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On December 18, 1998, with little fanfare, Echo Flight quietly began a revolution in aviation by sending live graphical weather via the ORBCOMM satellite constellation to pilots across the country. Today, this network is now fast becoming the standard for affordable and reliable in-flight weather and messaging. To date, nearly 1,000,000 in-flight messages have been successfully sent. Any Altitude, Anywhere.
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- Why does Echo Flight use the ORBCOMM satellite system ? There are three important requirements when it comes to selecting a network: Cost, Coverage and Reliability. For more information on the Echo Flight / ORBCOMM advantages click here.
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- What are the differences between Satellite and Tower based Networks ? The major difference is coverage. Towers are restricted to line-of-sight transmission. For example, even a network with 100 towers would be comparable to a situation where you had to maintain line of sight navigation with only 100 of the current 1,100 VOR's available, obviously a major limitation unless you fly at very high altitudes.
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- Does this mean Satellites are superior to Tower networks ? Not necessarily: if you fly at high altitudes tower coverage will improve. Additionally, the tower based systems generally have greater data bandwidth.
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- Is there any new technology around the corner ? Compared to the great advances in both speed and performance in the computer industry, wireless data link networks are developing extremely slowly. For example, the so-called "newcomer on the block" -- the FIS tower system -- has been in discussion for about 6 years. As of winter 2003 it still has only a handful of towers in operation. By contrast, ORBCOMM started development in 1991 and became operational in 1998.
- Does Echo Flight interface with any panel mount displays ? Yes, Garmin offers Echo Flight's services through the GDL 49 data link unit available directly through Garmin dealers.
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