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Thread: Weather

  1. #11
    Dana's Avatar
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    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.

  2. #12
    steveinindy's Avatar
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    You know that the "up to the minute" radar is often lagging by several minutes, right?

  3. #13
    Dana's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by steveinindy View Post
    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.

  4. #14
    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.
    Last edited by Bonanzabob; 08-18-2011 at 09:18 PM. Reason: spelling

  5. #15
    Eric Page's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bonanzabob View Post
    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!
    Eric Page
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  6. #16

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

  7. #17
    steveinindy's Avatar
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    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.

  8. #18
    Eric Page's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by steveinindy View Post
    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...
    Eric Page
    Building: Kitfox 5 Safari | Rotax 912iS | Dynon HDX
    Member: EAA Lifetime, AOPA, ALPA
    ATP: AMEL | Comm: ASEL, Glider | ATCS: CTO
    Map of Landings

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