to use Starlink Internet when you fly. All right here on the Aviation News Talk podcast. In a moment, we'll talk with Brett Kobe. But first, I want to thank Sporty's for doing something special to help support this show. They've done something they don't routinely do, which is they've set up some affiliate links so that whenever you buy certain products from them, they will donate to support this show. Aviation News Talk. Now, the first group of products is a very important group that I'm sure you're familiar with, and that's the Foreflight Sentry line of Ads B receivers. You're probably already familiar with the products as they're very popular for use with the Foreflight app. There are three models with various features that range in price from $399 up to $799. All of the models bring you free weather information through the FAA's FISB service, and all of the models display traffic information about most of the airplanes flying around you. If you don't have any way to display traffic when you fly, then you definitely want to buy one of these receivers. And if you already have traffic in your aircraft, you may want to buy a century anyway simply so that you have a backup way to get traffic and weather. And whenever you happen to buy a century, please do it by first going to the special link we've set up for you and then go from there to Sporty's website when you make your purchase. So whenever you buy a Century receiver, go first to aviationnewstock.com ads B. That's all four letters together with no-in ads B. Or you can go to aviationnewstock.com sentry that's S, E, N, T, R, Y. Either of those links will work. And Sporty's will also support the show. Whenever you buy any of the Internet products, we'll talk about today and you'll find those@aviationnewstalk.com Internet and now let me tell you a little about Brett Kobe. Brett is a senior vice president at Sporty's, and he leads the video production and pilot training course development team. He's a master cfi, holds an ATP certificate, and he flies professionally in a Cessna Citation. He's also the editor of ipadpilotnews.com and now here's our conversation with Brett Kobe. Well, Brett, welcome to the show. So great to have you here.

Speaker C Thanks, Max. Great to be here.

Speaker A Well, there's been a lot of buzz in pilot forums that I read talking about Starlink, and everybody's talking about how do I get a good Internet connection while flying my small aircraft? And tell us about that. What are some of the things people are using the Internet for when they're flying along?

Speaker C Yeah, you know, it's funny because we flew for what, over a century now without Internet, and now the technology's there and we're going to find a way to make the most of it. And I think every pilot can think of some point in their flying career that they wish they had some way to connect to the ground. Talking to air traffic control is Great. But sometimes you want to be able to communicate with family, give them updates on what time you're going to be landing, maybe the headwind stronger than forecast, update the FBO when you're going to be there for fuel. And there's ways to do that right now over, you know, radio frequencies, there's limited text messaging, but we really don't have that good reliable way to connect with the ground until now. And that's with Starlink Mini and the Starlink satellite network system. And it's opened up a lot of opportunities for pilots, good and bad as we'll cover later on. But the biggest thing I see is again, given those updates, we like to just say, hey, we're doing well. You know, maybe 50 family's worried about a flight, some weather along the way, they want to know that you're doing okay or again, what time you're going to land to pick you up at the airport. And so just that extra communication value is huge there. And that's where the early satellite connectivity really started. Things from AirText and Iridium and other products. But now we've got broadband capabilities, which means in theory, if you wanted to, you could stream video, you could watch movies, and that's great for your passengers. That's not what the pilot should be doing, obviously. So from the pilot perspective, we look at other safety services that it can provide and that could be things like more advanced weather products that we could look at in flight. I think right now ADS B weather for most of us is considered standard equipment. So we're not really solving that data link weather problem anymore. But think about sending weather also the ability to file a pirate report. We can do that over the frequency. But you look in foreflight, right, you don't see thousands of pilot reports from GA pilots out there at any given moment because that's a clunky process to call air traffic control or if you remember or know how, how to call flight service if they're listening. So the ability in my opinion, to even send weather back to the ground is a great feature. And if we all filed one pilot report from our iPad because we had Starlink, think about how much better the weather data would be in real time out there for, for other pilots to help make their decision based on what you're actually seeing.

Speaker A Those are all good uses for it. You know, you mentioned one bad use, which would be the, the pilot watching videos while they're flying along. Interestingly, just a few days ago I saw on Twitter or X a pilot posted that he was Enjoying flying along in his cirrus as he was coding, he had the laptop right there, he was connected via Starlink and he was writing code while flying in the left seat. What do you think about that as a use for StarLink?

Speaker C We got two problems there. A absolutely not it can be used for again I think safety purposes or updating your data communications. Definitely not for entertainment to that level where you're that disengaged from actually flying the airplane and using it for business purposes. And that's where it really takes some self control to use it properly. Another way I like to use this right now. And Foreflight recently added weather cameras which are mainly in Alaska. You know, the mountainous regions. There's some more out west. I fly in the Midwest, so not a whole lot in this area. But being able to look at a weather camera, you know, another great use of the technology that I can check AWAS or asos, but if I can actually see what it looks like on all four corners of the airport, you know, the picture's worth a thousand words and much better than an automated AWAS frequency. So yeah, there's another great use case. There is as the weather camera system evolves and I think it'll kind of go hand in hand that when we have access to Internet and weather cameras that might really drive airports in the less mountainous regions, the less dynamic weather regions to add weather cameras as well. And Foreflights opened that up by building that national weather feed into the app and we use it now for pre flight. It'd be great to use weather cameras in flight as well.

