GPS Longevity

" wrote in
:

On Mar 3, 5:47 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote
innews:kaLyj.59040$yE1.36721@attbi_s21:



Of course, it is much easier just to get the Garmin 396 or 496
but
I much prefer a larger screen. So if Lowrance does not come up with
an XM weather capable GPS next month, I will most likely get the
AvMap.

Good plan. Although having XM weather on board has been fantastic,
and (in the two years we've flown with it on-board) weather has
made our flying MUCH safer, I often regret buying the 496.

The 496 has an undersized screen, with poor readability (compared
to the competition), a slow processor that drives us nuts, and it
cost as much as my Toyota pickup truck. It's actually a much
better "entertainment center" (with XM radio) than it is a good
GPS, which is why we rely on our Lowrance 2000c as our primary
navigator in flight.

Not that the 496 doesn't have nice features. The AOPA data is
quite useful, and the airport diagrams are great. But the
underlying design of the unit itself is inferior to the
competition, and the price is just stupidly high. If I didn't have
on-board weather yet, I'd either wait for Garmin to fix the flaws
in the 496, or I'd wait for Lowrance and AvMap to *finally* mount
the weather horse.

God grief, do you ever look out the window?

Bertie

What's there to see? He's flying over Iowa....


Well, another airplane maybe!


Bertie

On 2008-03-03, wrote:
What's there to see? He's flying over Iowa....

"Mississippi River...Davenport...Corn corn corn corn corn..."
-- Heywood Banks, "Interstate 80 Iowa"

(At least at cruise altitude, the "what's that smell?" isn't as much of an
issue.)
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!)
Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390

Recently, Longworth posted:

On Jan 16, 8:13 pm, "Kyle Boatright" wrote:
Which brings to mind the question of how long of a service life do
most of you experience on your handheldGPS's? Do you usually retire
them because someone has marketed a better mousetrap, because the
unit is unsupported, or because the unit no longer works properly?

Our Lowrance Airmap 1000 stopped working today after about 3 years
of frequent usage (~ 250 hrs/year). It had been working fine.
During a flight today, the screen just went blank. We thought
something was wrong with the power plug which drained the internal
batteries.
Coming home, we recharged the batteries and still could not power
it up. I put in a fresh set of batteries but the unit still as dead as
a door knob. Will call Lowrance Service center tomorrow.
The hand-held GPS has become an indispensable cross-country piece
of equipment for us. For navigation, we use all available sources of
information, charts, VORs, pilotage, dead reckoning etc. but the GPS
gives the most precise information.

How precise were the locations your blank screen?

I consider my hand-held GPS as a convenience aiding situational awareness,
and if it went blank in flight I'd simply ignore it for the rest of the
trip rather than fiddle with it en route beyond seeing whether the power
plug was loose.

--
Neil

On Mar 3, 8:55*am, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Recently, Longworth posted:

How precise were the locations your blank screen?

I consider my hand-held GPS as a convenience aiding situational awareness,
and if it went blank in flight I'd simply ignore it for the rest of the
trip rather than fiddle with it en route beyond seeing whether the power
plug was loose.

Neil,
We never rely solely on the GPS. As stated in my original post, we
use all available information (charts, maps, pilotage, dead-reckoning,
VORs and even ADF!). When the GPS screen went blank, we did exactly
what you said you would have done.
This particular trip was just a local trip for us to practice our
commercial maneuvers. We turned on the GPS just to have a visual
record of our tracks doing steep turns, lazy 8's, chandelles and 8's
on pylons etc..
There is no question that GPS is more precise than VORs, and
there is simply no substitution for the GPS to ensure no airspace
violations especially in busy area such as the doing the Hudson River
Corridor.
Of course a pilot can navigate just fine without having a GPS.
As a matter of fact, we had a Garmin GPS III before the Lowrance but
hardly used it because we had just obtained our PP certificates and
wanted to make sure that we could find our ways with just pilotage and
dead-reckoning.
The GPS is an excellent navigation tool especially in today's
flying environment with all kinds of TFRs. We plan to do a coast-to-
coast trip this summer. Of course, we can do it without the aid of a
GPS but having one with XM weather capability will make it a much
safer trip.

Hai Longworth

On Mar 3, 7:50 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
" wrote :



On Mar 3, 5:47 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote
innews:kaLyj.59040$yE1.36721@attbi_s21:

Of course, it is much easier just to get the Garmin 396 or 496
but
I much prefer a larger screen. So if Lowrance does not come up with
an XM weather capable GPS next month, I will most likely get the
AvMap.

Good plan. Although having XM weather on board has been fantastic,
and (in the two years we've flown with it on-board) weather has
made our flying MUCH safer, I often regret buying the 496.

The 496 has an undersized screen, with poor readability (compared
to the competition), a slow processor that drives us nuts, and it
cost as much as my Toyota pickup truck. It's actually a much
better "entertainment center" (with XM radio) than it is a good
GPS, which is why we rely on our Lowrance 2000c as our primary
navigator in flight.

