Today's Message Index:
----------------------
1. 01:13 PM - Foreflight with Stratus Review (Jesse Saint)
2. 04:47 PM - Re: Foreflight with Stratus Review (Alan Mekler)
3. 07:14 PM - Re: Foreflight with Stratus Review (Robin Marks)
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| Subject: | Foreflight with Stratus Review |
I received my Stratus unit from Sporty's the other day and wanted to
give a report on my impressions for the group. I know there is a lot of
debate over which app is best for the iPad, especially with the new
Garmin app released at Sun-N-Fun, but I'm going to try not to get into
that beyond this statement. I have used Foreflight since version 1 or 2
and have only tried WingX a little. Because I am used to Foreflight and
the navigation and functionality, I have not liked my experiences with
WingX, but as has been said before, we like what we are used to. I use
Foreflight for all of my flight planning (I usually use
www.weathermeister.com for keeping up with the weather for my trip, but
use Foreflight for all actually route planning, flight plan filing, and
charts and plates while flying). I have Foreflight on my iPad 2 Wifi and
iPhone 4. I have used a bluetooth GPS that required jailbreaking the
iPad, but when that broke (left it on the glarshield in the Florida sun
for 3-4 hours one day and the battery swelled and broke the case), I
bought the Bad Elf. I wasn't very happy with the Bad Elf because I
didn't like having it attached to the iPad in use, especially when
bouncing around in IMC. I almost pulled the trigger on the new iPad, in
which case I would have bought the 4G version, but when I didn't get the
call from MacMall on the day they were starting to ship (like they
promised they would), I didn't follow through with the purchase.
I was walking through the hangars at Sun-N-Fun and saw the Stratus on
the first day. After a short talk with a friend of mine, we decided to
buy it. We had both been saying that as soon as there was a portable
ADS-B box that worked with Foreflight, we would get it. We split the
cost and ordered it as well as the external antenna (which we haven't
received yet). We mainly wanted ADS-B for weather, because we were
almost to the point of getting the unit that would get XM weather onto
the iPad, but liked the thought of no subscription better.
We just made a flight in N33DQ (Cessna 182) from Arkansas to Florida
through a lot of IMC, but it was a couple of days too early for the
Stratus. That would be the real test, especially because of the ADS-B
service areas and all of the local radar activity. Unfortunately, the
screen shots I have now are shots with no rain within 250nm or more of
where I was flying, and not a cloud in the sky, but I will share some of
them anyway.
Now, for my experience with the Stratus. YMMV, but this is my thought
after my short time using it.
For the cost, I think it's about as cheap as any ADS-B unit that I have
seen, and I figured it would cost about the same as a year work of
activation and subscription to XM with the better plan, not counting the
XM hardware.
As far as what coverage is available through ADS-B, I was pleasantly
surprised to find out today that winds aloft are actually available.
There are no lightning strikes or Echo Tops, but METARSs, TAFs, NOTAMs,
Winds Aloft, Radar (high resolution regional and low resolution
nationwide) and PIREPs are all available (among a few other things that
I usually don't spend much time with). Personally I really like flying
with Echo Tops in the -10 because it usually accurately lets me know if
I will be able to get over the tops or will have to go through.
Lightning would be nice to have, but usually avoiding the red nexrad
(which is a good idea) will keep you away from most strikes (which is a
very good idea), in my experience. I will miss those two features, but
the most important features for me are METARs, TAFs and Radar.
We took off from X35 with the Stratus on the glare shield of the RV-10
and watched the LED's on the unit as well as the indication in
Foreflight of when we got a signal. We got the signal at about 5-600
feet AGL. Remember that we are in central Florida, so the ADS-B coverage
here is very good. We had as many as 9 stations at a time in our short
flight up to 5,500 feet MSL. I really like the Status page (see attached
pictures) that gives you the information on the Stratus. It shows the
connectivity, battery status, power source, etc and then gives
information on what data has been downloaded and how long ago. It also
shows the grid of satellites that the unit is receiving location from
and how good the signal is. The accuracy of location, including GPS
altitude, is the best I have seen among the bluetooth GPS, Bad Elf,
onboard GPS and the Stratus, with Accuracy usually 1-2m.
