Same my side , would like to have a readable copy pleas
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alanmack
- Top Gun
- Posts: 569
- Joined: Fri May 27, 2005 5:02 pm
- Location: Virtual Aviation without Geographic Boundries
ZULU
With pleasure I'll send the larger version of the story.
Please email me (alanmack@iafrica.com) or post your email address:
The text of the story is as follows:
Perhaps the question of carrying a dedicated aid to Search and Rescue may not be high up on your agenda. What about having an electronic flight log that is updated every couple of seconds and which is open to all with internet access to follow your flight if they have your username and password? Fancy having a panic button that when pressed, sends SMS messages, with full GPS location data to as many people as you have programmed it to receive your distress call? What about notifying someone via SMS that you have not made your intended flight plan ETA, at one or more defined points, with an invitation to access your “live†tracked log to see where you are? There are so many possibilities. You can even get an SMS on your cell phone whilst you are flying to tell you that you are off track or that you are lost, even before you know it!
Seriously, leading edge technology has all of the above available to you at an affordable price. Yes, you can have it all for as little as R145 per month on a two year contract. A one off R2999 will also get you the 1st 2 years. Both options require subsequent payments of about R500 per two year period.
With the annual Wild Coast Gaggle Galaxy dinner approaching, to which some twenty odd microlight pilots intended to fly to from Johannesburg, I pursued the possibilities of personal location devices which had been introduced to me via the security industry in relation to vehicle tracking etc. Faced with the responsibility of managing many gaggles, it seemed that if each gaggle had a locating unit on them that I would be able to sit on the wild coast and monitor the progress of each gaggle on my laptop in a remote rural area and direct ground crew to support pilots where needed.
Dawid Bredenkamp used a prototype mobile Aircraft Locating Unit (ZU-LU) on his flight from Pretoria to the Wild Coast and back. Whilst on the Wild Coast I used a prototype ZU-LU in an area that mostly, on the ground, has no cell phone signal. In addition I used the same ZU-LU in my car which monitored my progress via Howick on the way down and via Bloemfontein on the way back.
Allow me to introduce you to ZU-LU by way of a “walk through†of a real map from our trip. Refer to the map opposite and you will see that at six minutes past seven I was moving at 7km per hr. The Locating Unit then shows speed at zero and “Ignition Offâ€Â. You switch it on when you commence your flight. The battery life is about 12 hours of flight time. When you are stationary ZU-LU will automatically go to “Ignition Off†to save battery life. As soon as ZU-LU moves again ZU-LU will go to “Ignition On.†When ZU-LU senses vibration but no forward movement it will display the status as Excess Idle. Temperature is the temperature of the unit in your pannier or in your pocket etc. The voltage column is not actual voltage but a battery life reading out of a max of 30. So my ZU-LU’s battery status was 25/30 or about 83%.
The Geofence and Route columns are features currently under development that will provide warnings if you stray or if you enter or do not enter designated areas. Input1, Input2 and Notes are columns to be used to designate altitude and other matters currently under development.
How does it work? Essentially ZU-LU has a few foundations on which the technology is enabled. These include:
Connectivity. The GSM GPRS module provides the connectivity from the mobile ZU - LU to the GPRS cellular network and Internet server. The modem is connected to a GPS via a RS232 port and monitors 4 inputs and 2 outputs including a vibration sensor. By collecting data from these devices, precise information recording the movement and other activities is available to the software.
Secondly, Positioning. A GPS with an antenna is fitted into a single, easily concealable ZU-LU that will fit into your top shirt pocket. The weight of the unit is equivalent to that of an average cell phone. It provides exact positional data to the modem. This information is processed and sent via GPRS to the GPRS server.
