On Jun 30, 4:56*pm, brian whatcott wrote:
jb92563 wrote:
*/snip/
Something that depicts airfields well, that needs no setup...

Thanks for any clues...

Brian W

Your last sentence is the killer *......"Something that depicts
airfields well, that needs no setup"...

Thanks for this response, despite my misleading spec.
The setup I had in mind was the operational setup when
preparing to fly.

I can accept the need to specify a destination airport in the other
Garmin - how else would I get course, distance and time en route?
I like the hands off map display from the APIC.
Just wondering if there are more splendid displays I'm missing!

Brian W





There are good flying tools like the Garmin Airmap type units that
depict airfield layouts, that comes loaded ready to go...however I
think you had low price as part of your criteria?

You might want to check the Oudie, but its basically like the unit you
bought but preloaded with the software.

I have been using XCSoar in the motor glider and now even better the
LK8000 spinoff of XCSoar on a 4.3" iPAQ 310......
works great and gets improvements to the LK8000 software monthly.

Takes abotu 5 minutes to do an update and is simply a copy of the
latest software on top of the old stuff on the SD chip.

I have simply made copies of the 2mb chip and loaded their local area
maps for those that are not gadget geeks and they are up and running
instantly.

LK8000 is free and I believe you can load/attach auxilliary info for
airfields, although I have personally not tried that yet.

The existing airfield information includes coordinates, airspace
frequencies, runway numbers and occasionally comments so I dont find
the need to see an airport map since I dont fly in to anything more
complex that Class D airspace.

It would take some work however to gather the extra airport info and
load it up yourself if you wanted more details ....ie setup....

Perhaps we need a couple guru's to offer combos preloaded and
configured like the Oudie marketers are doing.

Ray- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If you have not seen LK8000 you should check it out if low cost with
lots of funtionality is your goal.

It even has stuff like FLARM etc showing targets in your vicinity on
the moving map.

Then there are the weather files that you can load in advance, along
with the airfields info that I will have to try out next.

My recent trip with it had about 12 waypoints over 400 miles and the
only finger (not stylus) input needed was to skip a waypoint or two
that I decided to bypass, and took only a couple seconds to do.

And this was in rough bouncy air in the Ownes Valley, CA. in the
afternoon in a motorglider moving at 90 kts.

I really appreciated the design not requiring precise finger pointing
ability on the touch screen as it would have been impossible to use a
stylus in the bumpy air.

I also like the iPhone type gestures for turning pages etc and the
touch screen zones (as opposed to points) that are used to make
selections.

The thermalling auto zoom is fantastic with the colored trails
indicating lift or sink to help you move into the strongest part of
the lift.

I only wish that the gps would take readings faster than 1 sec
intervals so it can be more precise and have less lag, but you get
used to it and
learn how to anticipate quickly since the seat of the pants gives you
instantaineous feedback.

I found that making adjustments about 45 degress early in the circle
seemed to be the proper method for my circling speed.


Ray