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08-07-2011, 04:14 PM
I'm a new pilot and want to get some type of active weather on a portable device. I see that on iPad there is WingX and the Garmin App that integrates the ads-b if you get the receiver. I've read somewhere that foreflight was considering intergrating XM weather. Then there are the portable Garmin devices like 696 or the aera devices. Since the ads-b is without a subscription, that seems really attractive, but some pilot friends said they didn't think that there is good coverage with it yet, and it was slower turn around time updating the weather than XM.
Does any one have experience with the iPad apps and ads-b?
Any preferences or pearls of wisdom?
Thanks

Kyle Boatright
08-07-2011, 05:15 PM
I'm a new pilot and want to get some type of active weather on a portable device. I see that on iPad there is WingX and the Garmin App that integrates the ads-b if you get the receiver. I've read somewhere that foreflight was considering intergrating XM weather. Then there are the portable Garmin devices like 696 or the aera devices. Since the ads-b is without a subscription, that seems really attractive, but some pilot friends said they didn't think that there is good coverage with it yet, and it was slower turn around time updating the weather than XM.
Does any one have experience with the iPad apps and ads-b?
Any preferences or pearls of wisdom?
Thanks

I'm kind of in the same situation myself - looking for the "right" weather solution at a price that is attractive to me.

If you google ADS-B service map, you'll see where the signal is available today. Largely, if you're east of the Mississippi, you're likely to have service, as you are on the West Coast - essentially if the population is fairly dense, the network is in place.

With the iPad, something to remember is that it needs an external GPS and either an XM reciever or an ADS-B reciever, so you end up with several devices and potentially their cords in the cockpit. I hate that. Also, I hate stacking devices from a reliability perspective. If the iPad, the GPS, or the XM/ADS-B module has a problem or if any of the devices have a communication problem with the others, you don't have the information you want/need.

Also, check the iPad's spec's. Heat and altitude are not its friends (at least according to the spec sheet). I'm leery of putting my trust in a piece of hardware that isn't designed for the operating environment I plan for it. And I do acknowledge that lots of people are using iPads in the cockpit. I have seen many reports of happy customers and a few who had experienced heat related in-flight shutdowns.

Garmin's current products (Aera 510 and up, 696) are integrated, so you don't have the integration and reliability issues. But you're stuck with an XM bill. Today my preference would be one of those devices. I suspect Garmin will introduce a stand-along ADS-B portable in the next year or two. When that happens, I'm in. Right now, I'm too cheap to spend the bucks on the hardware and the XM subscription fees.

Adam Smith
08-07-2011, 08:31 PM
I really love ForeFlight... if they get true in-flight weather, wow, that would be fantastic. Even without it, I it's a pretty incredible tool.

steveinindy
08-07-2011, 08:39 PM
Right now, I'm too cheap to spend the bucks on the hardware and the XM subscription fees.

It beats the heck out of the price of an onboard weather radar. ;)

Bob Meder
08-07-2011, 09:12 PM
It beats the heck out of the price of an onboard weather radar. ;)

Whoa! I say, whoa!

As an old, gray-haired instructor, I have to jump in on that statement. XM data combined with NEXRAD are wonderful tools. However, they are strategic in nature. By the time you get the data, it can be upwards 15-20 minutes old. That is about how long it takes for a cell to develop into something nasty. That's why experts say that you should not rely on it to navigate your way through a line of weather. Using XM/NEXRAD to decide on how to give weather a wide berth, or even to land and wait it out is appropriate. On board radar is really the best way, when used expertly, to get through a line of weather, if it's possible at all.

The reason I'm jumping on this is that I've heard too many conversations among instrument pilots talking about dealing with embedded storms using NEXRAD. It's just too risky a proposition.

