Garmin 196 GPS - what do you guys think?

I believe you can now download obstacles on the 196

But not terrain - see the obstacle, change heading, hit the mountain
Plus, when I enquired about how many obstacles it showed in Canada, the
response was . . . . . . some.
Now that has to be worth buying.

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE

Tony,

But not terrain - see the obstacle, change heading, hit the mountain


You're telling us you would rely on a handheld, non-certified, non-WAAS
VFR-GPS with a systematic altitude error of at least a couple hundred
feet to avoid terrain?

Terrain on a (handheld) GPS looks really cool and makes it easier to
correlate the moving map picture and reality outside the window, but
IMHO you just can't use it to avoid terrain by only a few hundred feet
as necessary during scud running. For all other situations, I don't
really see what it is needed for: VFR you just look outside at the
terrain, IFR you should be high enough to not hit the terrain anyway -
and the map without terrain should give you enough situational
awareness to avoid being where you shouldn't be. That said, terrain is
nice to have and adds to SA - but not critical.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

In article ,
Thomas Borchert wrote:
Terrain on a (handheld) GPS looks really cool and makes it easier to
correlate the moving map picture and reality outside the window, but
IMHO you just can't use it to avoid terrain by only a few hundred feet
as necessary during scud running. For all other situations, I don't
really see what it is needed for: VFR you just look outside at the
terrain, IFR you should be high enough to not hit the terrain anyway -
and the map without terrain should give you enough situational
awareness to avoid being where you shouldn't be. That said, terrain is
nice to have and adds to SA - but not critical.


IFR during the approach to an airport with surrounding terrain seems
like a pretty good use of terrain avoidance. VFR during the approach to
an airport in the summer when the visibility may be reduced in haze
seems like a pretty good use of terrain avoidance.

This nonsense that I've been reading here and on other message boards
suggesting that a situational awareness tool is useless or almost
useless because it isn't "certified" is sheer lunacy, in my opinion. I
think it was the AOPA boards where some folks said they would trust an
ADF over a portable GPS because the ADF was "certified."

No, you shouldn't rely on it to scud run, and you shouldn't be doing
approaches with a non-certified GPS, but it is tremendously useful for
situational awareness--which includes awareness of obstacles and
surrounding terrain.


JKG

Cub Driver wrote:

I fly low, so the terrain avoidance is indeed useful (radio towers on
hills). The moving map is the screen I most often use. It's brilliant.

Dan, you are flying a Cub!
How much time do you need to miss something sticking up in front of you?
:-))

Mike,

look at the Lowrance Airmap 1000, too.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)