Thirdly, Triangulation. The modem can triangulate its position to between 50 – 1500 meters by using the Network environmental data when GPS data is not available. When GPS data is available it can provide position reports that are accurate to within 5m of a given latitude and longitude and with 15m of a given altitude. When GSM coverage is not available the unit stores the position report data and sends it when next GSM coverage is available via GPRS. The GPRS packages are tracked by the unit and the base station server software and they are resent until they are successfully received. GSM coverage in South Africa is given to be about 80% of the country but many will tell you that if you stray about 15 to 20km from a main road you will find that your signal is significantly weaker. Line of sight GSM signal is far more effective and thus when flying, I have tested the unit where on the ground there is no signal, but at 500ft there is full signal. Our tests revealed that the flights from Pretoria to the Wild Coast and around the Wild Coast had GSM coverage all the time that we were in flight.
As mooted in the opening paragraph ZU-LU has an ETA warning SMS capability to notify specified numbers of your delayed arrival with a request to monitor your progress on the website. ZU-LU also has a panic button that when activated will send SMS’s to designated cell phone numbers. Flight logs are available with data captured as required up to intervals of a couple of seconds. All Tracking Logs are kept for six months or longer by arrangement.
ZU-LU is rechargeable with a 220 volt mains adapter and with a 12 volt cigarette lighter socket adapter. You can install it as a permanent built in feature of your plane or you can keep it as a mobile unit that you can use to track you car or anything else including your cat that strays at night!
Who would want one? Well, close to home, I want one! This is why I have been instrumental in getting the manufacturers of essentially vehicle tracking systems to come up with a more affordable mobile unit for aircraft and pilots. I listed a topic on the Microlighters chat group and 25 of the 28 people that voted on the poll indicated that they would buy one if afforded the opportunity. I think that it will do well if we can keep it affordable and so I approached MISASA. Mike Blyth was immediately interested in supporting the development of the prototype for MISASA members.
So how do you get a ZU-LU? Delivery is about six weeks from order that must be placed with Annette Erasmus at the MISASA office. Annette will take your order if you are not a MISASA member but will require you to endure her 5 minute “elevator†speech about why you should be a member!
What do the SMS’s look like?
If you connect it permanently to the battery on your trike and your trike is stolen or if it is moved out of your hangar. You can get an SMS indicating that ZU-LU is on the move. This is provided that the battery is not flat which, given that it is in the “ignition off†mode, the battery is likely to be fine. If you would like your wife to be informed of your movements you can have an SMS sent to her each time you switch your microlight on and each time you switch your microlight off.
This SMS could read: ZU-CRP Ignition On at 4km NE of OZONE; 4.7km NE The Haven;2856’52’E;32 12’28â€ÂS>2007-06-03 21:01:39.
The above SMS is a real example of me using the prototype ZU-LU on the Wild Coast. One of the Microlighters that towed his microlight down got lost. They phoned me and told me that they were arriving before dark. At about 8pm we agreed that they were lost and I drove to the turn-off and then went a few km’s up the road then a few km’s down the road. I did not find them in either direction. I did not have a GPS with me but they did have one. I had set ZU-LU to send me an SMS each time it was switched on and so I switched off ZU-LU, waited a couple of seconds for the SMS and then forwarded the SMS to them. They entered a GOTO on their GPS and told me where they were relative to me. I then went to their position and they then followed me to OZONE. OZONE is the cottage that we were staying at on the Wild Coast. The Haven is the name of the hotel on the Mbashee River on the Wild Coast.
Pricing options are as follows: R2999 paid to MISASA before you take delivery. This price includes VAT and GSM/Map fees for a two year period. Alternatively if you fill in a MTN contract form that you can get from Annette at MISASA and you sign it providing the required details including payment arrangements for R145 per month then on activation of the MTN contract MISASA will provide you with a “free†ZU-LU. On the expiry of the two year period you get to keep ZU-LU but you will be required to pay for a Data/Map facility that today is available for a one-off cost of some R500 for another two year period.