Speaker A That's really great insight. I've always been a huge fan of the camera program which has been largely in Alaska and it's starting to move a little bit down into the lower 48. And I think it greatly enhances safety if people can check out the view at some of these remote airports ahead of time. That may not have good weather reporting, but I hadn't really thought about the ability to be able to check it from the air, which is even better because weather is dynamic and what you see on the ground may be totally different when you get there an hour from now. The other uses that we've talked about, writing code while you should be flying or watching videos. These are major distractions. And the NTSB is listed distractions as one of the top three factors resulting in loss of control, accidents. So yeah, I think what this tells us is that all new technologies can be used for good or for bad and pilots just really need to be disciplined about this.

Speaker C Yeah, I agree 100%. And I'll tell you my story there. We first bought our Starlink here mini at Sporty's about a year and a half ago. And so I took it out last summer on a family trip. We're leaving from Cincinnati to South Carolina to Charleston on 182. And I brought it along mainly for my family to use in the back of the airplane so they could check it out and more of a product test use case. It was a VFR flight the whole way, so I wasn't too concerned about me personally being distracted or having a high workload. And so we're crossing the Appalachian mountains. It's Sunday afternoon, so it's NFL football. I think it was late summer. And so I said, okay, let's put this thing to the test, right? Is this really broadband Internet. So pulled up YouTube TV and turned on the Cincinnati Bengals and that thing was streaming the game in HD in seconds. And so I sat there and looked at it. Had my iPad in the corner of the window again, cruise altitude, no workload, VFR, air traffic control. I was on an IFR flight plan. After about 15 seconds, it hit me. I'm like, wow, this has got to go off right now. You know, you get totally engulfed in the technology and completely takes your mind off of the airplane. And it almost scared me to a point of, you know, a wake up call on that very first flight. That you've got to be diligent, you know, create standard operating procedures, how you're going to use it effectively. If your passengers in the back want to stream, go for it. But there are some ways you can set up your iPad to avoid those distractions. A couple things I like to think about. The iOS operating system itself has focus modes, and many people use these. Let's say if you're entering a meeting, for example, you can turn on a focus mode for do not disturb. On the simplest level, that would basically block all text messages, social media updates, that kind of thing. And this is a great application here with Starlink. So one thing I do is I created a Starlink focus mode to basically turn off all the text messages. So I still want to be able to get text messages. If somebody on the ground really needs to get a hold of me, that'll come through. But I don't need social media updates, I don't need emails, you know, that kind of thing. But what you can do, it's pretty slick in foreflight, or not in foreflight, but in the iPad operating system in that focus Mode, you can have it automatically engage when you open up an application. So my focus mode is every time I open up foreflight, it automatically goes into that mode in the airplane and basically eliminates all but the most critical notifications there. So I'm not getting alerts, I'm not getting things that might distract me on an instrument approach. So little things like that you can do, obviously self discipline most important. But there are some technology features built into the iOS, iPad, iPhone, systems that you can use to help automate that. And again, keep your brain focused on flying the airplane and only using the Starlink for important uses. Again like weather or this critical communication needs.

Speaker A Well, thanks for sharing your story. I think it shows that even you, a flight instructor who's focused on training and thinks about all this stuff in eight hours or more a day, could find themselves kind of sucked in. Which tells us this is an incredibly powerful, attractive nuisance and people are going to really need to think about their use beforehand because otherwise they may not even know, give it a second thought and find themselves totally distracted. My guess is some point in the future we're going to see Starlink or Internet connectivity mentioned as a factor in an accident.

Speaker C Yeah, I hate to say but you're right, but it's, it's inevitable. If humans can find a way, we'll, they'll do it. And unfortunately in aviation it's going to happen. So those listening today, if you're thinking about this technology, make it an early on consideration. The other thing I like to teach and work with the people in the building here flying with the technology is to have a hard cut off or a sterile cockpit type procedure. So I'm going to use it in cruise once I'm leveled off, autopilot's on and well established. But once I begin that initial descent, I'm going to disconnect my iPad from it again. If my passengers want to use it, that's fine. But I'm going to focus on the arrival without that distraction or even the thought of even going there. So think about hard use cases of when you want to turn it on and then also when you want to turn it off so you can focus on those critical phases of flight.

Speaker A Also for pilots who are unfamiliar with Starlink, tell us a little bit about what it is and why you think it's currently the best solution for GA pilots looking for Internet in the air.