As you can see from the pictures attached, and as I have already
mentioned, the weather here was way too good to get great pictures as to
the usefulness of the Stratus, but it's the best I can offer so far. I
usually just keep up the map screen with the Radar and Flight Rules
shown. For information on a specific airport, you can just tap on the
dot and it will pull up the Metar (and TAF and Winds Aloft if
available). If you scroll down on the pop-up, you can see the METARs of
other local airports, as well as how old the report is. We must have
been getting some medium and/or high altitude ADS-B stations, because we
were getting national CONUS Radar as well as a good range of METARs,
PIREPs, etc.
If you zoom out on the map, only the bigger airport Flight Rules show
up. If you zoom in, it shows everywhere that reports. It will also paint
the surface winds, cielings, temperature, dew point spread, cloud cover,
etc. the same way that it does the Flight Rules, but this display is my
favorite for overall information. It will only show one of these at a
time, as well as Radar at the same time. It will also show TFR's on the
map for those who aren't flying "in the system".
My overall impression is very good. I am looking forward to taking a
trip outside the normally shown coverage area, especially after I get
the external antenna, so I can see how accurate the coverage maps are in
the 10-18,000 foot range. One nice thing is that if you are going
through a relatively small area of weak coverage, the information stays
on the iPad. It just doesn't update, so you still should have
information, which will start updating as soon as you get back within
coverage.
The battery on the Stratus has been quite impressive so far. It comes
with a USB cable for charging, as well as an AC adapter, but in a 45
minute flight the battery was still in the 90%'s. It seemed to stay put
really well on the glare shield and it is low profile, so it doesn't get
in my way at all for flying.
Can it replace XM? In my opinion, for a great deal of my flying, yes,
mainly because of where I live and where and how I fly. I much prefer
the screen size of the iPad to the Garmin Aera, and I like the interface
much better than the Aera. As an all-in-one unit for flight planning,
preflight weather, enroute charts, plates, enroute weather (with the
Stratus), I haven't used anything I think would work better (especially
for moving from plane to plane) than the iPad, Foreflight and the
Stratus. It is not for everybody, but for those within the coverage
area, who move from plane to plane, who don't want to have the monthly
subscription, I highly recommend it based on my experience so far. I'll
try to post again after I have taken it on a longer trip through some
IMC.
One thing I would really like to see in Foreflight would be a Winds
Aloft display on the map, like with most XM products. They have surface
winds at airports, which helps, but picking an altitude with Winds Aloft
information would help. It does calculate Time Enroute and overall wind
effect for your route in the route planner, so I guess you could pick
different altitudes and see which one would be fastest, but it would be
nice to have a chart (like on the Flight Cheetah, for the few of you who
might have flown with it).
Jesse Saint
Saint Aviation, Inc.
jesse@saintaviation.com
C: 352-427-0285
F: 815-377-3694
Message 2
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| Subject: | Foreflight with Stratus Review |
Jesse,
I also bought the stratus and love the way it works with ForeFlight . When
you go to winds under airport info you get winds aloft in a numerical
display. I do hope they will add lightning strike but xm only shows air to
ground strikes. I currently have xm on a 496 so going to the ipad was such
an improvement in display. The GPs accuracy on the stratus is phenomenal. I
never saw more than a 2 meter accuracy. I can't receive the info on the
ground at my home airport and use my wifi(internet) connection to get the
weather before takeoff. At about 2000 feet I get ADS-B .
I'll experiment some more this weekend but my initial impression is
favorable.
