a gps and or compass

Aren’t you the every ounce counts guy?

Sitting and charging isn’t an option for everyone.

I no longer do winter heli work in the northern Rockies (thank god). But when I did it was pre tablet for the company I was with, and I kept double AA’s against my base layer close to my pits or crotch as the pockets allowed. It’s a bit different when you are taking and naming lots of waypoints, tracks, checking boundary on unflagging blocks than when you simply put the cursor where you want to go and get the bearing to be fair.


To be fair the confusion seems to be more related to UTMs vs lat long than following the direction of an arrow that isnt mounted to the helicopter

Maybe I’m just getting old and don’t want to give up my 64s. Damn kids these days can’t even draw a map with a compass. Rabble rabble rabble

Maybe I just have a grudge against heli pilots. The guys from Canadian gave me a hat so I could pull chicks by talking loudly about auto rotating in bars and it didn’t work even once
 
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conor_90 said:
Even in the era of tablets forestry pros (often depending on job etc) carry backup handhelds for a reason.
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I’d counter most actually use Avenza day to day, these days. ;) Spoken from spending too much time with you guys and having to find locations.

conor_90 said:
Aren’t you the every ounce counts guy?

Sitting and charging isn’t an option for everyone


To be fair the confusion seems to be more related to UTMs vs lat long than following the direction of an arrow that isnt mounted to the helicopter
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Yep, the ounces count, but I have the phone as a hub for navigating, taking pics, communicating through an Inreach mini, and for two lines of satellite SOS. No need to sit either you just plug the cord in and put the phone and charge pack in your pocket and keep walking. The charge pack and a 296 or what have you plus spare batts are pretty damn comparable.
 
I have always used ARC programs rather than avenza. They chew through battery like crazy so generally tracks are taken on a handheld. A matter of both the cost of avenza pro and the nature of the work I do (did; my knee is kaput so my Bush monkey days are sadly drawing to a close).

This last summer I had a bad elf connected to my phone to get better accuracy; doesn’t matter for navigating but it’s a hell of a system for precise work.

Stick your hand in the back of the old guy on the crews vest if you have a chance, there’s probably a 64s in there.

If not most InReach style devices allow for navigation in current generations.

I personally would never go out with just a tablet; 2 is 1…
 
Not a good feeling when you're miles from nowhere without even satellite reception.

And knowing how to use a compass is far superior to trusting your life to a GPS, when the do work.
 
sgt.rock said:
I had a scary encounter with my hunting buddy this fall and I promptly bought a gps when I got home. I got lost in the woods trying to track a wounded moose. It was one of those situations where I only thought I'd have to go 50m so I took NOTHING with me but the rifle and my phone. I kept getting a little further (following bloods drops on red/orange deadfall leaves. ) I got pretty far before the blood disappeared. Then suddenly, I couldn't find the previous blood drops to go back because the bright red blood turned blackish, the light dimmed in the HEAVY cover, and to top it off we got charged by the bull moose which made us run in different directions. (He came crashing out of nowhere, knocking down everything in front of him, scared the holy crap out of me. He almost gored me as I dove over a big fallen tree)
Anyhow, I had no water, food, matches, flashlight, asthma inhaler or ANYTHING. My coat was still back in the truck as I thought the moose was gonna be super easy to retrieve. My phone only had 25% power so using it as a light source was not gonna work. The built-in compass in my phone went haywire when I tried it. (Not sure if it needed a signal to work or not, but we were in a no-coverage area.)
I was in pretty rough shape when we stumbled on a steep cliff. Darkness was about 90 mins away and with no warm clothes, food, water, light, fire, or really anything, it was seeming our luck was running out.
The moose that charged us was still nearby, so I said we have to stop going in circles, pick a direction and just go. We got to a nearly sheer cliff and I said we either climb down or just give up. We chose to climb down. When we got to the bottom, our luck began. I found a dried up riverbed and started walking up the stream. About 20 mins before dark, I saw a big culvert. Climbed up and found the road. It was quite a deserted area. No truck traffic. We walked about 5km along the road before we came to our truck.
I am not joking. Dont cheap out. Get a good GPS. My cheapness literally almost cost me my life. A man died there this spring after getting lost in the same weather conditions.
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Good advice here, but I still carry a compass besides, very little extra weight or space required.

Grizz
 
StacyH said:
Exactly my experience as well. On a dull day in very rough bush I go so turned around I hardly knew which way was up. Came out on the same side I went in and I thought I was in and entirely different place. Since then I have owned GPS's and carried extra batteries. And more recently I also use Google Satellite view and download the maps to use offline. It has kept me getting home for 30+ years
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Great stories. There is something about being very lost that is completely humbling in the most primal of senses. That moment where you realize you are going to need not just skill, but a lot of luck to pull it off. Map, compass, gps, extra batteries for me. I only use them sporadically to keep me on my toes. But I’m in BC. Lots to navigate by here if you can see. But just because you can see it doesn’t mean you can get there.
 
I gotta ask, for those saying map and compass above all else, most posting don’t live in country with sightable landmarks from the ground when in the bush.

How are you using your compass? Just a straight out and reciprocal track only? That’s sure not very practical for hunting or Canadian bush. What map exactly, and scale are you taking afield, bringing a protractor or dividers, and pencil? Know what to do with your magnetic deviation locally, or how much your rifle throws off the bearing?

The realities of actual navigation by compass would startle most and rapidly separate the armchairs from the oily-hairs. It ain’t easy in the bush to truly navigate by compass even when you know what you’re doing.
 
conor_90 said:
Never met a heli pilot who knew how to use a handheld gps, maybe that’s why ardent likes his phone

Let me know when you get an iPhone you can swap batteries on in seconds and have a full charge. Or one that can maintain battery life in the cold for that matter

Even in the era of tablets forestry pros (often depending on job etc) carry backup handhelds for a reason.


