Originally Posted by Kev-

I've seen some trip reports which include a map view of the departure airport, with the taxi and takeoff path shown on the map, as though tracked by an accurate GPS.

I'd quite enjoy having this ability. How might I go about doing this? I assume it's at minimum some decent quality GPS device. I suppose it either can operate on it's own and upload data to laptop/pda later, or perhaps must be connected to an operating laptop/pda during use.

What equipment and software would be needed to do this on a commercial airliner? Ideally I'd love to track the entire flight, even transpacific, if possible.

I tried a few searches, but don't know quite what to search for.