Alan
N668G
From: owner-rv10-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-rv10-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Jesse Saint
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 4:11 PM
Subject: RV10-List: Foreflight with Stratus Review
I received my Stratus unit from Sporty's the other day and wanted to give a
report on my impressions for the group. I know there is a lot of debate over
which app is best for the iPad, especially with the new Garmin app released
at Sun-N-Fun, but I'm going to try not to get into that beyond this
statement. I have used Foreflight since version 1 or 2 and have only tried
WingX a little. Because I am used to Foreflight and the navigation and
functionality, I have not liked my experiences with WingX, but as has been
said before, we like what we are used to. I use Foreflight for all of my
flight planning (I usually use www.weathermeister.com for keeping up with
the weather for my trip, but use Foreflight for all actually route planning,
flight plan filing, and charts and plates while flying). I have Foreflight
on my iPad 2 Wifi and iPhone 4. I have used a bluetooth GPS that required
jailbreaking the iPad, but when that broke (left it on the glarshield in the
Florida sun for 3-4 hours one day and the battery swelled and broke the
case), I bought the Bad Elf. I wasn't very happy with the Bad Elf because I
didn't like having it attached to the iPad in use, especially when bouncing
around in IMC. I almost pulled the trigger on the new iPad, in which case I
would have bought the 4G version, but when I didn't get the call from
MacMall on the day they were starting to ship (like they promised they
would), I didn't follow through with the purchase.
I was walking through the hangars at Sun-N-Fun and saw the Stratus on the
first day. After a short talk with a friend of mine, we decided to buy it.
We had both been saying that as soon as there was a portable ADS-B box that
worked with Foreflight, we would get it. We split the cost and ordered it as
well as the external antenna (which we haven't received yet). We mainly
wanted ADS-B for weather, because we were almost to the point of getting the
unit that would get XM weather onto the iPad, but liked the thought of no
subscription better.
We just made a flight in N33DQ (Cessna 182) from Arkansas to Florida through
a lot of IMC, but it was a couple of days too early for the Stratus. That
would be the real test, especially because of the ADS-B service areas and
all of the local radar activity. Unfortunately, the screen shots I have now
are shots with no rain within 250nm or more of where I was flying, and not a
cloud in the sky, but I will share some of them anyway.
Now, for my experience with the Stratus. YMMV, but this is my thought after
my short time using it.
For the cost, I think it's about as cheap as any ADS-B unit that I have
seen, and I figured it would cost about the same as a year work of
activation and subscription to XM with the better plan, not counting the XM
hardware.
As far as what coverage is available through ADS-B, I was pleasantly
surprised to find out today that winds aloft are actually available. There
are no lightning strikes or Echo Tops, but METARSs, TAFs, NOTAMs, Winds
Aloft, Radar (high resolution regional and low resolution nationwide) and
PIREPs are all available (among a few other things that I usually don't
spend much time with). Personally I really like flying with Echo Tops in the
-10 because it usually accurately lets me know if I will be able to get over
the tops or will have to go through. Lightning would be nice to have, but
usually avoiding the red nexrad (which is a good idea) will keep you away
from most strikes (which is a very good idea), in my experience. I will miss
those two features, but the most important features for me are METARs, TAFs
and Radar.
We took off from X35 with the Stratus on the glare shield of the RV-10 and
watched the LED's on the unit as well as the indication in Foreflight of
when we got a signal. We got the signal at about 5-600 feet AGL. Remember
that we are in central Florida, so the ADS-B coverage here is very good. We
had as many as 9 stations at a time in our short flight up to 5,500 feet
MSL. I really like the Status page (see attached pictures) that gives you
the information on the Stratus. It shows the connectivity, battery status,
power source, etc and then gives information on what data has been
downloaded and how long ago. It also shows the grid of satellites that the
unit is receiving location from and how good the signal is. The accuracy of
location, including GPS altitude, is the best I have seen among the
bluetooth GPS, Bad Elf, onboard GPS and the Stratus, with Accuracy usually
1-2m.
