Garmin 396 -- Maybe I spoke too soon...

So I spent three hours playing with a friend's new Garmin 396 last night,
sitting in a lawn chair whilst supping a couple of cold ones, and watching
as Hutchison, Kansas got the crap beat out of it with thunderstorms and
tornados. *Live*, on the unit.

At Oshkosh, my playing time was extremely limited, due to the feeding-frenzy
of pilots who wanted to see the unit. I watched for 20 minutes as others
manipulated the controls, and barely got to touch the thing before Mary's
patience ran out, and we had to move on.

Last night, however, my friend had to run some errands that took a couple of
hours, which allowed me to explore EVERYTHING the unit can do, and I've come
away with a whole new appreciation for the XM features.

Weather:
At OSH, the weather always appeared very pixilated and boxy. With hours to
mess around with it, it soon became obvious that the boxy look was due to
the fact that the demonstrators had the unit zoomed in to the 0.3 nm
range -- or even smaller. Zoomed out to a more normal 10 or 20 nm range,
the weather looks GREAT, and appears to be updating far more rapidly than
advertised. Most of the time the weather I was seeing was only 1 to 4
minutes old, which is incredible.

Within lines of thunderstorms, it shows individual severe weather cells as
"clickable" boxes. Run the cursor over it, and you'll see the cloud tops,
the direction it's moving, whether there is hail present, and the speed it's
going. Lightning is clearly depicted, and the various intensities of rain
can be easily discerned at a glance.

Better yet, when you're looking at an area of light rain, you can click on
the airport beneath the rain, and view the latest METAR. This lets you
truly "see" what the weather is doing, and gets around the problem of NEXRAD
radar being so hyper-sensitive that it depicts even light virga.

MOAs/TFRs:
Another thing I never got to see at OSH was the way the 396 depicts MOAs and
TFRs. Because of the active XM radio upload capability, the 396 doesn't
just depict MOAs -- it shows whether they are "hot" or not! That is an
amazingly useful feature that I had not heard anything about -- and the
active display of "pop-up" TFRs around sporting events could really be a
life-saver.

To say that this thing would have made our many cross-country flights this
past summer safer would be an understatement. We spent a couple of
unplanned nights in out-of-the-way cities, due to widespread storms. The
396 would make picking your way through that kind of stuff -- or, at the
opposite end of the spectrum, it would make the decision to land and sit it
out -- much easier and safer to do.

If you have limited yoke/panel space the 396 would be absolutely perfect.
Sadly, the screen is (IMHO) ridiculously undersized for what it's trying to
depict, and the processor is just too slow (refresh rates when moving the
cursor around are barely adequate) -- so I'm still going to wait for the
next generation of larger/higher resolution screens -- but my initial
dismissal of the 396 was premature. It is a marvelous concept that works
well, and will only improve with time.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I'm drooling. Today, my new toy is in the UPS truck circling the block.....

Jay Honeck wrote:
-- but my initial
dismissal of the 396 was premature. It is a marvelous concept that works
well, and will only improve with time.

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

To say that this thing would have made our many cross-country flights this
past summer safer would be an understatement. -- so I'm still going to
wait for the next generation of larger/higher resolution screens

??

How long before Garmin comes out with a bigger-screen model, or someone else
makes a unit that will do what the 396 does? How many trips will you make
without this amazing tool while you're waiting? You can always trade up
later. It's easy to predict that there will be strong demand for used 396's.

Thanks for the pirep. I didn't know about the SUA status feature.

My 396 should arrive today, which will completely blow the afternoon as far
as any productivity goes.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM

Thanks for the feedback Jay. As a "lite" IFR flyer, I couldn't really
justify the cost of a stormscope in my Warrior. I'm still trying to justify
an autopilot. However, the Garmin 396 simply changes the product landscape
much like the GNS430 did when it first came out. To get the same capability
in such a neat package would cost you thousands more. (Sorry, IMO the PDA is
just not cockpit friendly)

I need to save my pennies (with the young family and all) but the decision
to get it for even light IFR is simply a no-brainer. Really tempted to use
the ole credit card but I'm resisting.

