Handheld GPS adaptible to aviation

Well, you do have to have some means to know what you're
seeing with the OUTSIDE WORLD INDICATOR. The chart could be
almost anything, a gas station road map, an encyclopedia,
but if fuel is not critical, you can find New Orleans from
Wichita, by flying a heading of 165, for several hours
[depends on speed] until you reach the endless body of water
[Gulf of Mexico] and turn left and follow the shore line to
the big river [Mississippi] and the turn left again until
you see the city and the big lake, airport on the south
shore.


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"Peter Duniho" wrote in
message ...
| "Jim Macklin" wrote
in message
| news:Gd7Of.110864$QW2.58596@dukeread08...
| Everything except the windows and a chart is just an aid
to
| navigation.
|
| Take out "chart", and you're exactly correct.
|
|

"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
news:Ve8Of.111157$QW2.108788@dukeread08...
Well, you do have to have some means to know what you're
seeing with the OUTSIDE WORLD INDICATOR.

No, you don't. People managed to get from Point A to Point B for tens of
thousands of years before written language was invented, never mind
map-making.

The most basic navigation simply involves a means of locomotion, and the
human ability to navigate without any external aids at all. A chart is no
less an "aid to navigation" than any other device that might assist that
human.

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:
"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
news:Ve8Of.111157$QW2.108788@dukeread08...

Well, you do have to have some means to know what you're
seeing with the OUTSIDE WORLD INDICATOR.


No, you don't. People managed to get from Point A to Point B for tens of
thousands of years before written language was invented, never mind
map-making.

The most basic navigation simply involves a means of locomotion, and the
human ability to navigate without any external aids at all. A chart is no
less an "aid to navigation" than any other device that might assist that
human.

Pete



Peter! It seems I keep running into you! Hey, thanks for the info in the
RAS group ... 'very' helpful indeed!

Anyway, and switching seats, so to speak, for the real McCoy versus
screen versions, what's your take on the Garmin phenomena? I chose
Garmin because that seems to be almost 'de rigueur' now in many CP's as
the proverbial nav 'back-up' but, I say but, various of the brethren
whose flight log books show much PIC time claim that the new technology
is in 'one' sense a great adjunct to the VOR/NDB/RMI/etc. thing 'but'
the trade off for new folks and even some old hands to boot is what is
being touted as the "follow the birdie" syndrome where the moving map
becomes, de facto, the 'primary' means of navigation. In essence, VOR
skills [et al] suffer or get horrendously rusty and the 'follow the
birdie' moving map, should it fail or those battery back-ups not do
their thing, well, the Zola-like J'accuse, so to speak, that is making
the rounds is the PIC would be hurting because nav skills in general
take, or rather have taken, a beating to the moving map.

Now me, I see the moving map technology as an excellent adjunct to
'whatever' nav skills one uses from the map and window thing to the VOR
to, as I said, 'whatever' acquired nav skills , but there does seem to
be a possible 'over-reliance' on the portable or fixed Garmin [et al] in
GA and the trade off of maintaining and indeed 'using' general nav skills.

Comment(s)?

Doc Tony

If you have a PDA, Pocket FMS is as good as the more 'commercial' products
and is under continuous development with an active forum. It's out of
Europe, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of base maps and
airspace data for Australia. I just sold my Garmin GPS III Pilot and
replaced with Pocket FMS. The actual cost (to be a donor and get the good
maps) is US$60 BUT this assumes you have a PDA and (bluetooth) GPS. If yea
already have the PDA you can get into a very upmarket colour mapping system
for about $200.

www.pocketfms.com

Cheers,
Kevin

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
ups.com...
If you are looking for something loo cost, consider buying a PDA with a
CF slot and just running something like PocketFMS (its free). You could
also buy a $15 copy of MS streets for it for use in the car too.

-Robert

"Dr. Anthony J. Lomenzo" wrote in message
...
[...]
Now me, I see the moving map technology as an excellent adjunct to
'whatever' nav skills one uses from the map and window thing to the VOR
to, as I said, 'whatever' acquired nav skills , but there does seem to be
a possible 'over-reliance' on the portable or fixed Garmin [et al] in GA
and the trade off of maintaining and indeed 'using' general nav skills.

Comment(s)?

Welcome to one of the classic arguments in aviation, at least of late.

