Recreational Flying 7" GPS for Street and Air Navigation

[lyle janke]

hi

 

looking for something for plane use only i have a GPS for the car

 

who has one of these units ??

 

is it a worthwhile unit or is the programing avail for aviation too restricted or N/A to make a good multi-function unit

 

would an i pad configured be abetter deal??

 

what other aviation programs are avail ??

 

lyle

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

We have the Rec Fly 7" GPS. It has a street map program too. I have not used an ipad so I can't compare, but this has viewers for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, ebooks, pdfs so we can put basic docs on it. It has games, pictures, music and other stuff. We have OziExplorer installed and have it on our PC. Do the planning on the PC, then download the routes to the unit.

 

Only downside was the charger blew up, but there are other ways to charge it. Husband, who is not particularly good with computers hasn't worked out how to plan and download to the unit. He also got himself lost driving when he got off route and couldn't work out how to get it to recalculate getting back to it (it keeps saying "Off Route" where as mine automatically directs you back). Otherwise, he seems to handle it well, both in the air and in the car.

 

Sue

 

 

[lyle janke]

We have the Rec Fly 7" GPS. It has a street map program too. I have not used an ipad so I can't compare, but this has viewers for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, ebooks, pdfs so we can put basic docs on it. It has games, pictures, music and other stuff. We have OziExplorer installed and have it on our PC. Do the planning on the PC, then download the routes to the unit. Only downside was the charger blew up, but there are other ways to charge it. Husband, who is not particularly good with computers hasn't worked out how to plan and download to the unit. He also got himself lost driving when he got off route and couldn't work out how to get it to recalculate getting back to it (it keeps saying "Off Route" where as mine automatically directs you back). Otherwise, he seems to handle it well, both in the air and in the car.

Sue

 

hi sue

 

thanks

 

(it keeps saying "Off Route" where as mine automatically directs you back) are you using 2 units ??

 

lyle

 

 

[lyle janke]

hi

 

is this not a poplar choice to use for a GPS?

 

i was hoping for a better response

 

 

[bilby54]

hiis this not a poplar choice to use for a GPS?

i was hoping for a better response

I use the 5" unit due to panel space and it works really well for my purposes.

 

It depends on what you want a gps to do for you. If flying in control zones it maybe better to get a dedicated aviation gps.

 

Aas for the ipad, I tend to think that they are the flavour of the month at the moment. Really good for flight planning but they are just to big for most small aircraft and can cause a lot of distractions.

 

 

[Doug Evans]

I use an iPad 2 for every thing road map use tomtom, aircraft use ozrunway with a nee pad work well, phone Skype , banking., Bye and sell eBay , video go foxtel , books & manuals iBook , weather use willyweather , email , messaging , Searching Internet for Avaition stuff ,

 

Keeping in touch with family & friends Facebook , they are endless for what you can use them for we'll worth it for me anyway And very portable . .

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

are you using 2 units ??

Hi Lyle,

My employer provided me with a GPS with a chip that displays our routes and info. That's a Navman and it started failing within the year - screen pixellated, took 5 mins to reset, freezes regularly. Can't take the heat and vibration. I use it on some of the roughest roads in Qld. However when on the bitumen it performs well as a road map. No doubt, with an aviation info chip (tiny SD card) it could do flying.

 

For flight planning we used to use Sentinel, but he lost the password and didn't upgrade. The RecFly with OziExplorer gets you the charts as well, with the full program on your PC and a mini one on the GPS. We have a Garmin as back-up, which is now getting rather old. My pre Y2K Trimble worked fine for about 12 years (it was free out of a plane wreck). Now spoilt with colour sat or chart images, planning overlays etc and wouldn't go back to using a brick with external antenna and keeping the plane symbol in the centre following a line.

 

We bought the RecFly 7" GPS with OziExplorer and that has satisfied our planning and flying. It can also be used as a road map. I find it intuitive, easy to use, but my husband, who has never gotten into the IT mindset does struggle sometimes. If you are not computer savvy the OziExplorer software can be confusing and there is not much help literature with the RecFly GPS.

 

As my experience with flight planning and modern GPS is somewhat limited, all I can say is that RecFly - OziExplorer works for me.

 

Sue