Ya'll, I'm as excited as a crazy girl at a shoe sale!

OtisAir

OtisAir

Line Up and Wait
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OtisAir
Hey Ya'll, I pushed the button!

I just bought a Flight Cheetah FL190 and can't wait for it to arrive! I have to purchase a Wx Worx receiver now to get the weather coming in. Anyone know of an alternate to wx worx (just for comparison, although I haven't heard anything bad about wx worx).

I'll send a PIREP on how it functions when I have time. I'll be using it next month to drive the Viking Witch up to OshKosh so I'll have some good ops time to play with it.

I still have the GPSMAP 295 for the right side, but Beth always asks "What town is that" 9000 feet below, so I may just give her a auto gps and stick it to her window, lol.

Also, is there such an animal as a WX Worx splitter? If I were to put a 396 or 496 in the right side, can I split the wx data coming in from one box?

Thanks Ya'll.

ps. Thanks Andy for the good info on the FL190; it helped me make the decision to push the "Purchase" button online.
 
That looks cool, please let us know what you think. I have been very hesitant about giving Garmin anymore biz. while I like my 430W I am do like the trend of what they are doing in regards to dB subscriptions in the 696.
 
I 'll really look forward to your Pirep, because I have been coveting the Flight Cheetah's feature set... along with about half a dozen other similar boxen.
 
OtisAir said:
Hey Ya'll, I pushed the button!

I just bought a Flight Cheetah FL190 and can't wait for it to arrive! I have to purchase a Wx Worx receiver now to get the weather coming in. Anyone know of an alternate to wx worx (just for comparison, although I haven't heard anything bad about wx worx).

I'll send a PIREP on how it functions when I have time. I'll be using it next month to drive the Viking Witch up to OshKosh so I'll have some good ops time to play with it.

I still have the GPSMAP 295 for the right side, but Beth always asks "What town is that" 9000 feet below, so I may just give her a auto gps and stick it to her window, lol.

Also, is there such an animal as a WX Worx splitter? If I were to put a 396 or 496 in the right side, can I split the wx data coming in from one box?

Thanks Ya'll.

ps. Thanks Andy for the good info on the FL190; it helped me make the decision to push the "Purchase" button online.
Click to expand...

Good on ya for supporting a non-Garmin company. If more people did the same, maybe Garmin would return to ethical business practices.

That said, I wait for your review. At some point in the near future, I'll be in the market too...
 
SkyHog said:
Good on ya for supporting a non-Garmin company. If more people did the same, maybe Garmin would return to ethical business practices.

That said, I wait for your review. At some point in the near future, I'll be in the market too...
Click to expand...

What non-ethical practices? Jeppesen seem to be the ones raping the world on subscription costs, especially when they get the info from the FAA for FREE!
 
EdFred said:
What non-ethical practices? Jeppesen seem to be the ones raping the world on subscription costs, especially when they get the info from the FAA for FREE!
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Well, collusion comes to mind as one unethical practice. Price setting, and overpricing their GPSes because "hey, Aviators are rich!"

Their Aviation GPSes are exactly the same as their other GPSes, but they charge obnoxious rates for them.
 
King moving map GPS units aren't exactly cheap either.
 
Jepp does some processing/checking on the data received... it's not just a scene from Office Space with the good-with-people guy
 
EdFred said:
King moving map GPS units aren't exactly cheap either.
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People aren't willing to pay as much for them. For the record, the reason I bought my KLN 94 is because it was cheap. I didn't buy it because I liked it more than the 430 (I don't), but I wasn't willing to pay the extra money for a 430. Simple capitalist brain here.

Shane, I look forward to your PIREP. I'm looking for a solution that provides charts, GPS, and weather all in one convenient digital package. I'll be looking to buy it next May when my AirChart Systems subscription runs out. This one looks very cool, for sure!
 
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Bob Noel said:
Jepp does some processing/checking on the data received... it's not just a scene from Office Space with the good-with-people guy
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Hell, the code has been written what, 9 years ago, and somehow, even when they are still getting it free, the cost for 9 year old code has gone up $100/year.

Not buying it. Once it is in place, there's not a whole hell of a lot to do with it.
 
EdFred said:
Hell, the code has been written what, 9 years ago, and somehow, even when they are still getting it free, the cost for 9 year old code has gone up $100/year.

Not buying it. Once it is in place, there's not a whole hell of a lot to do with it.
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Not defending Jepp, because they're on my **** list too, but at least when you buy a Jepp chart, you own it. Garmin seems to think buying a digital chart means they can restrict access to it when it expires.
 
If you are buying digital charts just get em direct from NACO.
 
