I"ve used my Garmin on several flights cross country. I don't ask and I don't show.. In fact I put it up to the window and when the FA walks down the aisle I take it down... in other words "don't ask Dont tell..'.... works fine every time....if it's made to work in an airplane how can it screw up an airplanes electronics... I think for the air carriers it's a case of when in doubt say no....it's a receiver, not a transmitter....

It will work fine in a commercial aluminum tube. It just receives a signal.

However, the IPAD built in GPS is notable crappy (actually, it's just tapping onto the GPS feed provided by their vendors cellular chipset) so its certainly an afterthought. A dedicated GPS or some good android devices will lock right on in some pretty abysmal signal conditions.

Much of the GPS signal is blocked by the aluminum skin, but you can intermittently get ForeFlight to track.

. yes and no. It is still up to the air carrier. As of last week, the preflight briefing on the 737 to work was very clear and they included GPS in the briefing as NOT allowed. The FAA has changed its stance on it and left it up to the individual air carriers. So as long as it is not mentioned in the preflight safety brief, then yes, you can use your GPS on a smoker.

Last I checked Southwest allows GPS receivers, not sure about the others.

My iPad mini does way better than my iPad2. It will pick up a signal in less than a minute on the dash of a commercial airliner at 500 knots. The 2, not so much. Not sure if there are more channels, better antenna, better chipset or what.

Jake