Looks like Starlink is looking for their pound of flesh from aviators. Just received an email stating my Starlink mini sub will have to increase 5x to $250/mo. The 450mph plan is $1000/mo. This may be old news, but I wasn’t aware of it so sharing this so no one else is surprised.

Oh that's going to suck. Especially if they rigorously stick to those numbers. My Husky is about 100 KTAS so it will get prohibitively expensive. I've been very pleased with the 'standby' rate of $5/month ($7 CDN) and 500 kbit throughput. It's enough bandwidth for Foreflight weather and voice calls, but nice to know full speed was available on demand if needed. Oh well. Elon does what Elon does I suppose.

Do we know how this is going to work? If you try using it over 100 mph does it automatically bump you into the higher priced option or does it just not work?

Good lord,

Also, what if you have a slow plane and get a 30mph tailwind? Just turn the thing off for a bit?

I suspect it would either shut down or bump you down to standby mode if you break the speed limit. Seems unlikely they would automatically bump you to a significantly more expensive plan - but who knows??

Damn. I'm going to have to close pornhub and look out the window....

I'm glad I waited before buying in. I think I'll stick with my mini-InReach for coms in the back country. I can get weather on it too, so the critical functions are covered. I can wait for the nice-to-have internet features until I get home, or am parked someplace with cell phone coverage.

SmokeyTheBear wrote:Damn. I'm going to have to close pornhub and look out the window....

You, YOU"RE the reason they did this.

It shuts down above 100mph. If you slow down it comes back on.

As an FYI, you can get very good weather imagery, metars, TAFs, etc from Sirius XM Aviation Weather, for $30 a month, and you can turn it off for a few months for free in winter if you're not flying much.

At a strip in a canyon in central Idaho, it works fine, and the weather imagery you get there is every bit as good as anything anywhere....composite radar. Unlike ADS-B weather data, the resolution isn't reduced.

Of course, you can't surf the net or make phone calls, but.....

Tested it out today. Works exactly as advertised. Above 100 MPH ground speed it drops out and you get an overspeed message on the Starlink app. Below that it comes back to life in a couple minutes. In the Husky this really isn’t a big deal. No problem slowing down 15-20 mph if I really need a weather update or to make a call, and it still works as always for planning when on the ground. Not ideal, but I won’t be tossing my Starlink in the burn barrel just yet.

Ugh… not to be a killjoy, but this stuff is so far away from why I like flying the backcountry… or flying at all.

No music, no cell service please.

I’ve had a couple of customers ask about installing Starlink in their airplanes. I tell them to go buy a Cirrus.

Just my .02

Amen

Bigrenna wrote:Ugh… not to be a killjoy, but this stuff is so far away from why I like flying the backcountry… or flying at all.

No music, no cell service please.

I’ve had a couple of customers ask about installing Starlink in their airplanes. I tell them to go buy a Cirrus.

Just my .02

Spend a bit of time north of the Arctic Circle in Nunavut. No XM reception, and next to no weather products from them regardless. Well out of radio range from flight services. 2-300 miles between weather reporting stations. It ain’t about Netflix or YouTube. Thankfully it still does what I need it to do most of the time.

Cheers.

Bought Starlink for the drone trailer because the cool kid operator helping us said we'd need it to survive ... Turns out we didn't need it anymore there, than we ever have in an airplane. And I've had them (aircraft) as far remote as this planet has to offer.

Damn good tool for our office though. Fortunately that doesn't move very fast . As with everything else aviation.... it's all about the mission, and when an aviation mission requires it, cost becomes almost irrelevant.

Take care, Rob

Cory Doctrorow has a word for this "enshitification" - he describes a 3-stage process: first, platforms are good to users; second, they abuse users to make things better for business customers; third, they abuse business customers to claw back value for themselves...

Exhibit A.

Boreal1 wrote:Cory Doctrorow has a word for this "enshitification" - he describes a 3-stage process: first, platforms are good to users; second, they abuse users to make things better for business customers; third, they abuse business customers to claw back value for themselves...

Exhibit A.

Its a business, its purpose is to make money. You could always get a some money together and start your own Starlink. Then you could charge people as little as you please.