Reply to thread

BillB, thanks for reply/info.  I was just covering different areas I have read here in my questions, am aware of differences between XM wx & GPS.  Interesting you are in Chicago as that is an area the Ipad was crucial to us getting around end of wx last year on the trip to OSH. Without it, as in the old days, we would have landed that afternoon and spent the night somewhere then continued next morning.  If you remember that couple weeks of before and during OSH there was big storms that would build couple hundred miles to West / Southwest each day and move East.  We used the Ipad and My Radar and traveled East / North East / North and ended up just on the South edge of Chicago where we made our turn back to West / NW & North right on the edge of the wx line.  I had never been near Chicago before so it was great to see it from air as we were just outside the Class B on Southside and then changed to another controller sector and he ran us just under one airspace floor, turned us up NW and ran us between a couple of large airports on the (my memory may be wrong ??) Western side of Chicago and then out of Class B to the NW on up towards OSH. Anyway, if we had been 15 minutes later we would not have made it.  Center was busy busy but the 2nd controller really helped us out when we told him what we were trying to do.  Altitude we were at - I do not remember but was somewhere around 4,000 ft when we approached from South but we had been at 5,500 I think just before that as we had descended getting near Chicago.  Anyway the 3G was working then.  When I mentioned using Ipad at 12,500 that was the GPS working, we were not getting 3G, that was on 2nd leg of trip back home from OSH and if I remember we did not start getting 3G until after I passed over the DFW Class B and started descending and it seemed to come in at about 6- 8 thousand, don't remember.  Anyway, we usually fly our Sunday lunch runs at 5 to 6 thousand and have 3G most of time. From what I read it seems we have better AT&T 3G service here in Central Tex than a lot of places have.  I am looking forwards to getting into ADS-B but will wait until some of the problems have been worked out and prices are reasonable.  For now the Ipad and its wx apps work for my type of flying, I have no time constraints so I do not try to push through small holes in between cells in wx, if I can not run around it I will just stop somewhere and wait, I take very few chances.  I was very close to purchase of the Aera when the Ipad came out, I am sure it is good, but I do have a problem with Garmins program prices but I can not complain about their product, the 430W or the old 296 we have are good.

Thanks for your info.

John