@Adam: I use Forflight, too, but there are a couple of things they need to address before they've hit it out of the park. My biggest gripe is that they don't take into account time, distance, and fuel to climb in their calculations. I mentioned that to them at their booth and I've been assured that they're working on it.

steveinindy
08-08-2011, 02:29 PM
My comment was made slightly tongue in cheek mostly as a reference to the cost associated with satellite weather services. I give thunderstorms a 20-30 mile leeway and if there are embedded storms, I'm not going to try to pick my way through it. However, it is nice to know where those embedded cells are NOW rather than 20-30 minutes ago if you're trying to avoid them.

Adam Smith
08-08-2011, 06:17 PM
Interesting discussion. Yesterday we picked our way through a line of nasty weather near Chicago with the aid of a Garmin 696. Same flight 10 years ago? Pretty sure we'd have landed and waited it out. With the 696 we were able to make good decisions and get through with confidence.

Bob Meder
08-08-2011, 09:07 PM
I dunno, Adam. Probably depends on the nature of the line. If there were imbedded storms, I probably wouldn't have done it with XM radio alone. Now, if there were big holes in the line, if I could get on top and see the build ups, or if I had fairly high ceilings where I could see the rain shafts underneath, I'd do it. Else, a combination of either spherics or live radar along with NEXRAD would be more my cup of tea. On the way to Oshkosh from St. Louis, we stopped at Bloomington to reassess that stationary front that's been stuck along I-80 just because two gray-haired CFI's flying a Seminole just didn't have a warm and fuzzy about it...

MEdwards
08-09-2011, 10:53 AM
My recent experience was similar to Adam's. Heading for Oshkosh, we would have stopped overnight in Iowa if we hadn't had XM weather on the 396. It showed us a nice hole over Cedar Rapids where we could get behind the line and continue. We had visual too, but we wouldn't have known where to look without the NEXRAD display. Then we did the same thing again near Ripon, slipped behind a line of showers and joined and flew the approach without a drop of rain.

I think relatively inexpensive onboard weather radar display was the biggest advance in GA safety in the last decade.

Bob Meder
08-09-2011, 11:44 AM
My recent experience was similar to Adam's. Heading for Oshkosh, we would have stopped overnight in Iowa if we hadn't had XM weather on the 396. It showed us a nice hole over Cedar Rapids where we could get behind the line and continue. We had visual too, but we wouldn't have known where to look without the NEXRAD display. Then we did the same thing again near Ripon, slipped behind a line of showers and joined and flew the approach without a drop of rain.I think relatively inexpensive onboard weather radar display was the biggest advance in GA safety in the last decade.I can't disagree with you. My point is how NEXRAD is used. As a planning and strategic tool, it's tremendous. My concern, and I've heard people doing this, is using NEXRAD to pick your way through a line of embedded storms. The cycle times just aren't fast enough for that.

Dana
08-09-2011, 03:54 PM
Not to sidetrack the discussion (and my brother in law is putting an ipad on his RV-8 panel), I [partially] justified switching to a Droid phone so I could get up to the minute weather before takeoff. On a typical New England afternoon with "scattered thunderstorms", it's nice to know just where they are. Between local wind reports, animated radar, and the local airport's graphical ASOS, it makes the go/no go decision easier... including the decision whether drive out to the field for a quick one after work.

steveinindy
08-09-2011, 04:16 PM
You know that the "up to the minute" radar is often lagging by several minutes, right?

Dana
08-10-2011, 05:35 AM
You know that the "up to the minute" radar is often lagging by several minutes, right?

Yes, of course... but seeing the animated trend over a state wide region is usually enough for planning a short local flight.

For dodging thunderstorms while in flight, it's a different matter.

