XM Weather/Garmin 496 PIREP

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 19:06:34 -0400, Bob Noel wrote:

Posted before, Vistanav looks better than most www.vistanav.com -
thought they were at OSH

They were there, but very pricey.

yeah, but primarily because of the solid-state INS... way cool but of
dubious real value.

Why of dubious value? It seems like a good backup mechanism to me.

The current Flying has a brief mention of the VistaNav (in Tom Benenson's
article). One thing that caught me is that it requires a stylus. That
worries me, as that sounds like it could be tough under certain conditions
(and a stylus is another thing to drop, although I'd hope one could also
use a random pencil).

I think that the Cheetah (http://www.aviationsafety.com/fl_190.htm) is
stylus-free, but I'm not sure. It doesn't offer the same fancy display
(ie. the 3D AI and HITS) as the VistaNav, but it does seem to have about
the same functionality.

- Andrew