Speaker C Sure. So Internet in aviation has been around for well over a decade now. I think back to your airline flight with Gogo on Delta United, the mainline carriers. And there's been ground based and satellite based Internet technology for quite a long time now. But that required a STC very expensive antenna on a transport category airplane. It was heavy bandwidth wasn't great either, but it got the job done for airline passengers. Starlink Mini represents the first truly portable broadband system that a pilot of a two seat airplane can put in their airplane. The actual dish itself is about the size of a iPad Pro, 13 inch, a little bit thicker, but it doesn't take much space in getting creative with where you can mount it. So it really fits in just about any airplane that has doors that you can shut and go on across country. From a technology side, Starlink is different than traditional Iridium based systems, which is really the most common way in the past for GA pilots to get some type of connectivity. Iridium is slow. Even the next generation Iridium is not what I'd consider broadband speeds. You're not going to stream video or do large file transfers. And the reason for that is like the Iridium satellite system. Those satellites are located over 19,000 miles above us up in space, where Starlink uses what's called a low earth orbit satellite system. So they're only 300 miles up, still seems like a far far away distance, but 300 miles compared to 19,000 miles. And every single time that communication element has to go back and forth. If we have a satellite system much closer to Earth and where we are on the ground, latency is lower and they can do a lot more bandwidth transfer. Other unique thing about Starlink is the quantity of satellites. So where Iridium might have a handful of very large powerful satellites, Starlink uses right now over 7,000 much smaller satellites constantly zipping around the earth. And if at night, if you're in a dark space, you can see them, they look like a string of beads essentially flying across the sky. It's pretty cool to see actually. And there's apps out there, you can actually track the constellations. So that's kind of fun to do. Also from a low tech enjoying the night kind of sky view to watch them fly over. But that system allows essentially SpaceX and Starlink to provide near global coverage Internet at a much more affordable price. And our goal is to make this the mainstream Internet. I can see in 10, 20 years the concept of a cable system to your house or even terrestrial based antenna going away in favor of a purely satellite system. And the beauty of that is we can take advantage of that in aviation with again a pretty low cost to get into the system. And the hardware and for once, a pretty affordable monthly fee to actually use it.

Speaker A Good. Well, that was the next thing I wanted to ask you about, which is something that all pilots care about, cost. Talk a little bit about what it costs ballpark wise to buy the Mini, the hardware that people get for the Starlink, but also talk about the different monthly plans and how that's changed.

Speaker C So the Starlink mini antenna, and just for context, we call it mini because Starlink actually came out with a larger installed system. And large is relative. It's not like the large dishes from 40 years ago that we used to see in people's backyards, but maybe four or five times the size. But it was hardwired at your house, so designed for those living in remote areas to be able to get Internet connection, much more reliable than the old Hughes system, which those were satellites way, way far away in space and had that latency issue. So the Starlink Mini is a portable version of the original Starlink system. And for aviation terms, it's dirt cheap at $499, which is a great value to get into the hardware itself. So we'll talk about actually accessories here coming up. But on the service plan side, that's another great thing. So right now you can get into a base plan and there's different plans and this gets kind of complicated. So I'm going to keep it kind of very generic. There are plans. If you're going to only use it at your house, let's say, and not be in motion and just use it for again, maybe camping or at your house to get Internet, there's a lower price. The plan that pilots want to look into and become familiar with is called local Priority. That's a plan that allows you to use the Starlink mini system in motion at speeds up to 350 mile an hour. That's very important as a. We'll talk more about this because speed does matter what kind of airplane you're flying. So for GA pilots, when I'm flying in a 182 or a Cirrus more than adequate, I'm. Unless I'm getting a really good tailwind, I'm not going over 304 knots, which is the nautical mile equivalent. So no limitation there. That plan local priority is $65 a month. And that gets you 50 gigabytes of data, which is really great. Again, you're not going to be using this for streaming as the pilot, at least, hopefully video. 50 gigabytes a month. That's a lot of flying for just basic data connection. You can add more to that if you want. Basically an extra $25 per 50 gigabytes. Again, great value there because you think back to the past of traditional mobile Internet plans and you could be hundreds or thousands of dollars easily for that kind of Access. So for $500 for the hardware, $65 a month, you've got a very powerful Internet system. One thing I'll point out then, because I know a lot of pilots ask for those in the corporate world or flying faster aircraft, they have another plan called Global Priority. This allows speeds up to 550 mile an hour or around 475 knots. So for the citation pilots, most corporate jets, unless you're flying the citation 10 or some of the higher speed aircraft, or you got a really good tailwind, in that case, who cares about Internet? Take the tailwind over the Internet connection up to 475knots. The global priority plan, I believe that's around $250 a month. So again, on the corporate side, another great value because you probably have more people in the airplane that could take advantage of it. Passengers love it. And that's really the big benefit there at that point for the larger airplanes is the passengers more so than the pilots.

Speaker A I guess one difference with the local versus global is if you're going to be flying over the ocean or very far offshore, you can't use the local plane.

Speaker C Yep, that's right. And I haven't personally done this, but I hear from pilots if you fly even a mile or two off the shore, you will lose access because it's very much tied to your GPS coordinates and they know where you're at, exactly what you're doing. So if you're flying to the Bahamas or the Caribbean, then definitely the Global priority. And I haven't switched plans, but I think it's pretty easy to switch, you know, around. So if you do more Caribbean flying in the winter, you know, switch up to that plan back in the States for the core of the year back to the local Priority plan and that'll work out well for you.

Speaker A So when pilots go to mount this equipment, what kind of things do they need to be thinking about from a legal standpoint? Sure.