Marco Leon

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:3dlPe.277985$x96.231394@attbi_s72...
So I spent three hours playing with a friend's new Garmin 396 last night,
sitting in a lawn chair whilst supping a couple of cold ones, and watching
as Hutchison, Kansas got the crap beat out of it with thunderstorms and
tornados. *Live*, on the unit.

[snip]

Dan Luke wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote:
To say that this thing would have made our many cross-country
flights this
past summer safer would be an understatement. -- so I'm still going to
wait for the next generation of larger/higher resolution screens
??
How long before Garmin comes out with a bigger-screen model, or someone else
makes a unit that will do what the 396 does? How many trips will you make
without this amazing tool while you're waiting? You can always trade up
later. It's easy to predict that there will be strong demand for used 396's.
Good points. Jay, I'd suggest perhaps taking the next step and go
flying with one on a storm day. The value of acting without waiting may
tip the cost/benefit ratio for you.
YMMV of course.

My 396 should arrive today, which will completely blow the afternoon as far
as any productivity goes.
You and me both :-)

The go/no go decision is MUCH easier w/ weather. XM sucks big rocks for
customer support but the product is awesome.

On a flight from Fl to TN, 2 weeks ago, we went around a line of cells
rather than wait on the ground or risk running between them (doable w/ XM).
For grins, later than day, I got the AOPA weather site to loop and it showed
that we would have waited for at least 2 hours on the ground. Instead, we
made a slight deviation using eyeball and screen for 15 min. added flying
time. Best thing since GPS.

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
om...
Dan Luke wrote:

Good points. Jay, I'd suggest perhaps taking the next step and go flying
with one on a storm day. The value of acting without waiting may tip the
cost/benefit ratio for you.
YMMV of course.

Thanks for the feedback Jay. As a "lite" IFR flyer, I couldn't really
justify the cost of a stormscope in my Warrior. I'm still trying to
justify
an autopilot. However, the Garmin 396 simply changes the product landscape
much like the GNS430 did when it first came out. To get the same
capability
in such a neat package would cost you thousands more.

Since playing with the 396, I have spoken with a friend who has a friend
inside Garmin, and another friend who flies the "Big Iron", and they told me
that:

- Sales of the 396 have virtually shut down Garmin's sales of 430s and 530s.
It is simply superior to their in-panel stuff, and far less expensive. (And
Garmin actually expected this to happen.)

- The 396 has virtually stopped sales of other aviation GPS makes. (I'm not
sure I buy that, as I think the Lowrance 2000c and the AvMap were both
selling gangbusters at OSH, but perhaps all the pro-396 buzz since OSH has
killed them?)

- The 396's weather depiction and ease of use far exceed anything currently
available in corporate or airline service -- and costs tens of thousands
less -- so those guys are lining up to buy them, too.

Garmin truly has a winner here, but it's not quite a grand slam. It will be
when they (a) set up the unit in "portrait" mode (which is far more useful
than a "landscape" view for aviation), and (b) when they enlarge that stupid
dinky screen!

XM weather will soon spread to other makes and models, and the price will
drop. I can't wait!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

The 430, 530 and 480 will continue to sell. You can't legally do an IFR
approach with a handheld. The 480 has WASS and does the glideslope
thing on GPS approaches. Glad to hear the 396 is winner. GPS is
spreading to cars. You can real time TRAFFIC data piped to your car GPS
now. Cool. Tons of uses for GPS. Garmin has one for everything, Marine,
hiking, hunting, golf, etc. Package tracking is coming. They are on
trucks, railroad cars. The whole world is going GPS.

"Jay Honeck" wrote

- The 396's weather depiction and ease of use far exceed anything
currently
available in corporate or airline service -- and costs tens of thousands
less -- so those guys are lining up to buy them, too.

So I wonder where someone flying a Falcon put their GPS/XM antenna? :-)
--
Jim in NC

Maule Driver wrote:
I'm drooling. Today, my new toy is in the UPS truck circling the
block.....

Same with mine.

Should be here tomorrow morning, just in time for a long weekend of
flying jumpers. The only downside I imagine is that the jumpers will be
so fixated on the 396 that they won't want to jump, OR I'll be so
fixated with the unit that I'll never give the call to open the jump
door...I don't know precisely which. :-)

-Doug

--
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Doug Vetter, CFIMEIA

http://www.dvcfi.com
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