> ----- Original Message ----- > From: Mark Langford > Sent: 10/11/12 04:13 AM > To: 'KRnet' > Subject: RE: KR> Trip Report > > Awesome trip report, Jeff! I'm envious. We truly are flying personal > time machines. I've been hoping for a trip out west for years now, but it > looks like it'll be a little further away for me. > > I have an iFly 720 as well, and would be very interested to hear your ADSB > lessons learned. I'm a bit on the fence about buying the SkyRadar unit, or > waiting a while for the next generation. I'm sure you could shed some light > on that. It'll be a few more weeks before I get back in the air again, but > I'm steadily working toward that. > > Thanks, > Mark Langford > m...@n56ml.com > see experimental N56ML at www.N56ML.com >
For the last several years, I have been flying with a Lowrance 2000c gps. Nice function. Intuitive application. Overall the nicest GPS I've ever used. However, when the economy went south, Lowrance chose to abandon the struggling aviation market for greener pastures and orphaned the Lowrance Aviation GPS line, leaving me with no support for updates. Now that my database had exceeded 2 years out of date, I felt compelled to replace the unit. After a great deal of study, this spring I bought the iFly 720 unit. I was really interested in the iPads, but found that the size of the iPad simply was not compatible with the cockpit spaces to use in both the KR and the SuperCub. So, I decided on the iFly unit. Shortly after I bought the GPS, I saw that SkyRadar was selling an ADSB weather receiver that would talk to it via WiFi, making both easily portable between my two planes. I have done a bit of local flying with the units, but had not been more than 150 miles from home with them yet, so hadn't really depended on them working properly for some serious cross country flying. The last two weeks was an opportunity to really exercise and learn the systems as I flew from NM, to MN, to IA, to TN, to various destinations around TN, VA, NC and SC, then back across GE, AL, MS, AR, OK, TX and NM. Technical Issues: Ever since I bought these units, about 35 percent of the time, the ADSB receiver simply never showed up on the GPS. That trend continued on this flight, but was finally resolved two days ago. I found that upon boot up, sometimes the WiFi connection between the two devices simply failed to establish itself. This was noted by selecting weather mode and finding it labeled "Pre-Flight Weather". I found that on boot up, it was best if I brought up the aviation GPS application, then put it in the background and went back to setup for the WiFi and made sure it established the WiFi connection. Once this was done, the connection was reliable. This could also have been resolved by buying the USB cable to connect the SkyRadar unit directly to the GPS, which is how it is used with the iFly 700 unit. When I was preparing to leave Greenville, SC under low ceilings, the ADSB weather came on line as soon as I booted the system. When I went to taxi out, I found that I had left the chocks under the wheels so had to shut down to unchock the plane. When I booted it back up again, all I could get was "Pre-Flight Weather", which is what I finally figured out that day meant, the WiFi connection had failed to connect. OK, technical issues aside and now resolved, the ADSB weather is really nice to have in the cockpit, but does have some limitations. In weather mode, you do get NexRad radar images overlaid on the GPS moving map. It is not a nationwide image. There is an oval shaped circle showing the coverage area you are receiving with a time stamp on it telling you how many minutes old the data you are seeing is. The oval is typcally around 200 - 300 miles by up to 400 miles in size for the NexRad radar coverage. Only once during this trip was I dodging rain showers where the NexRad radar would have been very useful, but on that leg of the trip, the WiFi connection had failed and I hadn't discovered yet why the SkyRAdar was failing to connect. The rest of the time my issue was with low ceilings and winds. Airport information and winds aloft from ADSB Weather: The airport information from ADSB Weather is really nice to have. In weather mode, every airport with an AWOS or ASOS system gets a color depiction showing whether it is VFR, MVFR, or IFR. Each airport on the map also has a wind vector and speed indication over top of the airport. That is great information to have on hand with a quick glance at the map. By selecting any airport either by searching for the airport using the "Find Airport" button, or by selecting it on the screen, you get the full interpreted English language METAR report with a time stamp stating how many minutes the data has aged for an airport, then a second selection of whether you want to see METAR, TAF, or Winds Aloft. If you select TAF, you will get the Terminal Area Forcast for the nearest airport that get a TAF. If you select Winds Aloft, you will get the nearest winds aloft report. This is incrediby useful information in many ways and is not limited to within the NexRad radar circle, but instead is all airport nation wide. If one if flying around rain showers, the NexRad Radar function is obviously really nice to have. However, my nemisis seemed to be ground fog and low ceilings. With the individual airport METAR and TAF, I was able to paint myself a picture of weather conditions ahead whether the ceilings were raising, clear or foggy. That allowed me to know ahead of time when to stop and when I could plan to go VFR over the top and where I would be able to come back down. However, there is not information on cloud tops, so you need some additional information before going VFR over the top. The Winds Aloft function is also very useful. My normal flight profile in the past has been to guess at the best winds, then climb up to higher altitudes to test them before descending back wo there I guessed the best speeds to exist. With the Winds Aloft function, there was no guessing to it. I can select any point on the map and get the closest winds aloft forecast for that area. That function is a fuel and time saver and I found it to be reasonably accurate. Limitations: If all the above worked as advertised all the time, it would be really great. It doesn't. I have had times here in New Mexico when I was flying along watching thunderstorm cells on the NexRad radar ahead of me, then the GPS would give me a warning "ADSB Idle". Pretty soon all the NexRad radar data would disappear off the map. What "ADSB Idle" apprently means is that there isn't anyone else in the area with ADSB out to trigger the ADSB broadcast, so it simply goes idle and I no longer recieve any updates. I could go into a diatribe about how stupid is that for the FAA to require one to broadcast to them to receive weather information, but that seems somewhat obvious. I didn't run in to this isue much out east. Another issue I ran into was the altitude required to receive ADSB data. While flying across Northern Alabama 2 days ago, I had very little wind down low, but a 20+ kt headwind above 2000'. While flying along low, Weather mode on the GPS had the message "ADSB on line - No Data". This means that it is on line, but can't see any stations to receive data. While flying across Northern AL and MS, I found that I could climb up another 1000', slow down 25 kts, and let the ADSB weather update on the GPS, then descend back down where I could make much better time flying. While this works for periodic weather updates, what good would it do if I was scud running along under a cloud deck at 1500 or 2000'? Other areas of the country I was able to pick up the ADSB weather eiter on the ground or very quickly once I was airborn. The usefulness of ADSB weather while scud running may be limited by your location and proximaty to an ADSB broadcast station. Now, a caveat to that is that I am using my SkyRadar unit with it's internal antenna. I don't know whether my reception would be any better with an external antenna or not. My impression is that reception is a line of site issue. I have my SkyRadar unit velcroed to the side of my cockpit, and the wooden sides are close to invisible to radio, so I should not need an external antenna, where one may need an external antenna if the unit was mounted inside an aluminum airplane. Overall, I really like having the ADSB weather on board. I know a lot more about it than I did 2 weeks ago and have learned how to address the 35% unreliability issue with the WiFi connection. As long as one knows and understands it's limitations, I find it to be an incredibly useful tool. However, I wish I had understood some of the error issues I was seeing before this trip. If I had understood it better, I would have been able to make better use of the unit over most of the trip. Jeff Scott Los Alamos, NM