Speaker C And this kind of makes me think back to the days of when we first brought in ADS B weather receivers. Any new technology that is either transmitting or receiving. We want to think about avionics interference. Potentially every airplane is different in the wiring. You know, older airplanes with older wiring, with older radios may be more susceptible to VHF interference versus a new one with Digital Garmin radios. So the biggest thing on a practical side is to take it up first in your airplane on a VFR day, head up to the practice area. A couple reasons, and this goes for any technology in the airplane, but to a figure out that it works. We're going to talk about power here in a minute. But powering it up in your airplane, make sure you have a place to mount it and then run it for 20 minutes and run through all your avionics, do radio communications. Just make sure there's nothing quirky or goofy with your system. It could even be as simple as the wire you're using. If you're using a cheap wire to power it up, that could cause interference. You just really don't know in each airplane. And we saw that again in the early days of ADS B receivers and USB ports and USB cables. There's just so many variables. Even on a simple system like this, it's really prudent to go out and just test it out in your system first. So that's my practical tip. And that goes for any portable electronic device. And then on the legal side, it is a portable electronic device, which means we're looking at the advisory circular AC 91.21, which is. Which is the use of portable electronic devices in airplanes and aircraft. And that's really our guidance. Pretty simple. But again, it'll give the same practical advice is to make sure that you, as the pic, feel comfortable using it and you have tested it and made sure that there's no issues in your airplane being portable. We don't have to get FAA approval. We're not hard mounting it to the airplane and mounting antennas on the outside. So it's kind of along the same lines of bringing a portable ADS B receiver along.

Speaker A Great. So essentially we're not making any, any modification to the aircraft. We're not putting any screws into it. So therefore we're totally legal to go that way.

Speaker C Exactly.

Speaker A All right, so let's talk about the different pieces you need. I know there aren't very many. And how do you go about mounting each of them in the aircraft?

Speaker C Sure. So kind of goes back to thinking about when the iPad came along. And again, ADS B receivers. My first flight with an iPad was in a citation in the left seat. And it was the brand new iPad one that was like a brick. And like, this is great. I can see a sectional chart that's digital in color. And this is amazing. Well, that first takeoff accelerate down the Runway and the iPad shot back down the aisle to the Back of the airplane when I sit on the floor like I used to with my, my paper charts, which had a little bit of friction on the carpet, iPad didn't do so well there. So that was a lesson Learned. That was 2010. I still remember that flight and took off and we were laughing as we got up in the air because it was a backup. You know, we were still getting used to it. So mounting definitely matters for anything you put in the airplane. And that goes for this product. Now I will say if you go look online, you're going to find pictures of some pretty creative ideas that pilots have. Some professional products they purchase some rigged up. You'll see pilots with PVC piping sticking it up in the back of a rear window all the way to people just sticking it in the glare shield of an airplane. And both are fine. But I think there is some level of security you want to consider again, flying in turbulence. You know, I can think of the worst turbulence I ever hit in the flight levels and it's shot products and batteries that were in the front of the cockpit to the back of the airplane. And so I guess always think of that worst case scenario of what if I hit some moderate to severe turbulence. What's this product going to do as a projectile? Not only the damage to the airplane, but to you as the pilot as well. You don't want this thing hitting you in the face. So for that reason, again, we've been flying for about a year now and just getting familiar with it, we developed a silicone mount that has four suction cups in it that allows you a lot of flexibility. And we actually intentionally built this to be flexible to provide all kinds of options. So it's not like it's a perfect rectangle and has to be in a perfect plane. It allows some flexibility to go on. Curved windows or even the front of a lot of the larger airplanes have large side windows that work really well. The Starlink mini itself isn't that heavy because there's no battery integrated into it. So it's just the antenna itself. And so for that reason, yeah, we built this silicone suction cup that allows you a side window. What I mainly fly is a 182. I put it in the far back window above the baggage area. And that's actually the best position you can actually get is if you have something facing up towards the sky that'll provide the best reception. Cirrus pilots love it back there as well. We have a ramp out here right in front of the sporty's building and there's a Cirrus out here every other day that's got a Starlink in the back. We kind of take a inventory now and the Cirrus community has definitely adopted the product pretty quickly. And so Cessna Cirrus. Yeah, if you can. If you can stick in that back window, that's ideal. You start getting into bonanzas and Pipers. Gotta get a little more creative. Either a backside window and the passenger side, if it's large enough, can work again on the side window, if you can make that work. Starts to get a little tricky, though, with, with the low wings and the side window with potentially reducing your ability to look out the window itself. So I know some pilots will do that in cruise or not. I was concerned about the seeing a void at high altitude and, you know, in the clouds or talking air traffic control. And I still see some pilots putting it on the glare shield. And I hate to say it, sometimes that's the only option. So if you're on a, again, a clear day and it's not turbulence and you've got to use it, I can't imagine a case where you have to use it. But that is an option and I've seen pilots do that as well. But I'm a little hesitant on that again, just because of the security issue and not having it locked down in case you do hit that unexpected bump.

Speaker A And so ideally, you'd like to have this lying flat, pointing upward, kind of. If our iPad was oriented horizontally. That's how you want your Starlink antenna oriented as well.

Speaker C Exactly.

Speaker A What if you're in a situation where you feel like the only thing you can do is mount it vertically against the side window, Is that going to reduce the performance? Is that still going to work? Under some circumstances it will.

