Flight to Florida -- The Cure for Winter

The XM -- as GPS -- should simply confirm what you already know.

I have re-read this absurd line a dozen times, and can find absolutely no
merit in any part of it. In fact, it illustrates such an ignorance of VFR
cross-country flying that I find it hard that a real pilot would post such a
thing.

Weather is a dynamic, ever-changing thing. If you're flying anywhere near a
front, as we were on this flight, over a five-hour duration (at spam-can
speeds of 170 mph), you cannot "already know" the weather without XM.

Without XM you can look out the window, you can call Flight Service, and you
can try to extrapolate the weather predictions you received from a briefer
five hours ago -- but you cannot "know" it in any way -- EXCEPT with XM
weather on board.

Which is what makes VFR cross-country flying much more possible (and
comfortable) nowadays than it was just a few years ago. Anyone who says
otherwise has either never flown cross-country VFR, or is so used to
flipping on the autopilot and droning along airways that they've completely
forgotten what this kind of flying is all about.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:moYHj.45940$TT4.1716@attbi_s22:

The XM -- as GPS -- should simply confirm what you already know.

I have re-read this absurd line a dozen times, and can find absolutely
no merit in any part of it.

It's because you're an idiot. Don't worry about it. Be happy.
Go play with your flight sim.


Bertie

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
"Maxwell" luv^2^fly^99@^cox.^net wrote in news:faYHj.45315$f8.11862
@newsfe23.lga:



BTW, When I was a young pilot, I didn't see any of the previous
generation as dinosaurs.



I don't either, unless they're as useless as you.

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:moYHj.45940$TT4.1716@attbi_s22:

The XM -- as GPS -- should simply confirm what you already know.

I have re-read this absurd line a dozen times, and can find absolutely
no merit in any part of it.

It's because you're an idiot. Don't worry about it. Be happy.
Go play with your flight sim.



Doesn't the pathetic little narcissist inside you just love it when people
kill file you.

You always get the last word!!!!

Dan wrote:
Curmudgeon lament follows:

I guess it's here -- a whole generation of pilots following magenta
lines who will now be looking to fly through green and avoid the red
and yellow.

Absurdist lament follows from previous one:

I too object - to the outsourcing of the job of looking at colored screens
and making life-and-death decisions based on what one sees there. As we all
know, that job properly belongs to ATC!

;-)

On Mar 30, 10:55 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

Weather is a dynamic, ever-changing thing. If you're flying anywhere near a
front, as we were on this flight, over a five-hour duration (at spam-can
speeds of 170 mph), you cannot "already know" the weather without XM.

Without XM you can look out the window, you can call Flight Service, and you
can try to extrapolate the weather predictions you received from a briefer
five hours ago -- but you cannot "know" it in any way -- EXCEPT with XM
weather on board.


Jay,
I don't have XM weather yet but have witnessed its great benefit
while flying our long dual cross-country trips with an instructor (as
part of the commercial requirement). His plane is equipped with the
Garmin 430W, a stormscope and the Garmin 396. I totally agree that
weather is a dynamic, ever-changing thing and having XM weather
onboard helps with modifying your flight plan while enroute. However,
our instructor, Doug Stewart (dsflight.com), the National Flight
Instructor of the Year for 2004, kept emphasizing that XM weather
should be used as a strategic and not a tactical tool. The added
benefit of XM weather to ADDS info, duats, standard briefing, FSS is
that it gives you a much shorter term strategic plan. Two years ago
when we had to delay our trip from NY to Oshkosh a day due to
thunderstorms while Doug and another noted Aviation Safety Seminar
speaker, Bob Martens went ahead with their trip also from NY. I had
fun monitoring their flight path on flightware observing them skirting
around thunderstorm areas with the help of the stormscope and XM
weather.

I had done many cross country trips without the benefit of a GPS
(some of them not using GPS on purpose to practice our pilotage and
dead-reckoning skill). We have also flown many long trips (one all
the way from NY to CO) without the benefit of a weather tool on
board. Of course we can fly without GPS and XM weather but having
them on board will definitely make our trips much safer providing that
we follow the advice given in this AOPA article about Scott
Crossfield's accident " Don't let the equipment lead you into a place
you wouldn't go without it"

http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/2008/sp0804.html


Hai Longworth

On 2008-03-31, Jay Honeck wrote:
The other "secret" (although it's hardly rare) is to have XM weather. With
that incredible tool on board, we know what we're flying toward hours in
advance, and can make adjustments accordingly.

What are you lookign at to see what the cloud layers are like on your XM?
I've played around with my 496, and what it's showing me is great...but I
can't visualize what you're looking at to make your decisions.

This is something I'm interested in, since I'm planning a multi-day VFR trip
bringing the Zodiac home. (And yes, I'm planning to sop in Iowa City.)
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC (ordered 17 March, delivery 2 June)

On 2008-03-31, Jay Honeck wrote:
That's funny. I just flew my family transcontinentally 2500 miles in a
single-piston-engine spam-can, all VFR, over a six day period, during the
most weather-variable time of year, using the best technology available --
and you're saying that using this technology makes me a "crayola-viator"?

You're not a curmudgeon -- you're a Luddite.

What's that line about "all available information"?
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC (ordered 17 March, delivery 2 June)

"Maxwell" luv^2^fly^99@^cox.^net wrote in
:


"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:moYHj.45940$TT4.1716@attbi_s22:

The XM -- as GPS -- should simply confirm what you already know.

I have re-read this absurd line a dozen times, and can find
absolutely no merit in any part of it.

It's because you're an idiot. Don't worry about it. Be happy.
Go play with your flight sim.



Doesn't the pathetic little narcissist inside you just love it when
people kill file you.


Yep,. BTW, was that a question? You forgot the question mark.

You always get the last word!!!!

Yes. Yes I do.


Bertie

"Maxwell" luv^2^fly^99@^cox.^net wrote in news:BGYHj.63831$y05.4606
@newsfe22.lga:


"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
"Maxwell" luv^2^fly^99@^cox.^net wrote in news:faYHj.45315$f8.11862
@newsfe23.lga:



BTW, When I was a young pilot, I didn't see any of the previous
generation as dinosaurs.



I don't either, unless they're as useless as you.




Bwawhawhahw!

You're just a meanie, you are.


Bertie