Real-Time (Co)Maps While Flying

Background

On an international flight, I saw that the in-flight entertainment system had a navigation feature. It shows a map with the source and destination, along with the plane's real-time location. It felt like a moving progress bar and also gave me a sense of the geography I was flying over. But a lot of budget airlines or domestic flights don't offer an in-flight entertainment system. I can't use Google Maps or Apple Maps because it requires an active internet connection. I wished this feature were available on all flights. Then I accidentally discovered that Comaps could do exactly what I'd been missing.

What is Comaps?

Comaps is an open-source navigation app similar to Google Maps and Apple Maps. The unique thing about it is that it can work completely offline. It lets you download map data from OpenStreetMap for any regions you want. After downloading the maps, Comaps doesn't use the internet at all.

It may sound surprising, it did to me, but GPS navigation doesn't need an internet connection. Smartphones come with built-in GPS modules that can communicate with the GPS satellites to figure out where you are on Earth.

Use Comaps for in-flight navigation

To use Comaps this way, download maps of all the regions on your flight's path before boarding the plane. Then during the flight, switch to airplane mode and you will still be able to use the map. As the plane moves through the sky, your pointer will move along with it.

Comaps is better than the in-flight system because the map is interactive. Zooming in on the cities and spotting landmarks feels way more fun than staring at a tiny seat-back screen.