Speaker C And what I've seen there, and we've done this before on side windows, and a lot of times it depends what direction you're going in the US So where GPS has this great coverage across the US Starlink is still deploying satellites. So it's not a perfectly complete system. It really depends on where the satellites are at that point in time. And so for our experience, facing it as much north as possible seems to work well in a side window. So consider the direction of flight. If you're flying from Florida over to Texas, let's say, you know, get it in the side with passenger window facing the north, vice versa, going the other way, think about the other side window. Coming back, A lot of this trial and error also, we've Noticed going north again, if we're flying from Florida up towards Ohio, getting it towards the front of the airplane more maybe in a pilot window. Or again, worst case scenario, if it's a smooth day and you have to put it in the glare shield, that might be the only option. And then the other thing, it's going to be hit or miss. So you might see it drop out for five, 10 minutes. That's kind of my experience there. Once you have a connection, it's usually pretty strong 100 to 150 megabit per second speeds, which is more than anybody needs with an airplane. But we'll see it drop out maybe five minutes. And that just could be the positioning of the satellites going by. And there's really no way to know other than it'll stop working for a couple minutes and then come back on again. And so that's a big challenge. And that's why the airlines and the STC systems for the larger corporate aircraft put them on the roof. They have a very expensive fixed antenna for perfect coverage. So right now in NGA airplanes, we're kind of compromising to make it work the best we can.

Speaker A Now, I'm guessing that if you're in a highway airplane, the Cessna 182 putting on a side window probably isn't going to work too well because you've got that high wing blocking your view of the sky.

Speaker C Exactly. Yeah. You won't get any coverage then. But again, the good thing in the high wing is you got that nice big rear window above the baggage area. So that's your compromise there. So if you're in a Cessna, you're actually in probably the best situation of any airplane.

Speaker A And so talk about power issues. Sounds like this is not something that's going to typically work in the standard power plug that we might have available to provide power in an aircraft.

Speaker C Exactly. So the. When you buy the system in the box, you'll find a 110 volt AC adapter with a 50 foot cable, which is crazy. And I think they designed that for the campers. Right. So you're going to go out and get that in your camper or maybe put a, even a solar panel battery system outside. But you want to be able to have some flexibility with where you want to mount it. So you need a power source. There's no battery included with it. So you have several options if you have. Let's start with best case scenario for pilots who have recently added a USB C port in their airplane through Mid Continent, for example, their true blue system. They recently updated that to put out enough wattage to support Starlink and kind of even backtracking from there. Let's talk about some of the specs. So USB C is the actual cable connector type. The USB C can deliver a wide range of power. Think about your laptop or high end computer that might take up to 140 watts of power through USB C versus your earphones or AirPods which might take 2 or 3 watts. So USB C can deliver a wide range of power across the protocol. For Starlink, you want a system that can supply at least 60 watts to get it going and that's what it's going to need to power up is the initial. So it's going to check that it has that power level when you first power it on and then it kind of settles in around 20 or 30 watts is where the standard draw is once it gets going. So the problem is the older USB C ports that your avionics shop may have installed or an older cigarette lighter just doesn't put out enough power. And so that's why I bring up the Mid Continent True Blue system that they recently even did a, I think it was a firmware update or a software update to the system that ensures it puts up enough power for that USB C port. So if you have one of those, you're good to go. Plug it in. Nothing much else to think about. If you have a cigarette lighter in your airplane that 12 volts, maybe a 3amp circuit breaker, that's not going to put out enough power either. And that's a lot of the standard OEM type power outputs. And so a lot of pilots that own their own airplanes or if they don't want to go the USB C installed route will install a higher amperage 5amp 28 volt cigarette lighter and you can buy an accessory then that plugs into the cigarette lighter adapter and provides plenty of power to the Starlink, that's your best bet for a panel mount system. Now me personally, I'm flying a flying club airplane that has none of that. So I have to bring my own power with me. And this is a challenge that Sporty's had about a year ago as we wanted to find a system that could supply power to the renters, to the pilots that don't own their own airplanes. And so what we did is we actually are on a third generation battery now. It's called the Flightgear Max battery, 27,000 milliamp hours. It's 27,000 because that's the maximum that TSA will allow you to bring on an airliner. So we're very, very aware of that and hitting that max amount. This will charge your iPad three, three and a half times. But more importantly, we designed it with USB C ports on the top that output up to 140 watts of power. So this thing will charge your laptop, it'll charge a computer. But most importantly, we wanted it for Starlink because we wanted to have a compact battery that could provide power to your iPad or anything else, but also meet those power requirements of Starlink. The neat thing about this battery too, pilots love displays. So we put a digital display on it that tells you the current capacity, tells you the wattage output out of each port, so can monitor those specs and then also see how long it's going to last in your current draw. So a lot of great valuable information there, like a little digital instrument panel on your battery. So what I like to do is use this battery, the Flightgear Max, and then we also make a cable that is a USB C cable with the Starlink port on the end. So basically your system here is a battery, a cable and your Starlink and you've got it powered. Now this isn't going to last you all day. It's going to be about three hours of battery life again for me, three hours of Internet time on any flight's more than enough. So I usually want to turn it off after about an hour and just enjoy the sights out the window. But a very simple system there, so you have lots of options to do that. And actually I'll point out one even more that we recently carried if you need even more power. This is a product called Rayvion as a manufacturer and this is actually a battery that clips on to the Starlink itself, kind of basically makes it an integrated battery for the system, a little more expensive. So where the flight gear battery we just showed or Talked about was $99 for this system and just a great all around travel Battery. This larger 9 hour Ray Von battery is around 329, $329. But, but the corporate groups really like this again because it can supply power for those longer flights and it's all compact, fits right on the Starlink itself and makes it really easy to use. So yeah, that's your main options there. Panel power or a portable battery to go with it.

