MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

WEATHER IN THE COCKPIT FOR GENERAL AVIATION

I’m a big believer of having weather information in the cockpit. Before weather depiction I had to cancel numerous trips that I didn’t think would be safe to make. This was also affirmed by many pilot friends. 

For GA we had one choice for years which is XM. XM is expensive costing $55 a month. Most of my cross country flying takes place in the summer so I would subscribe to XM June through September and then put my account in suspension for the balance of the year. If I had to make a trip in the winter it was without weather in the cockpit. I had to use ATC one time to circumvent a major storm coming back from Las Vegas to Scottsdale deviating all the way to the Colorado river before turning home. I was able to complete many trips that I don’t think I could have without XM weather. My display is small using a Garmin 396 but it sure beat having no weather information. The display was clear, and I’m able to pan throughout my route. The features of XM are great and much better than ADS-B.

There is a unit made by Barron that has the capability to send XM weather to the IPad. It has a lot of wires, the cost is $1000 and you still have to pay $55 a month to XM.

A little over a year ago SkyRadar came out with wireless ADS-B IN for the IPad. I’m disappointed with ADS-B weather. There is no satellite coverage, lightning strikes or winds aloft. That being said I now have weather on my IPad that is clear to see and free. For ceilings I have to pan ahead, push on a waypoint and look at the METAR. I was surprised in a flight this summer when I was at 9000 feet and the ceilings dropped quickly. I cancelled IFR, and dropped through a whole to get under the clouds. With XM I would have had some warning that clouds were ahead.

Radar weather works great. I have only had to use it once this summer, and it was right on even though radar is usually delayed 5 minutes.

ADS B IN does not have winds aloft only winds at ground level for the area I check.

After purchasing an ADS B IN unit the weather is free. Unit prices have come down in half since their introduction. Many vendors have entered the business.

It’s too bad that units are limited to one APP. Once you buy an ADS-B IN unit you are married to the APP you bought it for. You won’t be able to switch APPS in the future. As of this writing there is only one unit for Fore Flight, and it will not work on any other APP. Gamin’s unit will only work on the Garmin APP. There are several units that work on WingXPro, but they don’t work on other APPS except Sky Radar on the Sky Radar APP. As of today there are only 2 IPad APPS for navigation that I would consider using, Fore Flight and WingXPro. In my opinion the rest are a waste of time and money. Others are trying to catch up and not doing a good job of it, and several APPS are more expensive than Fore Flight and WingX. 

Traffic is another advantage of ADS-B IN. Someone has to be flying in your area to awaken the ground stations for traffic to appear. When I receive traffic on WingX it provides the location and altitude of traffic. I would like to know whether that traffic is ascending or descending.

All that being said I’m very happy to have weather for the IPad. I think our government did a very poor job of the weather features that ADS-B provides. No satellite, no winds aloft, no traffic unless ADS B Out is on. It seems to me that the FAA was incomplete in it’s process when providing weather features. It’s too bad our tax dollars went to pay for a 50% effort. And why can’t ADS B OUT be on full time so everyone can have traffic all the time. It’s supposed to be about safety!