Been thinking very seriously about buying one of these. http://www.aviationsafety.com/fl_190.htm

Gave them a call today and I think they talked me out of it. It is between this and a Garmin 396.

Told the Flight Cheeta babe that I wanted the roads, cities and etc also on the map cus my wife is always asking what town is that.

She said that her unit did not have all that stuff. Is a 396 a better unit as far as keeping my wife happy. She encouraged me to get the 182 so I should get the GPS that is best for her. I will probably mount it to her yoke. Boy does that sound funny.

Tim

qmdv wrote: Is a 396 a better unit as far as keeping my wife happy. She encouraged me to get the 182 so I should get the GPS that is best for her. I will probably mount it to her yoke. Boy does that sound funny.

Does she have a birthday coming up, or is it your anniversary any time soon??? Wrap it up in a bow as a present, and you could make some real points with her!!!!

Gump

Hey, as long as its for your wife, go the whole nine yards and buy her a 496 .

Seriously, I have a 396, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. A 496 has better database, updates faster and has better resolution, but for me the 396 is just the cats ass.

MTV

I'll second on the 396. For the flying I do now it's perfect, and the XM wx/music would be hard to do without.

It'll never happen with a handheld, but it sure would be nice to have an IFR version, with overlays for the terminal and enroute stuff.

Gump

Even my lowly 196 has cities and major roads. I agree with your wife that it is fun to figure out what little town I'm flying over.

tom

If I'm going cross country I sit down with Mapsource and put the topo maps in my Garmin along with a route. The Route function will allow you to literally step by step put in each turn etc. The topo map will have various degrees of resolution depending on how much you zoom in. At close resolution, it even has country roads on it. At home I keep all the local topos on it with waypoints for small airstrips, big deer, and friendly ranchers. Ralph

Savannah-Tom wrote:Even my lowly 196 has cities and major roads. I agree with your wife that it is fun to figure out what little town I'm flying over.

tom

Drop down and circle the water tower. I don't know why, but down here almost all of the little towns names are on their water towers.

Back in my Montana farming and ranching days I flew to 20 miles between the ranches in my Super Cub. The town was at the half way point and right in the flight path. I always flew over town above main street and about the same height as the grain elevators at the end of the street. One day I drove into town for supplies and stopped at the cafe for coffee. The mayor and the local cop came in and sat on each side of me. They had just got a radar gun and said they clocked me going 74 mph through town. I denied it profusely and then they started to laugh. They were just trying out their new toy as I went over and wanted to get a speed check.

The Garmin 396 is a very good unit to buy. IF you want your own weather buy the 496. Garmin is coming out with the 596 but I don't know anything about it

Do those Garmin weather products have AK service? Last I heard XM radio and other satellite-based services excluded AK coverage.

denalipilot wrote:Do those Garmin weather products have AK service? Last I heard XM radio and other satellite-based services excluded AK coverage.

I Googled and searched xmradio.com but couldn't find a definite answer. This is about as close as I got to an official statement, but some other forum posts claimed a guy was getting signal in Prudhoe Bay, as long as he was stationary.

http://www.xmradio.com/help/faqs/availability.xmc

Lee, both the 396 and 496 support XM Weather.

Last I heard there was still no XM weather in AK. My last trip out in a Cirrus, the weather line stopped at Canada and the XM radio cut in and out depending on altitude, but could be received sporadically the further East/South you were.

But Murphys Law would dictate that XM weather will start very soon, as I just received a new 296 for my birthday...

Hasta ~

Bob K.
Anchorage, AK

I will second the emotion as far as Garmin. I just recently upgraded from the 296 to the 396. I find that the 96 series is very intuitive as far as operation. I have hooked mine up with the Zoan XRX and really like the TIS feature since I am based in a Class B, C Area. Remember you may have to teach your wife how to operate the GPS. Let me just say that if it were me I would think twice. I bought my wife a Nikon Camera D80. Pretty much point and shoot. The questions are endless and I end up downloading all the pictures to the PC ( computer phobia ring a bell). I am terrified to tell her about photo shop . It reminds me of the remote control classes, if I ever had a regret this is the one. I used to be able to say we don't get that channel Food for thought my brother!!!!

I have a 396 (and a 196 I'd be willing to sell). The 396 has XM weather. Paying the $50 per month for the better weather package does get old, but I wouldn't cancel it. The winds aloft alone probably pay for the weather service.

In the old days you'd climb higher or descend to see if the wind there was more favorable. XM's winds aloft are supprisingly accurate, so it lets you know if a climb is warranted.

Thought about upgrading to the 496, but as soon as I do, they'll come out with the 596 that'll make coffee too.

bumper

Of the Garmins, I have a 295, 296 and a 396 and have flown with a 496. Except for WX and Xm radio as far as I can tell the 296 and 396 are identical. I have had reliability issues with Garmin, take that for what it's worth. Unless you fly regularly into large airports that are unfamiliar to you, the 496 isn't worth buying if you already have a 396. The winds aloft are a forcast and it is the same forcast you can get from a briefer, but it is nice to be able to see it as opposed to be able to get a mental picture from a briefer.
Best thing about a Garmin in my opinion is that you don't even have to read the manual, the software is so user friendly that it is easy to just pick it up.