INSTALLING DME

OK, $225/approach. It is your money.

It just seems, to me, that the people that buy these wonder boxes feel compelled to push other people to do likewise. I am ok with the enthusiasm. I absolutly love my FF, but I an not going to suggest that it is reckless to fly with out it. I fly just fine /A. I like my dme a lot. It cost me $700 to buy and $500 to have installed. The next plane will have a dme, even if it has a gns 650 already installed.

Like many other pilots, I also boat. Likewise, there is a group that spends dollars on electronic stuff and similarly opines that any one that does not have a 12 inch multifunction chartplotter/64 mi. radar coupled to a below deck autopilot with FLIR cameras and under water lighting, is dangerous and puts the lives at risk of anyone that gets on thier boat and within a 20 mile radius. It does not help bring people into the hobby, and it is wrong.

The OP asked about dme's and he received something else. This is not helpful. When people come asking questions and replys are given that cost $20,000, people quietly walk away and go find something else to do. Like I said it is your money but do not think that pushing these high dollar solutions is helpful. The group needs to find ways to encourage new participation not turn people away.

Electronic stuff is nice but it is not a substitute for the fundementals.
 
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The OP asked about dme's and he received something else. This is not helpful.

The OP got viewpoints of folks with a collective century of airplane ownership. Many, including your's truly, have gone through the exact same reasoning. If this isn't of interest to the OP then perhaps he shouldn't have asked the question.
 
Understanding the fragility of the GPS system at times, my theory was that the DME afforded a relatively decent backup if GPS went down

A terrorist could sterilize an area the size of Iowa with nothing more than a relatively inexpensive transmitter and a way of getting it up to 20k' or so (weather ballooon, drone on steroids, etc.) They could have left the LORAN system perking along at less than a tenth the cost of the entire VOR/DME system and LORAN was damned bulletproof to wide area jamming. I mean, my God, they were running MEGAwatt transmitters to HUGE antenna systems. And run with two or three people at each site. What did we have, ten sites in the lower 48? Peanuts and secure. Dumb. Terminally DUMB.

Jim
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