Battery Test!
Well, I found a plane with no 12V socket in it. My normal rental planes are in for work, so I paid up for the newer R-model Cessna. Can you believe that the 12V socket isn't included in these? Or not the ones my school owns anyway!!
So I was going to fly from Caldwell (CDW) in North Jersey to Cape May Co. (WWD) on Thursday. I decided to fly the Philly side of the state on the way down and then come back up the coast. Fortunately, I had done a flight plan using the VORs as a back-up in case the GPS ever quit. Otherwise, I don't think I would have been able to make the trip. You have to wedge yourself between Philadelphia's air space and Mc Guire (WRI). I also wanted to stay out of Alert A-220. So I figured I could turn on my GPS when I got near Robbinsville VOR at the top of A-220 and then thread the needle to South Jersey, where the airspace issues went away. So I turned down the backlight to one notch from the bottom and departed Caldwell.
It looks like the AV8OR doesn't log while it is in sleep mode, which I used between visual checkpoints on my flight plan. There is one blip between Philly and Atlantic City, where I woke the AV8OR back up to make sure I was clear of A-220 before I began tracking Cedar Lake VOR and then visual to Cape May.
On the way home, I was worried about New York. I just called up Atlantic City approach from Wildwood after departing Cape May, and flew about a mile offshore all the way to Asbury Park. I tuned Robbinsville back in but it would have been a longer ride home by VOR, so once I was as far inland as I cared to be, I turned the AV8OR back on and flew closer to direct.
The battery was 3 out of 4 bars when I left Caldwell. I guess I will make sure I use the wall socket adapter when I am doing my flight plans the night before so I have full charge if I need it. But when I landed, I was still at 2 bars. This shouldn't be a surprise since they claim about 1.5 hours of use at full backlight I think (or close to that anyway???). But then again, who wants to test that near New York's space. Also, I had no problem seeing the AV8OR in the Cessna. I may have had to shield it with my hand once or twice to make sure I was seeing the finer details around me, but it worked very well at that time of the day with a low back light setting. Maybe someday when I know where I am going better, I may have to run the GPS on battery the whole flight and see what kind of time I can get out of the battery.
So it was a creative plan and a great flight to the beach. Sure was better than going to work!!