Shane looking forward to more than a pirep. Looking forward to you giving me a ride so I can see it work:D
 
SkyHog said:
Not defending Jepp, because they're on my **** list too, but at least when you buy a Jepp chart, you own it. Garmin seems to think buying a digital chart means they can restrict access to it when it expires.
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Intuit mastered that game with expiring tables in Quickbooks. Instead of just warning you that your tax tables "may" be out of date, it disables your calculations and forced an upgrade purchase. (My info is a few years out of date - may not be pertinent any more).
 
EdFred said:
What non-ethical practices? Jeppesen seem to be the ones raping the world on subscription costs, especially when they get the info from the FAA for FREE!
Click to expand...

Amen. Jepp's pricing is outrageous.

Great charts, though.
 
OtisAir said:
Hey Ya'll, I pushed the button!

I just bought a Flight Cheetah FL190 and can't wait for it to arrive!
Click to expand...

You have committed the ultimate aviation sin! (Buying a new aviation gadget only a month before Oshkosh. ;))

Also, is there such an animal as a WX Worx splitter? If I were to put a 396 or 496 in the right side, can I split the wx data coming in from one box?
Click to expand...

Well, the 396 and 496 have the weather capability built in, they don't need a WxWorx box. (Personally, that's why I still like 'em better than the other weather-capable units out there.) So, no need for a splitter anyway. :)

SkyHog said:
Well, collusion comes to mind as one unethical practice. Price setting, and overpricing their GPSes because "hey, Aviators are rich!"

Their Aviation GPSes are exactly the same as their other GPSes, but they charge obnoxious rates for them.
Click to expand...

Exactly? Uh, not really. I don't think a Nuvi is going to really give me any useful information at all in the cockpit.

You could say they're "similar" to some of the marine units, but the reality is that a significant amount of R&D must go into the *aviation* portion of the unit. The others don't have a "panel page," they don't have to read aviation databases or know how to display all the information contained therein, they don't have the built-in logbook or the AOPA directory or a multitude of other things that the non-aviation units lack.

We're a niche market. With roughly 600K pilots, they don't have a lot of us to sell to. Figure if they manage to sell a particular unit to 1% of us (which may be optimistic), that's a maximum of 6,000 sales. Considering the R&D costs for the aviation features alone, it's no wonder we have to pay several hundred more dollars for the aviation units. I doubt their margin is much different between the aviation and marine units.

Garmin isn't "Big Bad Evil Company," they're simply trying to make a buck. If we were to all stop buying Garmin stuff because we thought they were "Big Bad Evil Company" and we wanted to send them a message, the message that would be received is not "You need to make less money on your aviation products," it would be "This market isn't worth pursuing." And that would be bad for all of us. Garmin makes some pretty good stuff. :yes:
 
What Jepp does is basically value added publishing. They take free Gov't information and make it better, easier to read and more user friendly. I have a client that does that with Gov't enviornmental regulations. They are not just reselling you free information they are putting it in a format that is more user friendly. That my friends has a value.

NOW whern your the only game in town you can afford to price at the top of the chart. Where my client does so well is that they are not the only game in town infact there are a few other games in town and my client is realativly one of the newer ones BUT the reason they are so successful is that they have found a way to do what the others do less expensivly and do well because they can offer a lower price to the market for a top quality product. Thats what is needed here.
 
The unit arrived on the 24th of June but I was away on vacation so finally got it yesterday. Last night, I "flew" around in demo mode for a couple of hours and I must say I think it's the bees knees so far.

Some of the functionality I played with in demo mode includes
Approach Plates at the press of a button .... This is nice. Moving aircraft NOT on it.
Sectionals (VFR and IFR) with your aircraft shown moving on them.
Altitude "gates" during descent on an approach.... pretty neat feature.
realtime TFR's (product of the wx component) + XM Weather (via wx worx)
Victor Routes on the moving map (separate from sectionals and low charts)
Best altitude for wind (also product of wx service, but based on your personal aircraft.
3D Terrain (CFIT awareness) ....... pretty cool feature.
Touch screen - this will be good in turbulence.
Altitude Alerting - you can set an altitude monitor and will receive visual cues if you bust it.
Lots of options exist for what you want to see on the moving map such as airspace & borders & highways & airports (with color codes depicting wx status if you subscribe to xm weather services).
Flight Planning seems straight forward but I'll diddle with it a little more and report back.

Although I have the manual, I still keep discovering new things are the push of this button or that button. Lots of cool feature.


So far I haven't had it in the air, but hope to this weekend. I'll give an update asap. So far though, two thumbs up!
 
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