Round the World in 80 Days: Global Flight Challenge Completed

Round the World in 80 Days: Global Flight Challenge Completed

We are pleased to confirm that GTC customers Dave McElroy and Chris Elgar have completed their global circumnavigation 'Round The World in 80 Days' ("RTW-80") flight from and to Toronto, Canada in their Piper Comanche aircraft. The final leg of the flight will take them back to Perth, Scotland by which time they would have flown 42,000 nautical miles (78,000 km) and achieved their ambitious target - crossing the Atlantic three times, visiting 6 continents and 57 airports - all in 80 days!

To assist with RTW-80's flight safety requirements, GTC provided two satellite trackers to enable flight coordinators and followers from all over the world to track the aircraft's movements and live location online at any time.

The primary satellite tracker provided by GTC was a DeLorme inReach satellite tracker which was configured to send out GPS coordinates every ten minutes throughout the entire trip with all transmissions and movements shown as a breadcrumb trail on our GTCTrack mapping portal. The DeLorme inReach is an award-winning satellite communicator that enables 2-way personal and SOS communication and remote Follow-me/Find-me tracking. Because the inReach transmits via the Iridium satellite network, it provides 100% global coverage, with no gaps or fringe coverage areas enabling the tracker to continuously broadcast Chris & Dave's location as they circumnavigated the world.

The DeLorme inReach has recently been approved by Lockheed Martin Flight Services for the LMFS Adverse Condition Alerting Service (ACAS) and Surveillance-Enhanced Search and Rescue. Once an inReach device is enrolled in the free program, pilots filing flight plans with LMFS can receive ACAS alerts of any new or modified adverse conditions, such as severe weather or airport closures, which may arise after the pilot has received an initial briefing and filed the flight plan.

We also provided a SmartOne satellite tracker to use on-board the aircraft throughout the global trip. The SmartOne tracker is a small, standalone unit which was used on RTW-80 without a requirement for external antennas or power. It is one of the most cost effective and popular satellite trackers currently available and can be configured to transmit GPS coordinates from as little as every 5 minutes when in motion. Impressively, the SmartOne transmitted throughout the entire journey on just one set of AA lithium batteries and was still going strong when RTW-80 arrived back in Toronto!

Followers of RTW-80 were able to view online the movements of the aircraft using our GTCTrack mapping portal. GTCTrack is a web based integrated satellite and GSM tracking solution, compatible with modern web browsers and works on a multilingual platform that brings together all the positions of every manufactured product under one location and displays and manages them in a single unified interface.

We have watched Chris and Dave's progress with great interest throughout the journey and would like to congratulate them for completing the 'Round The World in 80 Days' challenge and raising important funds and awareness for two fantastic charities:

• Toronto’s SickKids Hospital Foundation – 200 young lives changed – (Canada)
• Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance SCAA – 100 lives saved/rescued – (Scotland)

If you would like to make a donation to either charity please visit RTW80's website where there is plenty more information and links to donate.