I do pretty much the same as robw56. Often I don't even turn on the gps unless I'm going somewhere I've never been or not very familiar with. I didn't have a gps my first few years of flying so I got used to flying 400 mile cross countries with just a paper chart.

I think you made a good choice with the 496. But I'd leave it in the flight bag till you really need it, cuz your lost. Once your comfortable without it then start using it.

The iPad is sooooooo much more than a GPS. I started my primary training with one - and of course as others recommend focus on basic skills and pilotage/dead reckoning. But it is indispensable pre-flight planning and in-flight tool IMO. I always have paper charts, I always know where I am. I land and every FBO i walk into I have a familiar go/no-go planning tool that travels with me and I can face time my wife and kids. Technology is a tool - reject it when you want to - use it when you do. If you can afford it - and these days if you are flying you probably can - it can be a huge help in your training. I used it to read (and search the FAR/AIM), to save POHs, full charts, weather, flight planning, memorizing the questions/answers on the knowledge test, A/FD, etc, etc. etc... And when you are stuck on the ground wishing you were in the air - you can play doodle jump.

On my checkride - my DPE and I launched into an awesome discussion about the tools available to us that have only become accessible in the past year or three. They are situational awareness tools - your familiarity with them only allows you to spend more time doing what you should be doing: flying the effing plane and not hitting anything. The more comfortable you are with a gadget the less time you need to look at it to get the info you need before your eyes are back outside the plane and flying IFR (I Fly Roads). My DPE was happy to discuss the use of EFB in flight planning - and of course he also went through the paper charts, paper flight plans, and that POS slide rule E6B that nobody ever uses any more.

It IS possible to have the best of both worlds, and not be "that guy" that we all armchair qb about. It's all about attitude and discipline. You are ahead the curve just choosing a t/d for primary training and your attitude - so discipline yourself to learn the basics and don't rely on the cool gadget that is totally reliable and super easy to use.

Thanks for the update on your training BTW. Good luck on your solo.

The 496 will last you for years. It has a much brighter screen than all the previous units.... and at that price, any number of pilots would have snapped it up. Get a data base update for $30 and go for it.
Good luck with your training and keep the paper map skills in mind while you follow the magenta line.

Getting genuinely lost and then finding your position again without GPS is a good experience. As long as you have fuel, the wx is good, and you've got safe places to land not far way, go hone your bird brain and learn how to use a chart.

As for iPad vs 496... I have both. Honestly, I still prefer my 496 push buttons and smaller screen.

Rob wrote:

Blu wrote:I'll sell u my old 496 for $300

Buy this and don't look back, before some here snakes it out from under you.

Ditto. $300 is a steal, and you can pick them up for 30% more at a few places if you are quick. XM is pricey, but it pays for itself at least twice every year for me. I didn't even bother to fly much in the winter at all unless it was nice out until I got it. The 496+XM really rocks. Saves motel bills, vacation time, and lots of weather stress.

That being said, I think the ipad solutions are filling the gap quickly, and I might go that route soon. 3G is available for about 75% of the flying I do every year (Idaho being the biggest exception), and the ADS-B equipment+ipad+foreflight would actually break even on cash flow in under 2 years over the 496/xm/paper charts expenses.

GPS seemed beyond unnecessary to me, but I got used to it, then addicted to it, and the weather portion makes a solid 10% of my flying possible (I would have not flown or I would have waited it out in the middle of nowhere).

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

And keep your eyes out the windows, Sean.
And go buy an S6.

Good to see you over here.

Test Fit in the '46 T'Crate:



The RAM stuff fits inside the wheel spokes and then the 496 basically sits on top of the wheel. Everything moves free and clear - the wheel is a little top heavy, but for a temporary mount that has to come in and out every time I fly - it worked - but I'm going to look at different attach points in the plane and see if I cant get something that's off the wheel and wont block my view any further than the radio stack already does.

Thanks again to Blu. He's One Righteous Dude.

