13/04/2016

Helipaddy is a platform that makes helicopter trip planning easy. Available on smartphones, tablets and the web it offers an extensive database of fully researched helicopter landing locations, navigation tools, travel guides and an active community and support portal. A unique system built by pilots for pilots the Helipaddy platform is based on finding great places to land. It allows users to comment on existing landing sites, add new ones and share landing locations with friends.

All air navigation location referencing is done by latitude and longitude; GPS coordinates. While these do provide a precise location reference they are difficult to use. A sequence of 18 numbers and letters and decimal points are impossible to remember, even in the short term, and errors in understanding, communication and transcription make their use challenging. Mix up two digits and you end up landing in the wrong field, potentially damaging crops, livestock or worse.

To solve this Helipaddy have added what3words to their platform.

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what3words is an addressing and location reference system based on a global grid of 57 trillion squares of 3mx3m; each square has a unique pre-assigned 3 word address. what3words turns complicated coordinates into 3 simple words and back again. It means anyone can find any spot on the planet accurately and communicate it more quickly, more easily and with less ambiguity than any other system. Words can easily be remembered, written, said, printed or shared digitally.

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“With what3words Helipaddy are solving what is quite a difficult problem, namely a scalable solution to storing, sharing and moderating precise landing information in an simple way. what3words is a natural solution for communicating locations.” Paddy Wills, Helipaddy.