As you can see from the pictures attached, and as I have already mentioned,
the weather here was way too good to get great pictures as to the usefulness
of the Stratus, but it's the best I can offer so far. I usually just keep up
the map screen with the Radar and Flight Rules shown. For information on a
specific airport, you can just tap on the dot and it will pull up the Metar
(and TAF and Winds Aloft if available). If you scroll down on the pop-up,
you can see the METARs of other local airports, as well as how old the
report is. We must have been getting some medium and/or high altitude ADS-B
stations, because we were getting national CONUS Radar as well as a good
range of METARs, PIREPs, etc.
If you zoom out on the map, only the bigger airport Flight Rules show up. If
you zoom in, it shows everywhere that reports. It will also paint the
surface winds, cielings, temperature, dew point spread, cloud cover, etc.
the same way that it does the Flight Rules, but this display is my favorite
for overall information. It will only show one of these at a time, as well
as Radar at the same time. It will also show TFR's on the map for those who
aren't flying "in the system".
My overall impression is very good. I am looking forward to taking a trip
outside the normally shown coverage area, especially after I get the
external antenna, so I can see how accurate the coverage maps are in the
10-18,000 foot range. One nice thing is that if you are going through a
relatively small area of weak coverage, the information stays on the iPad.
It just doesn't update, so you still should have information, which will
start updating as soon as you get back within coverage.
The battery on the Stratus has been quite impressive so far. It comes with a
USB cable for charging, as well as an AC adapter, but in a 45 minute flight
the battery was still in the 90%'s. It seemed to stay put really well on the
glare shield and it is low profile, so it doesn't get in my way at all for
flying.
Can it replace XM? In my opinion, for a great deal of my flying, yes, mainly
because of where I live and where and how I fly. I much prefer the screen
size of the iPad to the Garmin Aera, and I like the interface much better
than the Aera. As an all-in-one unit for flight planning, preflight weather,
enroute charts, plates, enroute weather (with the Stratus), I haven't used
anything I think would work better (especially for moving from plane to
plane) than the iPad, Foreflight and the Stratus. It is not for everybody,
but for those within the coverage area, who move from plane to plane, who
don't want to have the monthly subscription, I highly recommend it based on
my experience so far. I'll try to post again after I have taken it on a
longer trip through some IMC.
One thing I would really like to see in Foreflight would be a Winds Aloft
display on the map, like with most XM products. They have surface winds at
airports, which helps, but picking an altitude with Winds Aloft information
would help. It does calculate Time Enroute and overall wind effect for your
route in the route planner, so I guess you could pick different altitudes
and see which one would be fastest, but it would be nice to have a chart
(like on the Flight Cheetah, for the few of you who might have flown with
it).
Jesse Saint
Saint Aviation, Inc.
jesse@saintaviation.com
C: 352-427-0285
F: 815-377-3694
Message 3
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| Subject: | Re: Foreflight with Stratus Review |
Thanks Jesse. I just wanted to piggyback on your comments with an iPad obse
rvation. Having owned all three (1, 2 & New) I really like the reduced cost
of the iPad 2 3G. Don't get me wrong the New iPad is nice with 4G and the
retina screen but it does get hotter that it's predecessors for sure and th
e minor weight difference is noticeable. The New is definitely an improvem
ent in screen and speed but the iPad 2 seems to do it all quite well and wi
th a minimum $100 savings. I say minimum because you can only get the 2 in
a 16GB unit. When you buy the New iPad you may be temped to get the 32 or 6
4GB as I did for a mere $829.00 before mandatory cover. So $529.00 vs. $829
.00. I know Tim O would chime in with the need for extra storage but I have
done everything I needed wo going over my 16 GB with a little memory manag
ement.
So my 2 (can't find the cents key on my iPad) are you have a choice between
good and better. You can't lose.