Maybe you need more convincing? If so the SA Microlight World Champs team (i.e. the nine microlights going to the Czech Republic) will each be equipped with a ZU-LU. You can go to www.kilometers.co.za and login under the USERNAME: MISASA (use capital letters) and use the password: ourteam (one word & lower case letters). You will then be presented with a shortcut to a webpage that updates you on the movement (literally) of our team and which will offer you details of the flight plans flown (see replay section). You will be able to follow all practice flights of each microlight and if approved by the judges the competition flights of each microlight with about a two second delay on actual time.
The group that will be displayed will be as follows:
Solo Class
• mcfie / Rob McFie
• gassmann / Rob Gassmann
• couzens / Craig Couzens
Dual Class
• eschner / Larry Eschner & Donovan Fraser
• blyth / Mike Blyth & Adrian vd Byl
• gregson / Marc & Roy Gregson
• loots / Hendrik Loots / Pieter Du Plessis
• eeden / Chris van Eerden & Flip Oosthuzen
• mcgillewie / Larry & Sharon McGilliwie
Contact details for Annette Erasmus re orders or for queries are:
Email: secretary@misasa.co.za
Phone: 0861 018018
Alternatively visit her at the Aero Club offices at Rand Airport. For all those in doubt, the website address to follow the SA Team at the World Champs is www.kilometers.co.za The spelling is Afrikaans for kilometres in the English language.
Delivery is 6 weeks as ZU-LU is a special order unit at an exceptionally low special price to MISASA.
Dawid’s flight log is available per leg of the flight. Sitting on the Wild Coast we were watching his flight log with a two second delay and saw him turn around a few km’s short of Emoyeni and return to Eston where he landed as the rest of his Gaggle felt that they may not make Emoyeni within the daylight available. Ground crew collected them and nobody was left in the dark! Yes, if you want one to keep an accurate log of your distance running each morning you can use it for this and you can invite family and friends to monitor your progress during the Comrades Marathon. You could also use it for walks in the berg, on pony rides, deep sea fishing, paragliding, monitoring the progress of a furniture removal etc
I left Jhb at about 9pm and at about 2am I found myself chatting to a friend who was monitoring my progress on the internet and had phoned to see why I had stopped in Bulwer. It was a fuel stop and leg stretch as I was not going to make Kokstad on one tank.
Please email me (alanmack@iafrica.com) or post your email address:
The text of the story is as follows:
Perhaps the question of carrying a dedicated aid to Search and Rescue may not be high up on your agenda. What about having an electronic flight log that is updated every couple of seconds and which is open to all with internet access to follow your flight if they have your username and password? Fancy having a panic button that when pressed, sends SMS messages, with full GPS location data to as many people as you have programmed it to receive your distress call? What about notifying someone via SMS that you have not made your intended flight plan ETA, at one or more defined points, with an invitation to access your “live†tracked log to see where you are? There are so many possibilities. You can even get an SMS on your cell phone whilst you are flying to tell you that you are off track or that you are lost, even before you know it!
Seriously, leading edge technology has all of the above available to you at an affordable price. Yes, you can have it all for as little as R145 per month on a two year contract. A one off R2999 will also get you the 1st 2 years. Both options require subsequent payments of about R500 per two year period.
With the annual Wild Coast Gaggle Galaxy dinner approaching, to which some twenty odd microlight pilots intended to fly to from Johannesburg, I pursued the possibilities of personal location devices which had been introduced to me via the security industry in relation to vehicle tracking etc. Faced with the responsibility of managing many gaggles, it seemed that if each gaggle had a locating unit on them that I would be able to sit on the wild coast and monitor the progress of each gaggle on my laptop in a remote rural area and direct ground crew to support pilots where needed.
Dawid Bredenkamp used a prototype mobile Aircraft Locating Unit (ZU-LU) on his flight from Pretoria to the Wild Coast and back. Whilst on the Wild Coast I used a prototype ZU-LU in an area that mostly, on the ground, has no cell phone signal. In addition I used the same ZU-LU in my car which monitored my progress via Howick on the way down and via Bloemfontein on the way back.