Speaker A That's great. And I'll include links in the show notes to all the different things that we've been talking about here today. And I guess my key takeaway here from this is that especially if you're jumping around from one airplane to another, you need some type of battery solution. And, or even if you have your own airplane, this battery solution will get you up and running quickly without having to go through modifications of your panel with a local mechanic to get higher power available from the panel.

Speaker C Exactly. And one tip I learned too is so Starlink doesn't have a power switch. It comes on when there's power applied to it. So your power switch is whatever you're plugging it into. So make sure wherever that battery is, obviously if you're using a USB port in your airplane or cigarette lighter, you have access to that. But I usually leave it off on takeoff. I don't turn it on until we level off a cruise altitude. And your power on procedure is essentially plugging in the USB port. So have all that ready ahead of time and kind of walk through those steps to have it mounted. Have your wire coming up. You know, think of 182, that is probably what, 10ft back behind you, 8ft back. So have the Starlink mount in the back window, have your wire in a good position. That's not going to interfere with your passengers. Have your battery positioned up front in the cockpit and then your basically power on procedure is to plug the cable into the battery. And me personally, I like to have the battery nearby. I'm sure you hear in the press recently and a lot of warnings about passengers keeping their batteries under the seat versus the overhead bins. So I'm very cognizant of that in flight and having all batteries nearby. And the Cessna, if it catches on fire and I'm over the trees in the mountains, that thing's going out the window. So have it ready or your fire safe bag, whatever it might be, your fire extinguisher. But keep that in mind. Yeah, whatever battery you are using, make sure it's accessible in that worst case scenario of a runaway overheat that you can address the issue and not be stuck with it somewhere for far back in the airplane.

Speaker A And if that battery does catch fire, you don't want to be touching it. So I would say open that door and start doing some steep turns.

Speaker C Exactly.

Speaker A Very good. Well, I'm going to ask you in a moment about tips that people can use for flying with Starlink, but give us an idea of the range of airplanes that you're familiar with, either that you've flown with Starlink or that you're familiar with other pilots flying with Starlink in.

Speaker C Sure. Again, kind of my Take on this is anything where you have the door shut, it's not going to fall out. It's going to work because again, you can do the portable batteries. You don't need a fancy panel to power it up. So in my experience, I started in a 182 and that was the easiest because you're able to put it in that back window and have perfect view of the sky and perfect coverage flown with it in the cirrus. Same thing there, the SR22. That back window just works really, really well as a mounting option. One of the more challenging airplanes was a Citation 550 model. And mainly because the rear windows are smaller on that one. So there wasn't really a good place to put it in the back in the cabin. You know, think of like a Challenger or a larger Gulf Stream where the windows are much, much larger. Those that enjoy that kind of luxury have larger windows and have more view of the space system above. So if you're in a larger corporate jet, rear windows can work fine. But what we see for most in that kind of middle range of a turbo prop like a PC12 or a King Air, up to a smaller Citation, you're going to be getting creative in the cockpit again. Fortunately, you have the large side windows typically on those airplanes, so you can suction cup it to the side kind of the bottom and still not obstruct your visibility out the airplane. So kind of pros, cons there, the cockpit's larger. It gets a little clunky too sometimes on the smaller airplanes to have it kind of, you know, right there. So the larger the jet, large anything in life, larger the jet, the better if you're in that situation as a corporate pilot. And it's a great way for your, your owner, your customers to experience Internet if you're in that corporate field. And you can do that. And they won't believe the price point, obviously, when you tell them how inexpensive it is. Also in Bonanza, we've had luck, some flying there on the back window. That gets again, a little tricky on the passenger side because once you put it back there, you can't really move it. So you gotta really think about what direction of flight you're going and pick a side at that point. And I would test your suction cup also. Again, it really depends on the curvature and how you work it against the side. One other mount I forgot to mention. Many pilots know the company. My GoFlight, they make premium line of pilot products and they also make a very premium suction cup mount. For Starlink, which I don't have one here with me, but it uses a very strong, singular suction cup with an articulating arm. And so for pilots in those more challenging airplanes, it really provides an infinite amount of adjustments and flexibility. So if, if you don't have the Cessna, the crs, but you're kind of in that position, you definitely want to mount it and secure it. Check out that my go flight mount as well, which can help you out.

Speaker A Okay. And I'll include a link to that as well. So basically what you're saying is pretty much any enclosed airplane, you're not going to stick this on a, an ultralight, I guess, or something, you're out there in the breeze. But if you're in an enclosed airplane, you probably can make this work somehow.

Speaker C Exactly. And it may not work the entire flight, but if you get 75% out of it of the flight time, that's, that's way a big step ahead and kind of thinking big picture, you know, we're in 2025 right now and we're looking at the evolution of this product, which has been out for less than a couple years. It's inevitable as we look at technology, the miniaturization of technology, and it's in Starlink's best interest to do that as well. I'm not an expert on the actual guts of the system, but I have to imagine that the technology is going to get smaller. So for those that are in a challenging position right now, you know, give it a year, year and a half, and I bet there'll be something coming down the pipeline that is even more manageable.

Speaker A What other tips do you have for pilots in using Starlink based on your experience?

