As I mentioned on another thread, I chucked my airline tickets today for a flight from Houston to Titusville, in favor of flying myself. The best part was that my co-workers showed up at the hotel an hour and a half after I did - and we left the office at the same time! (They spent 45 minutes sitting on the ground at Orlando, waiting for a gate....)
What made today's flight really interesting was a friend that loaned me his 396 with XM weather for the trip..."just so I could see what it was like..."
I'll tell you what - that XM weather is like crack cocaine! I am 100% addicted after one trip! I've flown with weather radar before, and even though you can see what is ahead, you never know for sure what is beyond...but with the entire country's radar picture available to you, this thing takes almost all of the "fearful unknowns" out of flying in the southeast during the summer.
When I left Houston, the only echoes on the coast was a weak blob over near Mobile. Sure enough, I watched this grow into a pretty nice cell between Mobile and Pensacola by the time I got there. Cruising along at 11.5K most of the way, I compared the view on the 396 with what I saw dead ahead. If I had been without the XM, I would have been on the horn to Flight Watch, and maybe even have landed short to get a live look at the radar. As it was, I just deviated a couple degrees left, and worked my way around the taller buildups, knowing that I wasn't going to run into a dead end, or bad stuff hiding beyond. That look "beyond" was priceless.
I had planned a fuel stop about halfway, and if I had dropped down from altitude near Mobile, I probably would have had a tough time getting back up and out of the building stuff. But since I could see that the weather beyond Pensacola was free of echoes, I was confident in running farther, staying up high, sipping 8.0 gph and truing 175 knots. I finally landed in Cross City, FL, with 1:40 left in the tanks (according to the EFIS), an hour short of Titusville. I could have gone non-stop, but I don't like to push the reserves when I haven't flown the route before.
Bottom line - the stress reduction that came from the increased situational awareness was tangible - a flight that would have been full of unknowns with towering cumulus filling the horizon became routine! Of all the neat toys I have put into the Valkyrie, I can't think of many that add as much to the overall capability as realtime weatehr. The nicest thing is that I can add this capability to my GRT EFIS for only $1500...and you can bet my order is going in as soon as I get back!
Paul
What made today's flight really interesting was a friend that loaned me his 396 with XM weather for the trip..."just so I could see what it was like..."
I'll tell you what - that XM weather is like crack cocaine! I am 100% addicted after one trip! I've flown with weather radar before, and even though you can see what is ahead, you never know for sure what is beyond...but with the entire country's radar picture available to you, this thing takes almost all of the "fearful unknowns" out of flying in the southeast during the summer.
When I left Houston, the only echoes on the coast was a weak blob over near Mobile. Sure enough, I watched this grow into a pretty nice cell between Mobile and Pensacola by the time I got there. Cruising along at 11.5K most of the way, I compared the view on the 396 with what I saw dead ahead. If I had been without the XM, I would have been on the horn to Flight Watch, and maybe even have landed short to get a live look at the radar. As it was, I just deviated a couple degrees left, and worked my way around the taller buildups, knowing that I wasn't going to run into a dead end, or bad stuff hiding beyond. That look "beyond" was priceless.
I had planned a fuel stop about halfway, and if I had dropped down from altitude near Mobile, I probably would have had a tough time getting back up and out of the building stuff. But since I could see that the weather beyond Pensacola was free of echoes, I was confident in running farther, staying up high, sipping 8.0 gph and truing 175 knots. I finally landed in Cross City, FL, with 1:40 left in the tanks (according to the EFIS), an hour short of Titusville. I could have gone non-stop, but I don't like to push the reserves when I haven't flown the route before.
Bottom line - the stress reduction that came from the increased situational awareness was tangible - a flight that would have been full of unknowns with towering cumulus filling the horizon became routine! Of all the neat toys I have put into the Valkyrie, I can't think of many that add as much to the overall capability as realtime weatehr. The nicest thing is that I can add this capability to my GRT EFIS for only $1500...and you can bet my order is going in as soon as I get back!
Paul