Allow me to introduce you to ZU-LU by way of a “walk through†of a real map from our trip. Refer to the map opposite and you will see that at six minutes past seven I was moving at 7km per hr. The Locating Unit then shows speed at zero and “Ignition Offâ€Â. You switch it on when you commence your flight. The battery life is about 12 hours of flight time. When you are stationary ZU-LU will automatically go to “Ignition Off†to save battery life. As soon as ZU-LU moves again ZU-LU will go to “Ignition On.†When ZU-LU senses vibration but no forward movement it will display the status as Excess Idle. Temperature is the temperature of the unit in your pannier or in your pocket etc. The voltage column is not actual voltage but a battery life reading out of a max of 30. So my ZU-LU’s battery status was 25/30 or about 83%.
The Geofence and Route columns are features currently under development that will provide warnings if you stray or if you enter or do not enter designated areas. Input1, Input2 and Notes are columns to be used to designate altitude and other matters currently under development.
How does it work? Essentially ZU-LU has a few foundations on which the technology is enabled. These include:
Connectivity. The GSM GPRS module provides the connectivity from the mobile ZU - LU to the GPRS cellular network and Internet server. The modem is connected to a GPS via a RS232 port and monitors 4 inputs and 2 outputs including a vibration sensor. By collecting data from these devices, precise information recording the movement and other activities is available to the software.
Secondly, Positioning. A GPS with an antenna is fitted into a single, easily concealable ZU-LU that will fit into your top shirt pocket. The weight of the unit is equivalent to that of an average cell phone. It provides exact positional data to the modem. This information is processed and sent via GPRS to the GPRS server.
Thirdly, Triangulation. The modem can triangulate its position to between 50 – 1500 meters by using the Network environmental data when GPS data is not available. When GPS data is available it can provide position reports that are accurate to within 5m of a given latitude and longitude and with 15m of a given altitude. When GSM coverage is not available the unit stores the position report data and sends it when next GSM coverage is available via GPRS. The GPRS packages are tracked by the unit and the base station server software and they are resent until they are successfully received. GSM coverage in South Africa is given to be about 80% of the country but many will tell you that if you stray about 15 to 20km from a main road you will find that your signal is significantly weaker. Line of sight GSM signal is far more effective and thus when flying, I have tested the unit where on the ground there is no signal, but at 500ft there is full signal. Our tests revealed that the flights from Pretoria to the Wild Coast and around the Wild Coast had GSM coverage all the time that we were in flight.
As mooted in the opening paragraph ZU-LU has an ETA warning SMS capability to notify specified numbers of your delayed arrival with a request to monitor your progress on the website. ZU-LU also has a panic button that when activated will send SMS’s to designated cell phone numbers. Flight logs are available with data captured as required up to intervals of a couple of seconds. All Tracking Logs are kept for six months or longer by arrangement.
ZU-LU is rechargeable with a 220 volt mains adapter and with a 12 volt cigarette lighter socket adapter. You can install it as a permanent built in feature of your plane or you can keep it as a mobile unit that you can use to track you car or anything else including your cat that strays at night!
Who would want one? Well, close to home, I want one! This is why I have been instrumental in getting the manufacturers of essentially vehicle tracking systems to come up with a more affordable mobile unit for aircraft and pilots. I listed a topic on the Microlighters chat group and 25 of the 28 people that voted on the poll indicated that they would buy one if afforded the opportunity. I think that it will do well if we can keep it affordable and so I approached MISASA. Mike Blyth was immediately interested in supporting the development of the prototype for MISASA members.
So how do you get a ZU-LU? Delivery is about six weeks from order that must be placed with Annette Erasmus at the MISASA office. Annette will take your order if you are not a MISASA member but will require you to endure her 5 minute “elevator†speech about why you should be a member!
What do the SMS’s look like?
If you connect it permanently to the battery on your trike and your trike is stolen or if it is moved out of your hangar. You can get an SMS indicating that ZU-LU is on the move. This is provided that the battery is not flat which, given that it is in the “ignition off†mode, the battery is likely to be fine. If you would like your wife to be informed of your movements you can have an SMS sent to her each time you switch your microlight on and each time you switch your microlight off.
