dancingstar wrote:

Andrew Sarangan wrote:

dancingstar wrote in
:

Jonathan Sorger wrote:

Passed my private pilot checkride last week and now want to learn
about GPS.

I've searched a bit but have found no threads pertaining to my
question - I'd like opinions or if someone can refer me somewhere...

Someone has offered to give me a Garmin Streetpilot 2610 - is there
any use for one of these in a plane? The 'official word' from Garmin
is that you can't put aviation map data into an automotive unit, but
I'm sure someone has tried...

I realize that an aviation GPS unit is ideal, but would a Streetpilot
be of any use?

Thanks,


I have used a simple Garmin 12xl for about 3 or 4 years now and am
quite happy with it. It is not an aviation GPS but works just great as
one if you don't need all the whistles and bells. It updates fast (1
sec) and allows manual insertion of 500 waypoints and 16 routes. I
love the way you can repond to the tower's position inquiry with,
"Errrr...I am 7.6 nautical to your SSE" instantly.

I have manually entered over 400 airports, waypoints, vors, ndbs, etc.
by punching in lat and long coordinates. Mine has a moving map mode,
gives me eta, ete, ground speed, altitude, 10 nearest airports,
instant GOTO, etc. It actually saved my bacon once when I
inadvertantly entered a towering cumulus on an IFR flight which wiped
out my panel because of the static. The little GPS in compass mode
allowed me to keep the plane upright with no visual references and no
panel instruments.
The aviation GPS's are great with their built in databases though I
think the handhelds are all about the same as far as usefulness goes.
It comes down mainly to preferences--Do I want a database? Do I want a
big screen? Do I want WAAS capability? Do I need one that doesn't such
up the batteries? Do I want a color screen? Do I need the street maps
and airport data? ....etc.

However, if someone is offering a free GPS to you then why not just
try it out?

Happy flying!
Antonio




I couldn't agree with you more. I have been using my Garmin 12 for
about 5 years now. I can do more things with it than what most people
can with their IFR approved GPS. I don't need moving map or airspace
alerts etc.. Just distance, track and speed are good enough. The rest
I can figure out from my charts. 500 waypoints is plenty enough for my
flying. I wrote a small program that will spit out the waypoints for
the region I am flying in. It works wonderfully, and it only cost be
about $100 for the GPS. The waypoint program is available at
http://www.geocities.com/asarangan/garmin.html



Neat program, Andrew !! What language did you write it in?

Somewhere on my many scattered CD's I have a program that allows you to
interface with the 12xl and upload data such as your page offers. I
don't think that the G12 has a data input, does it? If it does, I could
send you this (it is freeware).


Antonio

http://www.easygps.com offers a free program for loading and unloading
waypoints and routes. It works with nearly all GPS units. I use it
for geocaching with a Garmin-12 and it works just fine. The Garmin-12
has no features such as navaids, roads, rivers, lakes, etc so it's
really imporant to drop the Man Over Board point when you get out of the
car. This gives you a place to go to when you're lost in the woods (I
was once with a lightning storm approaching!). The .loc files for
EasyGPS are easy to understand and you can build one manually if you like.