Airline pilot lied

Flights over Cuba are very common and not just for emergencies. As long as you aren't landing there and maintain communication with Air Traffic Control.

"All flights into Cuban Airspace, including those in the established air corridors of Maya, Giron, and Nueves, must be able to establish, and maintain, communications with Havana FIR/CTA 10 minutes prior to airspace entry. All flights must have a flight plan on file with the Havana FIR/CTA at least one hour prior to airspace entry."

You sound like you are a pilot or at least very familiar with aviation and want to ask you a question that has been bugging me for a long time, perhaps you know the answer or someone else in the group can give a plausible answer.

As we all know when you move the GPSr in the off position to a different part of the city or the country it takes a long time to acquire, if you turn it on in a vehicle that is moving it compounds the problem and takes forever to connect to the satellites if ever.

My question is, how come that doesn’t happen in an airplane, soon after placing the GPSr next to the aircraft window it acquires with no problem even with the plane flying at 500mph +

Could it be because when on an airplane I’m 30,000 feet closer to the birds or is it because down on the ground the incoming signal gets diluted with the atmosphere or is it background noise coming from buildings and electrical interference?

I've been to the Cayman Islands 3 times, and we always flew over Cuba from Miami. I don't think it's anything special.

I'd like to know as well.

The answer to your questions would time much more space than is allowed. In summary, GPS signals are very low power and are so faint they don't register above the earth's inherent background radio noise.

The reason has little to do with being in the plane. In fact, reception in the plane is much worse than on the ground with a clear view of the sky. In the aircraft, you can only acess less than half the sky, aiming out your window on one side of the plane. So less than half the sats are available at any one time.

If you turn the GPS off, then jet to another state before turning it on, it confuses the built in database of GPS satellite locations. Same if you just turn it off in your home town and don't turn it on for a week or so. The GPS "forgets" where in the world it is located and first has to find itself, before it can re-orient itself to where the satellites are.

The GPS has a built in database of the satellites and where they are supposed to be in the sky at any time of day, FOR ANY GIVEN LOCATION. SO when you turn it off, it remembers where you are and uses that point as your assumed location when you turn it on again. When you turn it on, it remembers where it is (or was), knows the time of day, so it knows what sats are overhead.

So if I am in Maryland, tracking sats using my GPS and turn it off, then on again the next day, it starts by looking for the sats it knows are overhead in Maryland at that time of day. Turn it off, get on a plane to Chicago, then turn it back on and it has to re-orient itself. The GPS does not know where in the world it is but assumes it is still in Maryland as a starting point, but the signals it receives are not the expected signals from satellites in the expected location in space. It then has to decifer whatever signals it picks up, what satellites it is receiving, then find itself in the new city and adjust its database.

If you get on a plane and turn it on shortly after take-off, it will find sats close to where you were and it will know where you are when you land. or pretty close if you turn it off before landing. Turn it off when they tell you to, then back on when you are in your rental car and you should be close enough to the GPS last position so it will locate and lock on quickly.

On my old Magellan Meridian Platinum, I can re-initialize and tell the GPS the new city I am in and it will locate the sats very quickly. If I just turn it on after moving it 500 miles, it will take a while.