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Thread: Easy to use GPS?

  1. #11
    Senior Member jtpitkin06's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Greenville, TX
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    640

    Default Re: Easy to use GPS?

    Quote Originally Posted by rwaltman View Post
    True, but the more functions and/or modes of operation a device has, the easier it is to invoke them accidentally, to find yourself staring at unknown screens without an obvious way out, etc. Particularly for infrequent users...


    Roberto.
    That's why I made the point of mastering your GPS on/off function.

    My Kitfox has recycled steam gauges, no glass panel and no GPS. I left the fancy boxes parked at the gate when I retired from the airline.

    If I can't get there with a sectional, compass and whiz wheel; then, I'm missing the point of flying a low and slow VFR aircraft. ( I now have one of those light blue cards with a hole in it. )

    John Pitkin
    Greenville, Texas

  2. #12
    Senior Member
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    Oct 2009
    Location
    NJ
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    218

    Default Re: Easy to use GPS?

    John, you are preaching to the choir.

    Still, I hope I will make some long flights in my slow airplane, where better instruments have a larger effect than in the "normal" $100 hamburger local flight.

    It is also a component, (may be only psychological,) in an insurance formula against stuff happening. Another component is my wife learning to land the airplane.
    She is not interested in getting a pilot certificate, but we both want her to learn to do good-enough landings.
    The long term plan includes starting with a flight simulator at home, followed by lessons with an instructor in a plane more stable than the KF, followed by the KF.
    If she ever needs to do that for real, a really easy to use GPS will be a plus.

  3. #13

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Lawrenceville, GA
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    180

    Default Re: Easy to use GPS?

    The one exception is navigating on the fly to some of these little grass strips we have around here. They are surrounded by trees (flat Georgia), similar looking fields, etc., and if you haven't been there before (or if its been a while) you can fly right over and miss them even with the chart handy. Or at least I can. I've got an old Magellan 315 that had a free aviation DB available for a while. Still relatively up to date so it can still get me there. (BTW, I still have all this stuff so if you can dig up a 315 (cheap) I can give you the DB.)

    Otherwise you have to plan ahead, print out coordinates and plug in, etc. Yeah I know, I do usually go on-line and at least check for TFR's to avoid close encounters of the worst kind so I could do all that but it's a time thing.

    Still, mostly it is turned off and in the side pocket.
    Last edited by napierm; 07-17-2012 at 01:40 PM.

  4. #14
    Senior Member
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    Oct 2009
    Location
    NJ
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    218

    Default Re: Easy to use GPS?

    When I just begun taking flight lessons, I was amazed at the super-human, eagle-like vision of my instructors that allowed them to spot airports where I could not see them at all. I took me a while to realize that they couldn't either.

    After flying for a while in the same area we all begin to recognize landmarks around the airport, and we all, conciously or not, fly "IFR" (or follow power lines, or rivers, or water tanks.)

    In one occasion I took my wife for a flight out of Lincoln Park, NJ, with a CFI as a chaperon, since I didn't have my ticket yet.
    Flew in a direction the guy was not used to, and in two minutes had him hopelessly lost. ( For those that know the area, how can you not recognize route 287 and the reservoir by route 46? )

    After I start taking passengers I guess I'll enjoy asking the victim-du-jour "Were is the airport?", while I keep my eyes locked in the cell tower that gives me my super-human navigation skills.

    Roberto.

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