I have a wifi only mini and it's a pain in the butt. Switched over to my iPhone 6s until the new smaller iPad Pro is released. My advice is to plunk down a bit of extra cash and get the cellular version with the GPS radio. A few things to remember:
a. You don't need to activate the cellular plan. The GPS is going to work perfectly. You can always tether to your phone and cache the maps on the GO app, then untether.
b. When flying turn off wifi, and enable Do Not Disturb (if you don't want call or text rings while you fly). I see people saying to enable Airplane Mode. Don't do it. Apple's iOS updates are notorious for letting the GPS radio still work in one release version during Airplane Mode, then completely changing that to not working in the next release.
ps. GPS data does not transfer from your phone to a wifi only tablet via tethering. Without a true GPS radio, your location has the potential of being significantly wrong - depending on a lot of factors.