Speaker C So the first thing, when you first get in there, it's kind of just like, oh, this is really cool, like, what can I do? And again, you'll end up in my situation, which I don't recommend, of watching football for 10 seconds and turning it right back off again. So forget the entertainment part because I think we're going to assume that pilots are in the group today, are diligent, and are going to be professionals and use it for things that make the flight safer, that don't decrease the safety, but actually make it, you know, better in that case. So on a tip side, the first thing we started looking at, because we were doing a lot of flying in the PC12 and the flight levels, we just started doing some tests and we had onboard radar and we were flying through some, just active weather systems, thunderstorm activity, Convective buildups that were well above us. So we were using onboard radar to navigate that. But we also were flying with Sentry ADS B receiver through foreflight. And so we start comparing what does the Internet radar look like versus ADS B radar. We hear about the latency and data link. Data link weather, 10 to 15 minutes, right? And I'll tell you that's the, that's a fact. All day long when you fly with onboard radar, you see how old, not old, but how inaccurate in terms of the actual location of an individual cell is when you're getting around it. Up in the flight levels, we actually found the Internet radar was even more behind than the ADS B weather radar. So you know, foreflight has a couple different radar layers. So don't be tempted into using that thinking it's going to be more up to date than your ADS B weather. That that tip essentially of any weather be that's not from a system onboard your airplane, don't use it for close navigation around thunderstorm systems or precipitation because that cell or that system is already 5, 10 miles away from where you think it is. So don't fall in the trap of thinking you have better weather because you have Internet data. Another thing too, for those pilots that don't fly with ADS B or don't have a traffic feed, don't open up foreflight and turn on the traffic layer, just with Internet that uses a flight aware feed and that's going to be inherently delayed also. So whereas those that fly with ADSB traffic, those airplanes are pretty much where it says it is. That's a pretty quick real time system. But the airplanes through Internet look very similar. They're little turquoise triangles just like you're used to seeing in the air. So do not use the traffic feed from Starlink or any Internet system thinking that it's going to be representing exactly where that other airplane is, which a lot of us use in traffic patterns or in high traffic density areas to help with, see and avoid situations. Next thing, very important just for your wallet is that on your iPad or iPhone when you get a chance, go in and look the next time you connect to WI FI and actually tap on your WI FI network and there's a setting called low data mode. And most of us don't use it because we have unlimited data either through our cell phone provider or through our home Internet connection. But in Starlink in the Air we are paying essentially for 50 gigabyte buckets and it costs money to reload those. So what I've seen happen and this has happened to me. Exactly. My wife's taking videos and pictures on a flight to South Carolina. She's on the connection. Well, every time you do something on an iPhone or an iPad, it syncs back to icloud for most people have that enabled. So anytime you're doing anything, you're creating content, even if you're not streaming a video, it's just always and it's doing you a favor for 99% of your life to back up your data. You don't need that in the airplane. And so you can go on a flight for three, four hours and just do normal things and find you use 20 or 30 gigabytes pretty quickly if you're actively or multiple passengers are actively using their phones. So the cool thing is on the actual wifi network on your iPad or you as the pilot, turn on low data mode. And that'll enable the connected devices in your device specifically to only use the data that you're intentionally accessing. So when you open Foreflight to pull a weather camera or maybe you're streaming some classical music over a streaming network, that kind of thing, you're only using the data that you're intending to use and the device isn't working in the background against you to try to do you a favor where it's really just running up your data bill. So that's a must use feature. And as I mentioned before, the biggest takeaway is Creating your own SOPs to not let it become a distraction. Have those hard altitudes of climb, cruise, descent, when you will or will not use it. And again, that focus mode I mentioned. And if you're not familiar with those focus modes, Apple has some great resources on their help pages that you can go in and learn more about how to use those. But again, a cool one I like to use is Starlink mode is what I call it. I made that one. And anytime I open Foreflight in the airplane, it basically eliminates all distractions. So I only see the, you know, the charts and what's really important for the flight at that time.

Speaker A Boy, those are great tips. Thanks for sharing those. We can all kind of benefit from all of your experience doing that. As we're talking about this. This kind of reminds me of 25 years ago, the early days of what people went through to try and get XM Weather in the cockpit and people would have Tupperware boxes full of wires and all kinds of devices connected. This actually is simpler than that. But clearly we're still in early days as you kind of project forward in the future, where do you think this all might be headed?