I agree with what some have been saying here. Learn to fly a bit before you add the distraction of a GPS. The Navy paid for me to get instruction before I went to flight school. Flew Cherokee 140's out of Santa Monica while I was in College. It is nearly IFR there from the smog most afternoons. We never got lost, just follow the roads. You need to learn to navigate by sight before you depend on the great technological wizard in the sky. For a backup you can run Foreflight on an iPhone as well as the iPad. So if your worried about getting lost, it is a fine backup. There are equivalents in the Android world as well.

I have the iPad, the iPhone and a Garmin 796. I also had a 496 in the Birddog. As mentioned the iPad is too big for yoke mounting. Well not too big, but obscures a lot if you mount it on the yoke. The 796 is a much better size for yoke mounting. I mounted the 496 off to the side in the dog, as it had no yoke, and mounting it on the stick was plain stupid. The 496's small size worked well in that cockpit. I did find the buttons annoying, especially after getting spoiled by the 796 touchscreen.

External GPS units are totally superfluous for the iPad and iPhone, unless you have an early iPhone mark 1 or an iPad 1(no internal GPS). I can lay the iPad or iPhone on the co-pilot's seat and run Foreflight in the Caravan cockpit and not have any issues on reception. It sounds dumb, but I run all three, one with weather showing, one with waypoint data and one in moving map. Why not. I got a Griffin mount for the iPhone that has a clear vinyl square with a mount in the center for a few bucks. It actually will stick to the plexiglass of the windscreen on the Caravan. So the iPhone goes there with field data and frequencies. The iPad runs in moving map on the seat and the 796 is doing it weather thing with XM.

If I was in your situation, I'd start with the iPhone and Foreflight. Unless you wanted the iPad for other things, I'd wait until I was good at flying before I bought up to something else. At least the iPhone is a phone that has a lot of utility and if you find that flying isn't going to be your passion for life, you didn't waste a bunch of cash on a specific aircraft item. The 496 and even a 196 are just fine to do navigation as well, better price than the other stuff, small to boot. I still think an iPhone trumps them both. Besides the iPhone 5 is just around the corner with an even (apparently) bigger, higher resolution, display. Pack a sleeping bag and some snacks and get in line now.

Griffin Mount, cheaper on eBay:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PY09YY/?tag=hyprod-20&hvadid=15475785219&hvpos=1o2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6765080441578422205&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&ref=asc_df_B004PY09YY

I'm running a Motorola Milestone 3 ($340-ish on eBay, it's the same thing as a Droid 3) with the Garmin Pilot app downloaded. $50/year subscription, displays your position on Sectionals, WACs, Low/High IFR enroutes, and for another $50/year, geo-referenced IFR approach plates, DPs, STARS.

Features include weather overlay, Radar, Airmet/Sigmet, TFR, Pireps, fuel prices at airports, etc. If run on a tablet, there is a split-screen feature to display the map and navigation info. On smartphones, it only can display the map or nav screen separately. There is no track-up feature as of yet. If Garmin ever adds that, and also a simple 296-style terrain map without the sectional map clutter, it'd be perfect. Best bang for the buck I've found yet.

Flying 135 in a beat-up old Lance, 207, and 185 with King KLN35A or Garmin GPS150 (1970s or 80's junk running Apple II software or something like it) is no problem most of the time, but when the job requires a lot of scud running, there's no such thing as too much situational awareness. I bought a Scoshe windshield mount for my phone from Walmart for $12 or so. Suction cups to every windshield I've tried it on and hasn't fallen off in all the turbulence I've hit.

Ditto on the paper charts business. Out here on the left side of things if you fly up and down the chart a few times you know where you are anyway. The lumps and bumps get pretty familiar. I'm told that one Iowa corn field looks much like another but folks still get around out there somehow. Don't become a prisoner of the magenta line.

I've got an IFly 700 and the size is fine in the Luscombe but it requires exterior power. You don't have to plug in a paper chart and they don't wash out in bright sunlight either.

EB