Garmin GpsMap 396 - Flight Test #4

Yesterday we planned on a proposed flight 50 miles away for dinner with
a light GA airplane newbie on board . The radar at home showed a very
narrow band of showers to the Northwest on a SW - NE line marching SE
towards us. The rain was limited to the lightest 2 green shades with an
occasional yellow dot showing here and there. In my experience, this is
usually light if it makes it to the surface at all. It looked like it
would take about 3-4 hours plus to arrive given its speed of advance.
Normally, I would make the "go decision" based on this and launch.

We went off to the airport and prepared the plane for the trip. Once the
396 had acquired weather data on the ground, it already showed the once
narrow band of green to be a much wider band of nearly solid yellow with
a few orange dots growing. This is usually some pretty moderate to heavy
rain and I was uncomfortable in challenging it. So, we went up locally
to show the newbie the wonders of the sky since the rain was several
hours away and the local skies were high broken. I did not do a whole
lot of testing, but the sat reception after upgrading to SW version 3.2
was much improved. Many more sats near the top. Never lost sat lock.

After a while, the rain band got wider still and I was convinced I did
the right thing scrubbing. We may have made it there and back, but it
would be awfully close. Then, the animation on the 396 looked like the
line had actually sped up in its Southeast track. I was now positive I
made the right choice.

Having this information in front of me was invaluable. Ordinarily, we
would have made the trip because we would not have known about the
deteriorating conditions. As the heavy rain would have started hitting
the windshield, I would have been torn between pressing on (with the old
radar information) or turning around because it had obviously changed.

As a funny aside, the rain did speed up and arrived 1.5 hours later.
However, right after we landed, the rain mass began to deteriorate again
to very light stuff. Our entire route saw only a few drops here and
there. This was a good illustration of how quickly things can change and
how valuable this info in the cockpit can be.

I am definitely keeping this thing!

Thanks,
Mike