Bonanzabob
08-18-2011, 09:14 PM
I was an early adopter of Foreflight and find it works great for VFR navigation. I can usually connect with the web up to about 10,000 feet, but over unpopulated areas such as the Mojave Desert, near where I live, the connection can be lost. That said, every time I have a connection I update the weather. It's quick and incredibly intuitive and easy to use. I love the price of a subscription to nationwide VFR and IFR Maps, approach plates, etc. At $75 a year it's a steal. The maps are geo-referenced at that price. For another $75 you can get geo-referencing added to the approach plates. This puts the airplane icon right on the approach as you fly it. As for IFR flying, I still rely on paper maps. It's just too much for me to have to swish my fingers around the screen, zooming in an out, while flying IFR. I would NEVER use the electronic approach plates for IFR approaches. What happens if something craps out? Paper approach plates are cheap, and available free from DUATS and other sites. I bought a Bad Elf GPS, which plugs into the Ipad. It's supposed to make it more accurate. My Ipad, which is a top of the line 64 Gb unit, was accurate to 5 meters without the Bad Elf and it still seems to accurate to about 5 meters. However, I do get faster lock-ups with the Bad Elf GPS, and I have read posts from others that the Bad Elf works at higher altitudes. If you happen to have a wi-fi only Ipad you need the Bad Elf or something similar because the wi-fi units use cell phone triangulation, not GPS, to establish their location. I think Foreflight still has a 30 day free trial, and the App is a free download at the I-Tunes App store. It works on I-Phone and IPad only if you want the full suite. Foreflight also has an APP for Android, but currently it only supports weather. They are rumored to be working on a full Android suite. One final point. Foreflight does NOT include Class "B" airspace charts in its subscriptions, and you'll need those for sure if you navigate around large cities.

Eric Page
08-19-2011, 04:46 PM
I would NEVER use the electronic approach plates for IFR approaches. What happens if something craps out?

Couldn't agree more. A friend who flies for Alaska Airlines related a story recently which demonstrates that iPads might not be ready for prime time. As many will be aware, Alaska has been using iPads in their flight decks for a few months now. My buddy was on an arrival, nearly ready to begin an approach, when both his and the Captain's iPads locked up, simultaneously. They killed and re-launched the Jepp app, but they locked up again. With no time to reboot the devices, they had to dive into the ships' set of paper Jepps. Had this happened later in the approach, or while commencing a missed approach, it could have been a real circus.

Keep in mind that his happened in a temperature-controlled, pressurized flight deck. Was it a problem with the device or with Jeppesen's app? Who knows? It certainly begs the question: where was the FAA when these things were approved for Part 121 use, apparently without adequately rigorous testing?

WRT to the data-link weather -vs- installed weather radar debate, I'm with Bob Meder. In the airline world, if our weather radar is inop, we're prohibited from dispatching on a route that has the possibility of encountering weather that could be detected by radar. There's a good reason for that: as Bob said, weather radar, properly used, is the single best way we have to navigate through an area of embedded storms.

Just last week on a flight from the CA coast to PHX, we picked our way through a 100+ mile area of embedded storms. ATC was very accommodating and gave us carte blanche to deviate as needed. I was literally flying the airplane with the heading knob and the radar. It was pitch black outside, so the only visual reference we had was lightning from the fast-moving and rapidly growing cells. We could never have safely navigated that route with time-delayed NEXRAD images.

That said, I'd LOVE to have data-link weather on my flight deck!

Antique Tower
08-19-2011, 05:10 PM
"Never dodge imbedded CB's with less than a million dollars in avionics." - my dad

steveinindy
08-22-2011, 07:55 AM
Also, check the iPad's spec's. Heat and altitude are not its friends (at least according to the spec sheet). I'm leery of putting my trust in a piece of hardware that isn't designed for the operating environment I plan for it.


Yeah, but keep in mind that a lot of folks on this board are totally comfortable and- at times- almost freakishly eager to apply technology to flight that was never intended for nor rigorously tested in aviation settings (automotive engines, non-TSO/PMAed parts, etc).


"Never dodge imbedded CB's with less than a million dollars in avionics." - my dad



Amen. I want to buy your dad a beer. Even with a million dollars in avionics, I'm still not going to try it.

Eric Page
08-23-2011, 05:19 PM
Even with a million dollars in avionics, I'm still not going to try it.

It actually works pretty well. 99.8% of the time...