Robin
Sent from the new iPad
On Apr 26, 2012, at 7:33 PM, "Jesse Saint" <jesse@saintaviation.com> wrote:
> I received my Stratus unit from Sporty's the other day and wanted to give
a report on my impressions for the group. I know there is a lot of debate
over which app is best for the iPad, especially with the new Garmin app rel
eased at Sun-N-Fun, but I'm going to try not to get into that beyond this s
tatement. I have used Foreflight since version 1 or 2 and have only tried W
ingX a little. Because I am used to Foreflight and the navigation and funct
ionality, I have not liked my experiences with WingX, but as has been said
before, we like what we are used to. I use Foreflight for all of my flight
planning (I usually use www.weathermeister.com<http://www.weathermeister.co
m> for keeping up with the weather for my trip, but use Foreflight for all
actually route planning, flight plan filing, and charts and plates while fl
ying). I have Foreflight on my iPad 2 Wifi and iPhone 4. I have used a blue
tooth GPS that required jailbreaking the iPad, but when that broke (left it
on the glarshield in the Florida sun for 3-4 hours one day and the battery
swelled and broke the case), I bought the Bad Elf. I wasn't very happy wit
h the Bad Elf because I didn't like having it attached to the iPad in use,
especially when bouncing around in IMC. I almost pulled the trigger on the
new iPad, in which case I would have bought the 4G version, but when I didn
't get the call from MacMall on the day they were starting to ship (like th
ey promised they would), I didn't follow through with the purchase.
>
> I was walking through the hangars at Sun-N-Fun and saw the Stratus on the
first day. After a short talk with a friend of mine, we decided to buy it.
We had both been saying that as soon as there was a portable ADS-B box tha
t worked with Foreflight, we would get it. We split the cost and ordered it
as well as the external antenna (which we haven't received yet). We mainly
wanted ADS-B for weather, because we were almost to the point of getting t
he unit that would get XM weather onto the iPad, but liked the thought of n
o subscription better.
>
> We just made a flight in N33DQ (Cessna 182) from Arkansas to Florida thro
ugh a lot of IMC, but it was a couple of days too early for the Stratus. Th
at would be the real test, especially because of the ADS-B service areas an
d all of the local radar activity. Unfortunately, the screen shots I have n
ow are shots with no rain within 250nm or more of where I was flying, and n
ot a cloud in the sky, but I will share some of them anyway.
>
> Now, for my experience with the Stratus. YMMV, but this is my thought aft
er my short time using it.
>
> For the cost, I think it's about as cheap as any ADS-B unit that I have s
een, and I figured it would cost about the same as a year work of activatio
n and subscription to XM with the better plan, not counting the XM hardware
.
>
> As far as what coverage is available through ADS-B, I was pleasantly surp
rised to find out today that winds aloft are actually available. There are
no lightning strikes or Echo Tops, but METARSs, TAFs, NOTAMs, Winds Aloft,
Radar (high resolution regional and low resolution nationwide) and PIREPs a
re all available (among a few other things that I usually don't spend much
time with). Personally I really like flying with Echo Tops in the -10 becau
se it usually accurately lets me know if I will be able to get over the top
s or will have to go through. Lightning would be nice to have, but usually
avoiding the red nexrad (which is a good idea) will keep you away from most
strikes (which is a very good idea), in my experience. I will miss those t
wo features, but the most important features for me are METARs, TAFs and Ra
dar.
>
> We took off from X35 with the Stratus on the glare shield of the RV-10 an
d watched the LED's on the unit as well as the indication in Foreflight of
when we got a signal. We got the signal at about 5-600 feet AGL. Remember t
hat we are in central Florida, so the ADS-B coverage here is very good. We
had as many as 9 stations at a time in our short flight up to 5,500 feet MS
L. I really like the Status page (see attached pictures) that gives you the
information on the Stratus. It shows the connectivity, battery status, pow
er source, etc and then gives information on what data has been downloaded
and how long ago. It also shows the grid of satellites that the unit is rec
eiving location from and how good the signal is. The accuracy of location,
including GPS altitude, is the best I have seen among the bluetooth GPS, Ba
d Elf, onboard GPS and the Stratus, with Accuracy usually 1-2m.
