With all the chatter about the high tech electronics and software, I'm concerned that some may think flying has gotten too complicated and is leaving them behind. NOT SO.
While i encourage and applaud those pushing the envelope, I'll give you my requirements for comfortable cross country flight. Any small, inexpensive GPS with aviation database and moving map. Black and white is fine and small is o.k. too. I flew about 700 hours using the Lowrance 300 and loved it. The moving map is good for controlled airspace and a sense of orientation. The info boxes I set up to be displayed were Bearing (to destination), actual ground track, ground speed, and ETE. The highways were good for local flight but on cross country I didn't know route numbers anyway and didn't care. The rivers, lakes, and weather I acquired by looking out the window. I always had my sectional to follow along and every 15 minutes or so I'd acquire the nearest airports on the GPS and cross reference to the sectional in case the GPS ever came up with dead batteries or lost position. If the weather gets too uncomfortable to fly I can "go to nearest" and call an 800 number to get the weather. Bottom line is that I fly cross-country in 10 and 20 mile sections in any direction. In case of emergency the nearest airport or anything within gliding distance is all that counts and info beyond that is basically extra baggage. Weather info in the midwest is available on the ASOS and AWAS systems and is generally available at 50+ mile range. It gives you wind speed, direction, cloud cover and altimeter setting. Looking them up and dialing them in along the way gives you a short break from the awesome view out the window. :-) A friend of mine simplified his requirements even further. He has a small Garmin and the only thing he ever used was the little arrow that pointed in the direction of his selected destination. He would set the Garmin on the panel of his Cessna and flew so the arrow always pointed to the nose of the airplane. I hope that those much smarter than me will continue to test and develop so that someday I might have a talking wrist watch that gives me voice commands. Things like "the view is great from this altitude but you will find another 10k tailwind if you climb another 1000 feet" or "you might consider landing for fuel at the next airport as they have the cheapest fuel for the next 100 miles" or "DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS" , and finally after a kiss-soft landing it says "YEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAA !!! :-) Larry Flesner