Navigating with just a gps is a rooky maneuver. Use it as a machine for finding compass bearings. Never follow the line and ignore terrain

GPS accuracy can be pretty bad in a lot of forested areas, especially on the coast (the wild one) Knowing the bearing that can get you to a road or known cutline/ river etc is advised

Just my ten cents based on a decade of navigating in the bush (from the ground), drawing maps and using gps software
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Your pilot probably told you to insert that 64 in your rectum because you felt the need to shove that greasy little screen in his face, likely upside down, while they were doing something important like trying not to kill everyone on board. Every pilot I’ve ever worked with could find Hoffa on even the most rudimentary gps. It’s probably been 5 years since I’ve seen an engineer, geo tech, geologist, archeologist, fisheries tech etc with anything but an iPad with avenza. They just air drop me the map to the iPad on the dash so I can pretend to be interested in what you have going on, but actually be able to plan where I’m going to go fishing. Great for watching Netflix while everyone else works for a living too.
 
Man taxi drivers are getting sassy these days

:dancingbanana:

I never used a tablet or avenza until 2018, and didn’t use them regularly until the last three years?

We were just simple muskeg monkeys though, I’ve also never seen an iPad on a heli dash unless the pilot was using it to watch ####hub on a seismic line
 
What so you can be broke and need a knee replacement in your early 30’s?


You ever work on tommy lakes before the rebuilt the road around 2018? There used to be a boat up there and guys would bring out trolling motors and go fishing while waiting around; you would have loved it
 
conor_90 said:
Man taxi drivers are getting sassy these days

:dancingbanana:

I never used a tablet or avenza until 2018, and didn’t use them regularly until the last three years?

We were just simple muskeg monkeys though, I’ve also never seen an iPad on a heli dash unless the pilot was using it to watch ####hub on a seismic line
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They’re everywhere now, even a requirement for some clients. I resisted them for a long time but once I figured out you could turn an Astar into a mobile masturbatorium I never looked back

Tommy lakes doesn’t ring a bell but if I had a nickel for every boat I flew into a lake for my own enjoyment I could probably afford a double double
 
Fair enough last time I took to the sky’s with the few, the brave, the bold and the beautiful (helicopter pilots) was a couple years ago and we were using my tablet. Still had a greasy 64s and paper map in my pocket and compass on my vest
 
Naw, passengers and especially lost or vaguely oriented ones that are sure they know better are just universally the most frustrating part of our job. Let’s be honest even passengers who know where they’re going. Amongst bush pilots either rotary or fixed wing, that’s as much a given as the passenger asking to borrow your pen and keeping it, or hoping to bum a couple of your waters.

Often, they’ll ask if you can covert their coordinates for them while we’re flying. We get forced to covert from NTS, DMS, DD, DM… If they don’t ask, the greasy iPad is shown to you oriented in the complete opposite of the direction of flight, usually being rotated at random as they’re swinging their head around saying how it just looks so different from the air. It also typically wasn’t charged before they left and they want your one power cord. I carry a spare charge pack just for them.

It’s our damn job description unfortunately to know where we’re headed, and it can have at best severely embarrassing, and at worst fatal downsides if you miss. We just wish at times our clients faced the same stakes or at least understood them.
 
How do you take off with a set of balls so big?

I generally establish where I want to go before the rotors start spinning; apparently I’m in a minority

I’m thinking that guys from Bailey and Canadian fsj were using tablets the last few times I flew with them. It’s all just a blur of shoving gps in their faces and demanding they land wherever I tell them while not recognizing anything though

It also typically wasn’t charged before they left and they want your one power cord. I carry a spare charge pack just for them.
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Sounds like you are ferrying around some real geniuses. MOF or BCTS? :dancingbanana:
 
conor_90 said:
What so you can be broke and need a knee replacement in your early 30’s?


You ever work on tommy lakes before the rebuilt the road around 2018? There used to be a boat up there and guys would bring out trolling motors and go fishing while waiting around; you would have loved it
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I spent a a good deal of time in Tommy Lakes and the area. That’s the easy country, but no pilot I know would fish the skag when the Sikanni was right there.

The longer this goes, the more I recognize the swagger of our best clients. As for iPads on the dash, I haven’t flown a machine without one there in many years. It’s the tool of choice, even Boeing thinks so to the point they bought ForeFlight (an iPad app approved by… Transport Canada).
 
It’s all in good fun bud.

I promise you I’m not whatever your best clients are…

Just a guy with a misoriented iPad, ARCcollector, a 64s and an InReach, strolling through the easy country
 
BlackRam said:
Have and learn to use both.
Batteries die or fail in the cold, and the compass and a map will assist when the gps dies.
Above story a good lesson for all, as it happens quick and unexpectedly, to those that aren't prepared.
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Yep! Late to the reply, but....The answer is "Both". They each have their strong and weak points, but at the end of the day, a GPS can fail, for all that it makes finding a spot easy, and a compass will still give you a pretty good idea, at least, which direction you are facing. Having a map helps too!

I managed to combine falling through ice on a beaver run (an hour or so worrying about getting warm and dry, rather than which way I came from) , AND having a heavy overcast day that really did not allow use of the sun's position to navigate by, back before I routinely carried either or both.

To the plus side, I knew that there was a road/trail system, that completely surrounded the area I was in. When I finally reached that system, I chose. Wrong. Walked 3/4 of the way around the whole area, to get back to camp, because I was not going in the direction I thought I was. No real harm, just really tired, and feeling really dumb!

Add that the GPS that I had in the early days, would fail to lock on, if there was a strong shadow, or so it seemed, and I soon became pretty happy to have the back-up!
 
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