On Oct 15, 9:05*am, "Marco L" mmleon(AT)yahoo.com wrote:

What's really at issue here is the 28-day cycle. For the database to be
up-to-date for that (approx) one day that you fly, it will be up-to-date for
the other 27 days.

Providing of course I fly in the beginning of the cycle. If I depart
on day 27 and return 3 days later, the card is out of date. This has
not happened to me but can happen.

Ironically, from personal observations, very little is changed that is
housed on the data card in the few airports I have frequented. I have
seen frequency changes, runway length changes and the such, but in my
7 years of instrument
flying I have only seen one fix change. (TUP was changed to OTB)

Obviously, I better know the runway and frequency changes before
getting into the plane, but on the off chance a divert is needed, the
data card would need to be current for a non eventful outcome IF and a
big IF I depended on the data card for flight decision making. Since
I print all approach plates for airports enroute, I don't depend on
the data card.

The data that I see constantly change that is not housed on the Garmin
430 data card are the minimums so all the CRITICAL information I need
on an approach isn't even on the card!

Other than to change the cycle to daily, the only
other way is to put an expiration on the database where you can't use it.
That's a major software and TSO certification change and a lot of work for
very little cost benefit.

We simply need more pilots and more airplanes in the system. It will fix a
number of cost issues.

I agree with all that you say above, and again, I expect cost to be
incurred in getting access to this host of valuable information but
$300+ for one GPS approach that never got executed was a big expense
to incur this year.

Yep I also agree, more GPS equipped planes would be helpful in the
supply and demand :-) but along with bringing down the price of GPS
data cards, we need to bring down the cost of maintaining our birds to
beef up that supply and demand needs of GPS cards.