Speaker C Sure. So whether it's Starlink or the Starlink mini or the iPhone 20, whenever that comes out, right. Three years, then iPhones down the road and Apple is clearly moving towards the satellite connectivity. It's only a matter of time for whatever technology becomes ubiquitous that all pilots will have Internet in the very foreseeable future. And it might not even cost us much more than we're paying now. And so there's things to think about and new capabilities that we can take advantage of. So a couple of things I kind of think in looking ahead of some really exciting things is incentivizing pilots to do pilot reports when we can do that again. If we all filed one pilot report on every single flight, we'd have to have a lot more filters and foreflight to better look at the data. But just how helpful that would be to, you know, you could look at your route of flight and see exactly what's going on from an airplane, exactly like you're flying. So along those lines, Sentry and Foreflight. Sentry ADS B receiver created by foreflight. Right now they have crowdsourced turbulence. So for sentry users, it actually records the G forces and Sentry plus. And when you get back on the ground to an Internet connection, it actually sends that back to the four flight servers and the premium users can see the turbulence reports from other airplanes. Then that pilot who had the sentry did absolutely nothing. They just had the sentry mounted on the side window, landed, walked in the fbo, had a wi FI connection and that data was sent up. And it's neat, it's cool. It's not current data though. It can be an hour or two old in flight. I want to know what that airplane's experiencing right in front of me. I want to know what the turbulence they're seeing. And airlines have that technology where they have sensors that can detect G forces and eddy dissipation rates based on turbulence to send it back to the high end systems on the airline side. But I envision a system where airplanes large and small can all be automatically sensing what's going on and creating this automatic cloud source system. And we just have a much better feel for what's going on around us. And even again, looking in foreflight, I can tap an airplane and say, well, what are they experiencing? They're a thousand feet below me. I'm in moderate turbulence right now. But I tap that airplane and it says smooth ride. How cool would that be to have that kind of Information with no extra workload on the pilot. So I'm excited for that. Just better data coming from all the airplanes, whether it's pilot sourced, originated or it's an automated system like Sentry plus is doing in the early days. And even, like I even joke, we have the wings system. What if we could get wings credits for hitting a certain amount of pirates, you know, in any given month, just through our flying activity. So let's make the current programs better and make it safer. Look at Garmin. I have no again, insight on what their roadmap is, but they're, I think it's the GDL66 product which allows aircraft owned owners to add a system to legacy airplanes that allows them to check things like I think it's fuel level, battery voltage, it's a product on the airplane in the hangar that connects to a cell phone data network. And so we can basically reach out to our airplanes on the ground and learn the vital stats. Take that one step further. We've got a, you know, Garmin's latest engine monitoring system and I have a high EGT on a cylinder or I'm running rough and I'm, I'm seeing fuel flow issues or if I could push a button like you know, nexstar in your Cadillac and it sends something back to a premium service on the ground that a tech could sit there in real time and look at your actual airplane system. Why is my engine running rough? Well, they have all this data streaming from your engine monitor that could give you some clues as to what's going on. You know, is this an emergency? Is this a more of a land than practical or land as soon as possible situation. And again, airlines have that now on the turbine aircraft market and very important because reliability for airline travel is very important and safety of all the passengers. But I think it opens up a whole new level of service that we could bring to our airplanes to keep up with that kind of thing. Again, maybe an experienced pilot or I shouldn't say inexperienced, but a new pilot has a question in flight, they could contact their flight instructor, you know, send a message very quickly back to them to, you know, hey, I have this going on, what do you think kind of thing. So just that communication aspect beyond the convenience of ordering an Uber or letting the fbo, you want a quick turn and a fuel order, there's some real help there on the training side and the aircraft owner side. And again, thinking really, really far ahead. And again, I don't know if this will ever happen or even possible but Garmin recently brought CP DLC, which is Datalink Communications to the 750. Those are for aircraft typically flying in the flight levels at this point. That allows, you know, handoffs with center that are equipped with the technology to do basic frequency changes or deviation requests right through the Garmin 750. And that's the first time we've had that capability in GA airplanes that I've seen. But think about again, a connected system where we could leapfrog that CPDLC technology into a much more Internet and cloud based system that could streamline communications and clearances and all that kind of thing. So that's pie in the sky stuff and that involves the FAA, so it's probably 50 years away, but the technology would be there for the forward thinkers and the avionics community to start really thinking about modernizing how we fly and communicate in the system.

Speaker A Boy, we really are at the beginning of so many just amazing capabilities that don't really transform flying. And it's kind of exciting to see that now this technology is actually within the reach of many GA pilots. And I find that kind of exciting that this technology has become at a price point where it's now accessible to a lot of people.

Speaker C It is, yeah. I'm equally excited because I feel like other than ads B weather, we've pretty much been stagnant in terms of, you know, recent developments. And this is a private sector technology that we don't need FAA to be involved in and let the private community work at it. And Garmin's innovative. I'm sure, you know, they're on the pulse of this stuff also. So yeah, I think it really is exciting to see what comes ahead, especially for the aircraft owner market that has control over this kind of thing.

Speaker A Well, it's very exciting. Brett, thanks so much for joining us here today and letting us know about this new world that we're entering.

Speaker C Thanks Max, thanks for having me.

Speaker A And my thanks to Brett Kobe for joining us here today. And to start using Starlink Internet when you fly, please use the links you'll find@aviationnewstart.com Internet and when you do, sporties will donate to support the show. And just a reminder that I love hearing from you and I read many of your emails on the show. If you'd like to send me a message, just go out to aviationnewstalk.com click on contact@ the top of the page. That's absolutely the best way to send me a message. And of course I also want to thank everyone who supports the show. In one of the following ways. We love it when you join the club and sign up@aviationnewstalk.com support to support the show financially. You can also do that@aviationnewstalk.com PayPal. We also love it when you leave a five star review on whatever app that you're listening to us on now. And of course, if you're in the market for a headset, please consider buying a lightspeed headset and using one of the links in our show notes, because if you use those links, they will donate to help support the show. So until next time, fly safely, have fun, and keep the blue side up. And remember that you can always go around?

Speaker C You can always go around? If it don't look right, don't wait until your silence baby sliding upside down. You can always go around.

400 Starlink Internet for Pilots: Safety, Costs, and Future Tech with Sporty’s Bret Koebbe

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