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Artex Aircraft Supplies, part of the Cobham Avionics and Surveillance Division, and spidertracks ltd have formed a relationship that will see the New Zealand-developed and manufactured portable satellite-based tracking solutions available through Artex’s extensive international distributor network.

Spidertracks director Don Sandbrook says the partnership with Artex significantly increases spidertracks’ exposure to the international aviation community.

"Artex is a well-known and respected distributor for many aviation products. We are proud to have our satellite tracking solutions on their shelves" he says.

"We already have clients in more than 25 countries - this partnership will ensure even more pilots have access to this up and coming technology."

Artex Aircraft Supplies Marketing Director, Hannes Geiger says they are really excited about the opportunity to work with spidertracks. "The spidertracks technology is complimentary to our core product, Emergency Locator Transmitters. Adding spidertracks reinforces our commitment to supporting search and rescue worldwide."

Spidertracks satellite tracking solution combines satellite communication and GPS technology in one, small and portable spider unit. Because the GPS receiver and satellite receiving antenna are integrated within the injection-moulded 360g unit, no external antennae are required. Powered by a 10 to 32V power source, the units can be moved easily between aircraft. Spidertracks is a VAR of the Iridium satellite network, ensuring global cover and truly real-time flight following via Iridium’s global network. The system is AFF compliant and tracking information is accessed via the internet so can be accessed from any computer, at any time from anywhere in the world.

New Zealand-based spidertracks was launched in 2007 to fill the gap in the market for a portable, integrated GPS/satellite tracking system that wasn’t limited to the cellular phone network and coverage. The company partners with the world’s most comprehensive satellite network – Iridium, to bring clients an unparalleled package of technology and information delivery.

For more information regarding Artex Aircraft Supplies products and services, please visit http://www.artex.aero

Being able to locate any of the aircraft in their fleet at any time and the simplicity of the spidertracks system is why Helipro is rolling it out across it substantial flight operation.

"It’s easy to understand, simple but provides all the information we require" says Helipro Business Manager John Read.

Helipro is one of the country’s largest aviation operators, with 31 helicopters and 11 fixed wing aircraft, based in Palmerston North, Wellington, Paraparaumu, Christchurch, Rotorua and Taupo. A third of their business is in tourism, a third flight training and a third commercial operations, from firefighting in New Zealand and in Australia, to lifting and working with power companies on line survey and maintenance.

The company has its own sophisticated flight following system which it marries to the spidertracks tracking. If a craft is more than a minute overdue an alarm system is activated across the company’s bases. One of the first things they do is click on to spidertracks to see if the aircraft is still moving, and what its last reported position was. "If the situation arose where we haven’t managed to raise the pilot within 15 minutes we would put our own helicopters into the air and send them to where the spidertracks recorded their last position, speed and altitude."

Read says they are committed to the system because it enables them to identify exactly where an aircraft or helicopter is in the event of an incident. But, he says, the ease of use is also ideal for the Helipro operation.

"We have spidertracks so we can locate any aircraft in our fleet at any given time. It’s a vital part of our safety procedures. But spidertracks is also great because of its ease of use and ease of installation. There are a number of tracking systems out there but we chose spidertracks because it is simple, cost effective and there are no installation costs. There are plenty of units on the market that are quite complex. It doesn’t need to be complex - we wouldn’t use any more features."

Read says another beauty of the unit is that it is portable. "We have 13 units in our helicopters and we move between our training craft as required. We’re slowly rolling them out across the whole fleet."

"And we wanted to support a local company - but it’s gone beyond that now. The product and the system is superior to anything else on the market."

His advice to people looking to purchase a satellite tracking system is to think about what you’re buying it for and not to buy into a complex system with a whole lot of functions that you’ll never use.

Innovative satellite tracking solutions company spidertracks has today launched generation two of its portable satellite tracking unit at the New Zealand Aviation Industry Association conference in Tauranga.

The new spider has increased antenna performance while the external housing is now injection molded. Director Don Sandbrook says the new spider is a further refinement of the innovative technology that underpins spidertracks; the integrated GPS receiver and satellite transmitter in one small unit.

