Building a Map Board

With winter having set in, now is the time to find, buy, repair or build all of those things you discovered you needed last flying season. One project you might consider is a map board.

Admit it. Having the most detailed, best prepared map in the world won’t do you any good if you can’t access all of that information and use it effectively in flight. Often, in flight decisions have to be made in very short order and that’s not the time to be scrambling around wondering where you stuck the map. ‘I know it’s here somewhere’ you tell yourself, ‘I remember putting it in the basket, or did I?’

Like so much involved with ballooning, there is no one way to build a map board. Different pilots will require and/or desire different features. And surely if you put a map board in front of a dozen pilots you would get a dozen different opinions about how to improve it, with one holding out for the argument that you don’t need it at all. Such is ballooning.

That having been said let’s examine a few options from the simple to the sublime:

Buy One

Certainly the simplest of options is to just go out and buy a map board, ready to use. This is a much easier task for fixed wing pilots than for balloonists. Fixed wing pilots call them knee boards because they are designed to rest on the top of your leg above the knee. Generally they include a strap designed to wrap around under your leg and attach to the other side of the board, thus securing it in place. These sell for anywhere from $15 to $75 and are readily available at any pilot shop or airport FBO (fixed base operator).

The trouble with these boards is they are, by design, very narrow, usually in the neighborhood of 5.5 inches. The reason for this? They were designed to accommodate aeronautical charts, like a sectional, not the variety of maps we see in ballooning. They are also designed for use sitting down.

However, Sporty’s Pilot Shop (1-800-LIFTOFF) does offer two products some balloonists might find satisfactory. First there is the NAVBOARD. This is two panes of clear acrylic, joined along one edge by a plastic hinge. Open the board and put your charts inside then close it. It seals with Velcro® at the two corners opposite the hinge. Available in two sizes, 10" x 12" and 10.5" x 15", they sell for $18.50 and $23.50 respectfully.

I used one of these (the larger one) for one season and found it satisfactory, except for its size. I had difficulty folding the maps provided at most events into such a small area. But, it does offer the ability to see charts from both sides, so you can actually put a sectional facing one direction and a road map facing the other. They are lightweight and easy to store in a pouch in your basket.

The Clipper Lapboard is also from Sporty’s. It is constructed of one piece of folded acrylic. Like a traditional knee board there is a strap to secure the board around your leg, or wherever you might find in the basket. The front includes two metal clips similar to those on an office clipboard. These can come in handy for holding task sheets, weather reports, and notes of all kinds. Both the NAVBOARD and Clipper Lapboard can be written on with a china marker or grease pencil and wiped clean with a dry cloth.

A few years ago at the Great Mississippi River Balloon Race in Natchez, Mississippi I was pleased to receive one of the finest pilot gifts I’ve found in my years of flying. A map board!

This board was constructed of two pieces of thick Plexiglas. These were held together with plastic thumbscrews. Though only about 1/4" in length, they had large, round heads, presumably so you could undo them with your fingers, even though they were slotted like a traditional screw.

This was a wonderful board; measuring 18" x 24" and substantial enough to take a beating and not break. I did find the screws to be cumbersome and time consuming whenever I wanted to change maps or fold out a different portion of a chart (seems there were 8 or more holding it together). Still I would likely be using it today (with some modification) had it not disappeared somewhere along the road that season.

Build Your Own

As noted above, I found the size of my NAVBOARD to be restrictive, the thumbscrews of my Natchez board to be cumbersome, so I set out to build a better mousetrap. To date, no one has beaten a path to my doorway.

My approach was simple. I copied the Natchez board by purchasing two pieces of Plexiglas, thin and flexible (too thin it turns out). To overcome size restrictions I settled on a dimensions of 24" x 24" (too large I now think). I lined the edges of each piece with 1/2" Velcro® (all hook on one piece, all loop on the other).

That was it. Simply place a chart between the two piece of Plexiglas and press them together. Like most ideas we’ll discuss here, this allowed charts to be viewed from either side. It was lightweight and I could change charts rapidly just by pulling the board apart.

