Garmin InReach vs Spot – When your life depends on it

I get asked by a lot of pilots about which tracker, SPOT or Delorme is better. This post is an attempt at a comprehensive answer to that question. I’ve used both extensively, all over the world. I would never fly without a tracker. We all got to see the value of using one first hand at the Sun Valley PWC in 2012 when expert pilot British pilot Guy Anderson disappeared for two days after a crash in a very remote part of Idaho. The local community pulled together immediately and launched a major search, which involved 4X4 ATV’s, Dirtbikes, Black Hawk Helicopters, and thousands of man hours. The search was successful and Guy is fine. But if he’d had a tracking device on that day, the rescue would have been a much simpler affair and saved thousands of dollars (not to mention a mountain of stress). So, the moral here is that if you are doing something remote and slightly dangerous like flying, you NEED to use a tracking device, endstop. If you don’t, you’re an idiot.

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Chinks in the Armor- The Red Bull X-Alps Reality

Every morning I head out and my head says no but my body says yes. The sweating starts, the cursing follows but the body just does the work. “Shut the fuck up head!” I keep saying, but it keeps grunting relentlessly. “I’ll shut up when you take a break!” But I don’t feel like I can afford a break. Just a few more weeks and that gun goes off in Salzburg and there won’t be any more time to prepare.

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