"With the better antenna performance it’s even more rock solid reliable" he says. "The need to upscale the production process to meet increased demand for the system has resulted in a more robust unit design and allows us to scale up production quickly as demand climbs."

The new spider also comes with a programming cable enabling the settings on each unit to be reprogrammed, new functionality downloaded and diagnostics carried out via a USB cable linked to a computer.

Spidertracks also launched another new piece of technology on the world market - a keypad that enables communication between the pilot or operator and the operations base. Keypad functions include a monitoring function that alerts nominated recipients that the aircraft has encountered adverse conditions, and an alert that sends TXTs and emails to recipients, including rescue services, in the event of an emergency. "The keypad has been developed in response to client demand for two-way communication. We’ve deliberately kept it simple because it’s not realistic to expect pilots or drivers to be able to complete complex communications when in emergency situations."

The new hardware was launched alongside the company’s new brand and revamped website at the annual aviation industry event.

The new brand reflects spidertracks’ position as an innovative, agile technology company: "We wanted spidertracks to have a personality - the new look is fun and sets us apart from other providers" says Mr Sandbrook.

While the public face of the spidertracks.com website has been rebranded, work continues behind the scenes increasing the functionality of the client interface. "We’ve kept all the best bits of the old spidertracks site and made it even simpler to get around. We’re also adding flight following and track recording features that will help our clients plan more effectively, increase their productivity and in the end, save them money."

Just over a year since launching spidertracks on the international market, the company is rebranding to better illustrate its market leader position.

"We’re positioning ourselves at the cutting edge of global tracking solutions and we felt the look and feel of our old brand and livery didn’t accurately portray that," says marketing manager Rachel Donald.

"The old brand had served us well, but we felt we needed a brand that was more sophisticated and compelling. We were the first to bring a portable tracking unit to the market so we wanted a brand that represented our cutting-edge technology. The new look has a technical, modern feel that represents the technology that underpins the spidertracks system. The use of black and silver gives a sense of professionalism while the bright green represents the dynamism of our company.

The new look has been implemented in this website and will be used on marketing materials and packaging. We’re also improving the services and technology we offer our spidertracks clients, so it was a good time to rebrand. We’re really excited about the new look and feel" she says.

Keeping up with the latest ventures of economist Gareth Morgan isn’t easy but you can keep track of his motorbike journeys on the internet with spidertracks.

Gareth and Jo Morgan’s latest adventure takes them and fellow travelers Roger Clausen, Tony Armstrong and Phil Lough, to the very top of the world on their Northern Lights tour.

Over three months the team will traverse 20 countries and 15,000kms across some of the globe’s more inhospitable terrain. They started from the United Kingdom, went across by ferry to Iceland then back to Scandinavia. They’re currently (on 17th July) traveling up Norway then across Lapland to Murmansk, then will head south to St Petersburg and across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus to Moscow, down the Volga to Astrakhan, then take a circular route home via Eastern Europe and Ukraine, the Crimea, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and into Poland before heading west again to Amsterdam and back to the United Kingdom to ship the bikes back to New Zealand.

While the travelers will be covering some of the more remote, habited places on earth, their journey can be followed every step of the way in real time on their website www.worldbybike.com

Spidertracks, a New Zealand-based satellite tracking solutions company has equipped the Morgans with their portable satellite tracking systems. The spider units capture the travelers’ GPS coordinates every five minutes then beam them in real time via the Iridium satellite network to servers in New Zealand and Australia. The spidertracks web-based system plots their movements on Google maps and these maps are viewable on the Morgan’s worldbybike.com website.

The global coverage offered by spidertracks via the Iridium satellite network and the small size and portability of the spider units makes it the ideal tracking system for those like the Morgans and Australian adventurer Dick Smith who chose to travel to some of the world’s more remote regions.

Spiders are now compliant with Automated Flight Following standards meaning it meets the requirements of the United States and Canadian forestry, wildlife and fire services. Director Bruce Bartley says demand for spidertracks has increased over the past few months as AFF has become mandatory in the US and Canada. "And the demand is not just from North America. It seems to be having a flow on effect to other countries as well. The Australian national firefighting service is looking to implement a similar service and we're selling units to contractors there as well.

"Countries such as Malaysia are also becoming more aware of the importance and benefits of satellite tracking. We're getting a lot of inquiry and selling many into Asia at the moment."

Won over by flight tracking and safety

When entrepreneur and aviator Dick Smith went 'skids up' in 1982 on the first leg of his successful attempt to be the first helicopter pilot to fly solo around the world he was relying on his own map reading skills, his experience and regular contact with aerospace controllers to make sure he stayed on track.

These days the adventurer no longer has to rely on radar and radio. He is using a spidertracks in his Cessna Caravan (which he has already flown around the world twice), tracking his GPS position and beaming the data in real time via the global Iridium network to spidertracks' New Zealand server where it is relayed to his ground support crews by the internet, so they can access it wherever they are in the world.

"The automated flight following offered by spidertracks means those on the ground know exactly where I am at all times. And the data is totally reliable and accurate because the position is being relayed in real time. The global coverage offered by the Iridium network ensures there are no 'blind spots'. The spidertracks doesn't have to store data points until it can see the next satellite, because there is always an Iridium satellite in view," says Dick.

"What I also really like about the spidertracks system is that it is portable. I use it in my plane but I can also plug it into any vehicle I'm in and my support crew can track my movements via the web. I'm safe in the knowledge that they can see me where ever I am in the world."

Right now, Dick and his wife Pip are driving across the Gobi Desert in Mongolia to Ulaan Baatar, north into Russia and then to Vladivostok as part of their journey driving around the world in a Ford 4WD vehicle called an Earthroamer. He has a spidertracks unit on the dashboard reporting the position via the Iridium network to the New Zealand server. The vehicle will then be shipped to Perth for a drive across the deserts of Australia completing the around the world motor vehicle expedition which started on 8 May 2006.

Increasing world-wide demand for resources, particularly from rapidly developing nations such as China and India, is pushing mining and exploration companies into increasingly remote operational sites. In the past, Mongolia lacked the infrastructure and financial support to exploit its vast mineral resources. But since 1992, with financial and technical assistance from Western Countries, it has explored and developed major deposits of gold, copper, molybdenum, uranium, coal and fluorspar. Mongolia now produces nearly 15 per cent of the world's fluorspar and is a major producer and exporter of copper, molybdenum and uranium.

Over 6,000 deposits of 80 different minerals have been discovered and over 160 deposits out of 400 surveys deposits are being exploited. A further 170 deposits of construction materials, such as granite and marble also exist, of which 35 are now being worked and 90 are in the process of development.

Major Drilling Group, one of the world’s largest drilling service companies, began operating in Mongolia in 2002 and now has 22 rigs working, with crews made up with 10 per cent Australian and 90 per cent Mongolian nationals. It recognised that vehicle movement across the vast and remote expanses of the country exposed the staff and the company to potential for serious injury.

It was this concern for the safety of its large crew that prompted the Canadian company to purchase spidertracks satellite tracking systems.

Mongolia country manager John Ross (JR) Davies says the company is dedicated to ensuring the safety of its staff and where possible works to reduce the possibility of exposure to risks and hazards that may injure crew or cause environmental damage. Davies says the company is fitting vehicle tracking systems to its fleets throughout the world so they can track vehicles movements where ever they are working. In Mongolia, he says, they had to find a satellite-based system that guaranteed total cover of the remote area in which they are operating. Spidertracks met that need and the company now has 15 units in use. While satellite tracking systems are becoming increasingly commonplace elsewhere around the world, it is an innovation in Mongolia "As far as I know, we’re the only company using tracking devices in Mongolia" says Davies.

"We use the vehicle tracking as a back up for safety. Vehicle accidents are one of our biggest exposures to serious injury. When it’s -60º to -70º Celcius and a vehicle breaks down or has an accident you want to know exactly where it is" he says.