Eric Greenwell wrote:
I don't think it's a good thing for student pilots, but how about the
licensed pilot flying cross-country? Would outlandings be safer if
pilots used the AGL information? I already do so to some extent, when I
use the "make waypoint here" feature over a good outlanding field, then
use that waypoint as my "target" for the glide computer.

I've been working with digital terrain elevation data since the mid-80s.
There are noticeable errors in some of the publicly available source
data. Fitting data for a usable area into the memory available in a PDA
requires a reduction in resolution. One also needs to consider the
possibility of significant GPS altitude errors. This data is fine for
drawing maps and getting a general idea of the height of the terrain,
but, in my opinion, depending on it for flying a pattern into an
unfamiliar field would be a mistake...

Marc