I hardly ever use GPS, simply because I don't have an aviation one available
to me on a regular basis (I don't have any particular bias against GPS), so
I'm not really one to ask. I have an opinion (as you'll see below), but
little first-hand experience using GPS units with which to back it up.
However, you posted your question in a public forum, and plenty of people
here DO have an opinion. No doubt, you'll hear at least some of them now.


I do think that skills that are not practiced get rusty. That's just how it
is. Many people feel GPS should be avoided for primary training (we just
had a couple of posts on that topic), and others feel it should be avoided
all the time. Personally, I think it's just a tool, and when implemented
correctly, it can be FAR more valuable than other means of navigation,
precisely because of its increased accuracy and ease of interpretation.
After all, every advance in navigation has been with the intent to improve
accuracy, ease of interpretation, or both.

When you write "general nav skill", it's not obvious whether you mean
"conventional navigation instruments", such as VORs or ADFs, or if you mean
the more general issues surrounding navigation (such as cross-checking
multiple information sources, pre-flight planning, monitoring flight
progress, etc.) If the former, I'd say those skills are going to eventually
disappear and no longer be needed. If the latter, I'd say those skills are
ALWAYS going to be important for a pilot, and all that will change is the
various sources of information used to exercise those skills.

We don't fly A-N courses anymore, and NDB approaches are unusual, even
though both require a much better "mental picture" of where you are, due to
the less intuitive presentation of position information to the pilot. Yet,
I don't see anyone arguing that students ought to learn those first before
learning about VOR navigation (a huge step up in intuitive presentation,
IMHO).

In some period of time (10 or 20 years, maybe 30), the VOR will go the way
of the NDB and previous navigation methods, and GPS will be all anyone uses
(or perhaps something even better...who knows). It will still be just as
critical for the pilot to keep a mental picture of where they are, rather
than relying blindly on the navigation instrument, and we will still have
pilots who fail to do so and wind up lost or making some other mistake, just
as we did even before GPS came along.

Over-reliance on ANY single navigation tool is a mistake, whether it's GPS
or VOR or NDB or whatever. But for a pilot who isn't ever going to fly
using anything *except* a GPS, I don't see the point in keeping their VOR
skills fresh (except perhaps as an academic issue), just as a pilot who
isn't ever going to fly an A-N course has no reason to practice those. One
day, and that day will be relatively soon, there will be a significant
number of airplanes in the fleet that don't even have a VOR radio installed.
The number of pilots who can reasonably state that they have no need to
practice VOR navigation is quite small today, but it's non-zero, and the
number will grow.

Generalizations claiming that ALL pilots must continue to stay current with
VOR navigation are already false, and such generalizations will become more
blatantly false as time passes.

Pete

On 3 Mar 2006 09:52:37 -0800, wrote:

Aviation GPS's need periodic map updates. So what I'd ideally like is
rather low-end land/marine unit with a basic map (cities, highways,
shoreline, other topographic features) that has available software to
create my own waypoint database of airports and navaids to supplement
the base map.

I used this system for several years: a Garmin III Plus.
www.pipercubforum.com/garmin.htm

I added a "Datachunk" for five bucks and winnowed it down on my
computer, using free EZ GPS software, then uploaded the data and the
obvious routes to the Garmin. It worked very well.

Inevitably I wound up springing $1,700 for a Garmin 296, and I have a
lot of fun with it. But in some ways the earlier lash-up was better.
Go to the url for more.



-- all the best, Dan Ford

email: usenet AT danford DOT net

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

Aviation GPS's need periodic map updates.


We're talking VFR, right. Most people upgrade their handhelds for VFR
once or twice per year, at 35 $ a pop. Figure out the percentage of
your yearly flying cost - it's negligible.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Robert,

PocketFMS (its free).


Actually, it's donation ware (donate if you like it) - and if no one
does, development will cease at some point.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Stubby,

the standard instruments.


To which I say: and GPS certainly is a standard instrument in the year
2006. We don't fly by flapping our wings, either.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

In a previous article, said:
Aviation GPS's need periodic map updates.
We're talking VFR, right. Most people upgrade their handhelds for VFR
once or twice per year, at 35 $ a pop. Figure out the percentage of
your yearly flying cost - it's negligible.

I've had my Garmin 195 for 10 years now and I've updated it once. Never
seen any problems with that - airports don't move that often or that far.

It might be a problem with IFR flying, since airway intersections can move
a few metres between updates.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Today Has Been Two Of Those Days.
-- Mike Andrews