I wonder how hard it would be for the airlines to install a latitude/longitude display in the cabin area? I've thought of this a few times as I zip across the US peering out the window onto some alien looking landscape and not knowing where the heck we were.

I've been on many international flights and one transcontinental flight with the moving info map, which is nice, but it didn't display the airplane's coordinates, zoom in very far, or show much map detail. Seems simple enough to have some sort of lat/lon display. Heck you could even have an audio channel with the coordinates along with the current time, temp, speed, etc... droned off in text-speech like the radio channel for universal time.

A laptop mapping program or even a paper map with lat/lon coordinates is cheap enough and will allow you to roughly track where you are, especially at night when landmarks aren't available. I can spend hours on a flight trying to spot landmarks.

On my last flight from PHL->SEA the pilot just happened to announce we were mid-way over South Dakota, just passing Aberdeen. That probably didn't mean anything to the other passengers, but with that information in hand (and a fair share of luck) I was able to identify the little town of Eureka where my 99 year old Grandmother lives and where I'd spent so many summers as a child. What a thrill!

In a pinch I've done rough calculations using departure time, estimated arrival time, and current time to get the approximate longitude (forget latitude unless you know the flight path).

Putting a numeric display with the current lat/lon coordinates would do the trick. They could then publish the in-flight magazine maps with lat/lon grids on them.

Next step: auto-updating digital map overlays on the windows!

-hopeless map geek

I guess I am also another map geek. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I guess they do not want us to have accurate information. Most international carrier do it, why not US carriers on domestic routing. Well ElAl does not have any info because they probably do not want would be terrorists to know their "exact" position. You know back in 1987 AA used to show its landings and take off on the screen and you could listen to air traffic control on one of the channels. I wonder why that was discontinued. I kind enjoyed the banter between the air traffi control and the pilots.

I'd say they're probably too cheap to install the equipment (moving map sold as Air Show, etc.). US could have easily done it with their A-330 fleet given the IFE equipment but I guess Wolfe & co. were too cheap.

What you could always do it get a GPS and use it onboard (assuming usage is permitted).

As for MSP2000's observation about El Al, I disagree. How is anyone going to relay information about position down to the ground? You probably can get approximate a/c position from wherever thetrip.com and others get it from (at least for a/c departing and arriving in the U.S.)

I would like to see 4 things on more airlines...

1) Camera's mounted on the front, bottom and rear of planes. ANA has a camera on the landing gear of their 747's (maybe other planes also). When you taxi, takeoff and land, you can watch on the overhead screens. After takeoff they switch to a down view. A rear view would be cool on takeoff

2) map's like discussed above

3) ATC communications like on UA channel 9

4) A movable/zoomable camera mounted under the plane that could be controlled by the pilots. When I fly from Denver to Vancouver, we do a turn over yellowstone park. It would be real cool if the pilots could zoom in on old faithfull or other national landmarks.

I love things that show you where you are, whats around and whats happening. Just a thought.

I did some work for a previous company, regarding the tracking of planes, etc... After my three-month long research, I identified where to obtain the "feed" that popular websites, such as trip.com, utilize. It is a fee-based, point-to-point, TCP/IP connection. It is rather easy to use.

Anyone who wants to know more, please do not hesitate to email me...

Regards..

UA still has ATC feed that passengers can hear. They occassionaly read off the LAT/LON, especially when they are about to make ocean crossings or pass over national borders. A few non-US carriers have cameras on the bottom of the plane which is nice as long as there aren't any clouds.

stimpy's correct. On a recent TPE-HKG flight, CX turned on their belly camera on approach.

On my most recent HKG-LAX flight the nose camera was turned on...great for landings! CX 880

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MRKEY

Three reasons why El Al's excuse for not showing location information to its passengers don't make sense: (1) whoever is on the plane to relay the information about the plane's exact location to the ground would be doing so knowing that the person on the other end of the line will shortly try to shoot them down (and yes, I know about suicide bombers, but being simply a passive target is something different IMHO), (2) if it takes the airborne terrorist 2 minutes to relay the information to the ground, the plane will be 16 miles away from its former location, and (3) if the airplane discloses latitude and longitude to the nearest minute, there's still a margin of error of about a mile. If the airline fudges the location by (say) 05' one way or another, then there's an error of 5 miles or so.

Yes, I know UA has Channel 9, CX has cameras, and AC has moving maps on some domestic flights but I want one company to do everything all on one flight. Call me a dreamer...