>
> As you can see from the pictures attached, and as I have already mentione
d, the weather here was way too good to get great pictures as to the useful
ness of the Stratus, but it's the best I can offer so far. I usually just k
eep up the map screen with the Radar and Flight Rules shown. For informatio
n on a specific airport, you can just tap on the dot and it will pull up th
e Metar (and TAF and Winds Aloft if available). If you scroll down on the p
op-up, you can see the METARs of other local airports, as well as how old t
he report is. We must have been getting some medium and/or high altitude AD
S-B stations, because we were getting national CONUS Radar as well as a goo
d range of METARs, PIREPs, etc.
>
> If you zoom out on the map, only the bigger airport Flight Rules show up.
If you zoom in, it shows everywhere that reports. It will also paint the s
urface winds, cielings, temperature, dew point spread, cloud cover, etc. th
e same way that it does the Flight Rules, but this display is my favorite f
or overall information. It will only show one of these at a time, as well a
s Radar at the same time. It will also show TFR's on the map for those who
aren't flying "in the system".
>
> My overall impression is very good. I am looking forward to taking a trip
outside the normally shown coverage area, especially after I get the exter
nal antenna, so I can see how accurate the coverage maps are in the 10-18,0
00 foot range. One nice thing is that if you are going through a relatively
small area of weak coverage, the information stays on the iPad. It just do
esn't update, so you still should have information, which will start updati
ng as soon as you get back within coverage.
>
> The battery on the Stratus has been quite impressive so far. It comes wit
h a USB cable for charging, as well as an AC adapter, but in a 45 minute fl
ight the battery was still in the 90%'s. It seemed to stay put really well
on the glare shield and it is low profile, so it doesn't get in my way at a
ll for flying.
>
> Can it replace XM? In my opinion, for a great deal of my flying, yes, mai
nly because of where I live and where and how I fly. I much prefer the scre
en size of the iPad to the Garmin Aera, and I like the interface much bette
r than the Aera. As an all-in-one unit for flight planning, preflight weath
er, enroute charts, plates, enroute weather (with the Stratus), I haven't u
sed anything I think would work better (especially for moving from plane to
plane) than the iPad, Foreflight and the Stratus. It is not for everybody,
but for those within the coverage area, who move from plane to plane, who
don't want to have the monthly subscription, I highly recommend it based on
my experience so far. I'll try to post again after I have taken it on a lo
nger trip through some IMC.
>
> One thing I would really like to see in Foreflight would be a Winds Aloft
display on the map, like with most XM products. They have surface winds at
airports, which helps, but picking an altitude with Winds Aloft informatio
n would help. It does calculate Time Enroute and overall wind effect for yo
ur route in the route planner, so I guess you could pick different altitude
s and see which one would be fastest, but it would be nice to have a chart
(like on the Flight Cheetah, for the few of you who might have flown with i
t).
>
> Jesse Saint
> Saint Aviation, Inc.
> jesse@saintaviation.com<mailto:jesse@saintaviation.com>
> C: 352-427-0285
> F: 815-377-3694
> [cid:86CE3124-CB81-4E76-BAA4-55CB22DB8E23]
> [cid:3D4F42E2-F601-45DD-ADB8-DC3D6AC161C6]
> [cid:324708F2-838B-4D6C-9A35-D0A8BDA208CD]
> [cid:F789AB5F-23F9-4C2B-9877-7374F493E0B7]
> [cid:643C74C0-5044-408E-8B40-837BBCEB0512]
> [cid:EB19C300-84D9-4272-9B36-FEC0D1C03A33]
> <photo 2.PNG>
> <photo 3.PNG>
> <photo 4.PNG>
> <photo 2.PNG>
> <photo 3.PNG>
> <photo 1.PNG>
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