Not that the 496 doesn't have nice features. The AOPA data is
quite useful, and the airport diagrams are great. But the
underlying design of the unit itself is inferior to the
competition, and the price is just stupidly high. If I didn't have
on-board weather yet, I'd either wait for Garmin to fix the flaws
in the 496, or I'd wait for Lowrance and AvMap to *finally* mount
the weather horse.

God grief, do you ever look out the window?

Bertie

What's there to see? He's flying over Iowa....

Well, another airplane maybe!

Bertie



DOH!!

Ron Natalie wrote:
I have serial #9 of the 195. It works now as well as it ever did, but
it's purely backup now that I've got a nice MFD/IFR GPS.

Yikes, I'll bet that was one of the expensive ones! I bought mine about 3
yrs. after they were first introduced (about the time the 295 came out). It
was still a pricey $1K in 1999. It's still the only GPS I have on board.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

--
Message posted via AviationKB.com
http://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums...ation/200803/1

Longworth,

Recently, Longworth posted:

Neil,
We never rely solely on the GPS. As stated in my original post, we
use all available information (charts, maps, pilotage, dead-reckoning,
VORs and even ADF!). When the GPS screen went blank, we did exactly
what you said you would have done.
[...]
The GPS is an excellent navigation tool especially in today's
flying environment with all kinds of TFRs. We plan to do a coast-to-
coast trip this summer. Of course, we can do it without the aid of a
GPS but having one with XM weather capability will make it a much
safer trip.

Hai Longworth

I agree with much of what you wrote. I was originally reacting to the idea
that the GPS is "indispensable." The difference, in my view, is that truly
indispensable equipment would ground the plane if it was inoperative or
require landing ASAP if if failed in flight, and a GPS should only rise to
that level of importance in very specific cases.

Best,

Neil

On Mar 3, 1:57*pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
I agree with much of what you wrote. I was originally reacting to the idea
that theGPSis "indispensable." The difference, in my view, is that truly
indispensable equipment would ground the plane if it was inoperative or
require landing ASAP if if failed in flight, and aGPSshould only rise to
that level of importance in very specific cases.

Neil,
I checked my original post and here is what I wrote: " The hand-
held GPS has become an indispensable cross-country piece of equipment
for us". The key word is cross country. Our typcial cross country
trips are more than several hundred nautical miles covering several
states. Of course, we can do such trips with nothing more than a set
of sectional charts and our eyeballs but we would not want to embark
on such a trip without having a long list of items checked and the GPS
is one item which I definitely want to have.
I recalled having posted at r.a.p of several long cross-country
trips where the GPS came in handy. One such trip was before obtaining
our instrument ratings flying back to Illinois from Minnesota. It was
CAVU when we departed Baudette, MN but the ceilings got lower as we
were over the Dell in Wisconsin. We checked with FSS and learned that
the weather was better ahead of us so we pressed on but was quite
nervous about the rolling terrain spiking with cell towers. The
obstruction database on the Lowrance helped up to look for them along
our route. This trip was what prompted us to get instrument ratings.
Shortly after getting our instrument tickets, we filed IFR going
from New York to Michigan. Departing Erie International airport, I
slavishly follwed the VOR needle intending to stay on the airway.
Rick, my husband and co-pilot, noticed that I had strayed from the GPS
track but I told him that I should use the VOR as my 'main' navigation
tool. It wasn't long before ATC told us that we had deviated from our
route!
So the bottom line is that for us, a GPS is an indispensable tool
for long cross country trips along with other indispensable equipment
such as dual NAV/COM, glideslope, marker beacon, sectional charts,
IFR enroute charts, AFD books, approach plates, hand-held radios,
flash lights, extra batteries, cellphone, emergency/survial kit, food
& drink and even a relief red jug for Rick ;-)

Hai Longworth

Hi Hai,

Recently, Longworth posted:

On Mar 3, 1:57 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
I agree with much of what you wrote. I was originally reacting to
the idea that theGPSis "indispensable." The difference, in my view,
is that truly indispensable equipment would ground the plane if it
was inoperative or require landing ASAP if if failed in flight, and
aGPSshould only rise to that level of importance in very specific
cases.

Neil,
I checked my original post and here is what I wrote: " The hand-
held GPS has become an indispensable cross-country piece of equipment
for us". The key word is cross country. Our typcial cross country
trips are more than several hundred nautical miles covering several
states. Of course, we can do such trips with nothing more than a set
of sectional charts and our eyeballs but we would not want to embark
on such a trip without having a long list of items checked and the GPS
is one item which I definitely want to have.
[...]

Again, I agree with your appreciation of a hand-held, as I also use mine
in much the same way that you've described. I was being a bit nit-picky
about the terminology, that's all... I see it as an additional rather
than primary source of information, mostly for situational awareness.

Best,

Neil

I have two GPS units on any cross country and could have three if I
wanted.

Ron Lee