This SMS could read: ZU-CRP Ignition On at 4km NE of OZONE; 4.7km NE The Haven;2856’52’E;32 12’28â€ÂS>2007-06-03 21:01:39.
The above SMS is a real example of me using the prototype ZU-LU on the Wild Coast. One of the Microlighters that towed his microlight down got lost. They phoned me and told me that they were arriving before dark. At about 8pm we agreed that they were lost and I drove to the turn-off and then went a few km’s up the road then a few km’s down the road. I did not find them in either direction. I did not have a GPS with me but they did have one. I had set ZU-LU to send me an SMS each time it was switched on and so I switched off ZU-LU, waited a couple of seconds for the SMS and then forwarded the SMS to them. They entered a GOTO on their GPS and told me where they were relative to me. I then went to their position and they then followed me to OZONE. OZONE is the cottage that we were staying at on the Wild Coast. The Haven is the name of the hotel on the Mbashee River on the Wild Coast.
Pricing options are as follows: R2999 paid to MISASA before you take delivery. This price includes VAT and GSM/Map fees for a two year period. Alternatively if you fill in a MTN contract form that you can get from Annette at MISASA and you sign it providing the required details including payment arrangements for R145 per month then on activation of the MTN contract MISASA will provide you with a “free†ZU-LU. On the expiry of the two year period you get to keep ZU-LU but you will be required to pay for a Data/Map facility that today is available for a one-off cost of some R500 for another two year period.
Maybe you need more convincing? If so the SA Microlight World Champs team (i.e. the nine microlights going to the Czech Republic) will each be equipped with a ZU-LU. You can go to www.kilometers.co.za and login under the USERNAME: MISASA (use capital letters) and use the password: ourteam (one word & lower case letters). You will then be presented with a shortcut to a webpage that updates you on the movement (literally) of our team and which will offer you details of the flight plans flown (see replay section). You will be able to follow all practice flights of each microlight and if approved by the judges the competition flights of each microlight with about a two second delay on actual time.
The group that will be displayed will be as follows:
Solo Class
• mcfie / Rob McFie
• gassmann / Rob Gassmann
• couzens / Craig Couzens
Dual Class
• eschner / Larry Eschner & Donovan Fraser
• blyth / Mike Blyth & Adrian vd Byl
• gregson / Marc & Roy Gregson
• loots / Hendrik Loots / Pieter Du Plessis
• eeden / Chris van Eerden & Flip Oosthuzen
• mcgillewie / Larry & Sharon McGilliwie
Contact details for Annette Erasmus re orders or for queries are:
Email: secretary@misasa.co.za
Phone: 0861 018018
Alternatively visit her at the Aero Club offices at Rand Airport. For all those in doubt, the website address to follow the SA Team at the World Champs is www.kilometers.co.za The spelling is Afrikaans for kilometres in the English language.
Delivery is 6 weeks as ZU-LU is a special order unit at an exceptionally low special price to MISASA.
Dawid’s flight log is available per leg of the flight. Sitting on the Wild Coast we were watching his flight log with a two second delay and saw him turn around a few km’s short of Emoyeni and return to Eston where he landed as the rest of his Gaggle felt that they may not make Emoyeni within the daylight available. Ground crew collected them and nobody was left in the dark! Yes, if you want one to keep an accurate log of your distance running each morning you can use it for this and you can invite family and friends to monitor your progress during the Comrades Marathon. You could also use it for walks in the berg, on pony rides, deep sea fishing, paragliding, monitoring the progress of a furniture removal etc
I left Jhb at about 9pm and at about 2am I found myself chatting to a friend who was monitoring my progress on the internet and had phoned to see why I had stopped in Bulwer. It was a fuel stop and leg stretch as I was not going to make Kokstad on one tank.
NEMO
I have now joined the ranks of wannabe pilots!
I have now joined the ranks of wannabe pilots!
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