This system worked, but not well enough. The Plexiglas I selected was too thin. While I liked its flexibility, I invariably would place the board against an inside wall of my basket. Usually upon landing I would either end up kneeling or stepping on it. The glass would flex, then break.

With many miles of clear acrylic tape now holding it together, the board still works. But, a better mousetrap it wasn’t. Brad Davidson fashioned a home built version of Sporty’s NAVBOARD using two pieces of Lexan (like Plexiglas) cut to 12" x 12". Then he sealed them together along one edge with the handyman’s secret weapon - duct tape. On the opposite side he attached sticky-back Velcro®.

Jim Holley of Huntsville, Alabama wrote: "I used two clipboards (clear plastic ones). I took the clip off one of them, got piano hinge and cut it to the length of the side of the clipboards, then hinged them together back to back. Inside, between the two boards, I put my local/rally map with compass rose on top and behind that, facing out, the sectional for the area I’m flying in."

To secure the clipboards and charts he closes them using two large "butterfly" clips (ask for binder clips at the office supply store). Holley goes on to say he uses the remaining clip to hold his weather sheet and to hang the clipboard from a hook in his basket. "Next, I drilled holes in the clipboard, one under the spring-loaded clip and the other about 3 inches from the opposite end. I attached the brackets to the underside of the clip board with short bolts and lock washers.

"The vinyl brackets are slightly smaller than the padded side rail of my Balloon Works basket so I have to stretch them a bit to get them on. They are deep enough to contain most of the suede and the open end closes naturally against the edge of the basket. They really hold on, you have to pry them off.

"I then put my topo map in a plastic sleeve, clip it to the board and use a grease pencil to mark my route."

A Champion Idea

Competition pilots probably spend more time on maps and flying with maps than any others in our sport. So, I took the question of building a map board to our current National Champion, Pat Cannon. Oddly enough, he broke his map board this past year and is about to build a new one. Timing is everything!

Cannon was also at that Natchez event a few years ago and he too received the map board discussed above. However, he removed the multiple thumbscrews and seals the two sheets of Plexiglas together with 4 "knee board" clips. (You won’t find those at the office supply store so ask for Banker’s clasps ) These are chrome silver in color, about 1/2" wide by 5" long. Cannon seems to have this map board stuff down to a science. He also uses the large butterfly (binder clips) for a variety of purposes. For example, to hold his task sheet or weather briefing. In the event of a pilot declared goal, where you have to declare in flight by writing the coordinates of your goal on the baggie tail, Cannon clips the tail between two of these and viola! Writing on the baggie has never been easier. Before installing on your basket however take another piece of load tape with Velcro® on the bottom side and attach this to each of the first two strips, a few inches from the end, so you form an alligator (c’mon-use your imagination - tail at one end, gaping mouth at the other, like the letter Y turned sideways). See figure 1.

Now, at each corner of the two Plexiglas panes, attach a few inches of Velcro®. (Pat suggests about 6 inches at the bottom corners and 3 inches at the top.) The object is for the map board to sit at about a 30 angle on the basket side rail. The hook or loop fastener strip that wraps around the siderail locking with the strips of fastener on the back, bottom corners of the board. The "alligator’s mouth", those secondary strips attached to the first loop, lock down on the fastener on the bottom, front of the board. We’re almost done! The beauty of this mounting says Cannon is that the board is sturdy enough he can place his weight against it and it will not move. This makes writing, which often must be done one-handed in flight, a simple procedure. But, if the board needs to come down, for landing or if you must throw a baggie from that side of the basket, you simply rip loose the hook and loop joints and safely stow it in the basket.

From the outset we acknowledged there is no one way to build a proper map board. The ideas above are just that, ideas. No one is necessarily better than the other. So if a map board is on your list of winter projects, get out there and go for it. And if you invent the better mousetrap, let us hear about it. Write me at Balloon Life, 2145 Dale Ave., Sacramento, CA 95815 or e-mail your ideas to me at LTAPilot@aol.com. Take pictures as you go and perhaps we’ll share your mousetrap with the world!