JimNtexas
Pattern Altitude
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2006
- Messages
- 2,259
- Location
- Austin, Texas
- Display Name
Display name:
Jim - In Texas!
I flew an ADS-B out equipped airplane, an Archer with a Freeflight Ranger, for the first time today. I really, really liked it!
Today there was a ~2500 foot overcast, which squished all the VFR traffic below that.
Leaving Austin Bergstrom I selected the traffic display on our Garmin 430W. I quickly noticed there was a co-altitude airplane at about 10 o'clock and about four miles. I started climbing up when departure control pointed it out. Using the traffic display I was able to maneuver around the unknown rider. We didn't see him until he had just crossed our nose.
Had this happened in a no radar/no ads-b situation there would have been very close call!
Several other airplanes passed close to us that I probably would not have noticed just with my non-TSO'd eyeballs.
I was using a Stratus 1, and targets showed on an iPad mini but not on my iPhone 6. I'm going email Foreflight support about that. I kept the 430W traffic display showing most of the time because that's in my scan, but my iPad is not.
I didn't have a chance to use the Freeflight iOS apps, I'll try them next time. The Ranger has a wifi access point that transmit ADS-B information in a manner similar to that of a Stratus.
The Ranger has a tiny control panel that you can pretty much ignore, but if you get a new N-number you can set it using this panel, you don't need an avionics tech to change your ADS-B identification string.
I think our ADS-B install was worth every penny of the ~$5k that it cost.
Today there was a ~2500 foot overcast, which squished all the VFR traffic below that.
Leaving Austin Bergstrom I selected the traffic display on our Garmin 430W. I quickly noticed there was a co-altitude airplane at about 10 o'clock and about four miles. I started climbing up when departure control pointed it out. Using the traffic display I was able to maneuver around the unknown rider. We didn't see him until he had just crossed our nose.
Had this happened in a no radar/no ads-b situation there would have been very close call!
Several other airplanes passed close to us that I probably would not have noticed just with my non-TSO'd eyeballs.
I was using a Stratus 1, and targets showed on an iPad mini but not on my iPhone 6. I'm going email Foreflight support about that. I kept the 430W traffic display showing most of the time because that's in my scan, but my iPad is not.
I didn't have a chance to use the Freeflight iOS apps, I'll try them next time. The Ranger has a wifi access point that transmit ADS-B information in a manner similar to that of a Stratus.
The Ranger has a tiny control panel that you can pretty much ignore, but if you get a new N-number you can set it using this panel, you don't need an avionics tech to change your ADS-B identification string.
I think our ADS-B install was worth every penny of the ~$5k that it cost.