On Thursday, May 23, 2013 1:40:41 PM UTC-4, Morgan wrote:
I use both. L-Nave/GPS Nav combo. The Dell Streak with XCSoar is fantastic for situational awareness and I rarely fiddle with it in flight since I can see what I can reach. Maybe zoom in or out. Usually set MC2 and forget it although I have the polar degraded to about 32:1 for my Duo to pad my margins. As mentioned before, it is the trend of things I pay most attention to. Flying out west where we have lots of airports and landable fields, the terrain and other details aren't really that important.

Another important point BTW. The newer systems are getting better and better at information visualization. I fly the same way with my ClearNav. Once I enter the task and head out on course, I almost never push any buttons or spend time staring at the screen. A quick glance confirms where I am, where I'm heading, what I can reach, and the trends of glide performance, etc.

A lot of the old-time pundits who haven't flown with these devices lament the "increase in heads-down time." For me, it's just the opposite. I spend way less time in the cockpit than I did in the days of paper maps or first generation Garmin 12 Navigation.