"Dave Butler" wrote:
For those of you who have purchased the GPS 396, which of the two
subscriptions are you purchasing? Aviator LT/$29.99 or
Aviator/$49.99?

I've used the higher priced subscription for nearly two years and
will keep it when I get the 396. The extra features are well worth
the extra cost, IMO, especially the lightning, surface analysis and
winds aloft.

Dan,

That's an interesting and surprising answer. I have no experience with
the XM service but anticipate using it on the 396 soon. I had figured
I would use the lower price subscription.

That was my plan, but I thought, "I'll try the full package for 3 months
and then drop back to the cheaper one." That was two years ago and I
still have the whole deal. I just can't bring myself to give up all
that wonderful data.

Does lightning data give you more/better information about where the
convection is? I would expect to see the lightning wherever you see
the most intense precipitation, so having precipitation intensity and
lightning data would be at least somewhat redundant. No?

No. There's often heavy precip with no sparks in it, especially in
winter. I must caution that you should be careful using *any* weather
gear to cut too close to heavy weather, whether you see indications of
lightning or not. I have never used a Stormscope or Strikefinder, but
it seems to me they would be better for real time, close up monitoring
of convective activity. Still, the lightning data in WxWorx gives me an
idea of which storms have the real rough stuff in them.

I see the value of surface analysis in preflight planning, but not
airborne. It really doesn't change very fast, and I'm going to be
making a pit stop before any changes become important. No?

I've had the picture change pretty drastically in flight, but only once.
I gotta admit this is something I love just for the coolness factor,
though it is nice to have it to remind me of where the fronts are.

With winds aloft, again, it seems to have preflight value, but limited
value once airborne.

I use this a lot to make adjustments to my plans while in flight. It's
great to have a graphical representation of the winds available with the
push of a button instead of a cryptic printout on the clipboard.

Pretend you're the XM sales rep and convince me I should go for the
high-price spread.

Well, the LT product is pretty damned good; I could certainly get by
with it. But all that other stuff is just too cool for me to give up.
The satellite mosaic is very handy when you're VFR and wondering where
there's a hole in the clouds. Why don't you try both and see what you
like?

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM