Here’s a little tip for iPhone users...

You may not have realized, but GPS works in airplane mode (it hasn’t always, but was enabled with iOS 9 or 10, I’m not quite sure). In addition, Google Maps does an excellent job now of downloading and storing locally all its map data as you’re browsing around an area so that if you return to it without a data connection, it works just fine.

These two facts in combination mean that us flight route geeks can use our phone to see in great detail exactly where we are during a flight. I used it the entire way from LHR to SFO recently and was able to figure out every tiny little town we were flying over from start to end -it was awesome!

There’s a few tricks to getting this to work reliably:

• Before you fly, use the app to browse through your approximate flight route from start to end. That ensures the map tiles will be downloaded and stored locally
• You may need a window seat to reliably grab on to a GPS signal
• On occasion, if the signal is lost, switching briefly to Apple Maps grabs it again quickly

Hope this is helpful to other route geeks