[Bryan Wood]

As we fly our 9A more and the recoverery from the expense of the build settles in a bit I've started adding items as the whims fall in line with the bank accounts. A while back a Surecheck Traffic Scope found its way into the plane along with Sirius SAT radio. The Garmin 196 was brand new when "The Flag" first flew and of course one of those ended up in there too. Well recently the 196 was removed and a 496 took its place which also replaced the Sirius since the XM package duplicated the music.

So where am I going with this anyway? Well yesterday Sherri and I played hooky and flew to Petaluma for lunch after reading about the Two Niner Diner in the recent Pilot Getaways. Great place to go by the way! Anyway about two miles out the combination of all of my little additions to the cockpit joined together in a conspiracy and more or less overwhelmed my wife. It went something like this. Since the pattern was full we were on an upwind about two miles or so out on the pattern side of the field and we could see the planes on downwind in the pattern going by on the left. So we'll start with them, Cessna 234 right downwind 29, Petaluma. Cherokee 211 right base 29, Petaluma. Now just for fun the Traffic scope decides to start talking also and of course I took the time to lay on my head and wire it into the audio panel so it comes right in the headset with the female voice blaring. "Traffic, Traffic," and then the Citabria call right crosswind 29 and then "Traffic, monitor closure rate, monitor closure rate." Then Petaluma traffic, Stationair 455 3 mile rt 45 for 29, Petaluma. "Traffic, Monitor closure rate, Monitor closure rate." About now my wife is tapping her feet on the floor and doing this thing with her hand on her knee that is an indicator that she isn't having fun. This is where the new 496 decides to chime in. See we are scooting along the foothills and decending for a left turn back onto the 45. "Terrain, pull up, pull up" comes into our headsets and my wifes posture is adjusting quickly and her head is on a swivel. "Traffic, monitor closure rate," "Pull up, pull up" "Monitor closure rate" Pull up, pull up", "94 whiskey 2 mile rt 45 for 29r Petaluma." At this point two things are being added to the mix by the Garmin. "Terrain, Terrain, pull up, pull up," and for the first time my wife notices that the display of the 496 has the terrain overlay showing and the dumb thing has drawn an "X" at the predicted area that we will impact the hill if we were to keep going straight. "Pull up, pull up" again as she is staring at the Garmin where X marks the spot. Add another "Monitor closure rate" or two and then the Garmin offers us another little trick just for fun. " Obsticle, pull up, pull up" This is two female voices barking out information in the cockpit when the third chimes in. This is the one that matters though and as I look over at her there isn't even the slightest look of amusement on her face. She said stearnly, "I don't like this." So the traffic scope found its way into a muted mode and everything settled down with the Garmin as we progressed on the 45 and got away from the foothills. But just for fun the 496 gave one last piece of back seat driving as we turned final by announcing "500 feet." I looked at my wife and she said "Oh, that's neat." ????? From here all was smooth sailing and we enjoyed a nice meal at a great airport diner.

So what do you all think? Is having three women in a two place airplane with you helping with your duties to much? Can we be to safe?

Best,

 

[Michael Burbidge]

Traffic scope distracting...

i bought a Traffic Scope VRX a couple of year ago. I have only used it a couple of times because I found it very distracting. I felt like it was detracting from my safety rather than adding to my safety. First off it is pretty much useless in the pattern. Second, away from the pattern it doesn't really give you enough information to find traffic. It will alert you of traffic that you can't see (the whole idea) but in addition that you will not be able to find. You can't see through aluminum. But it only gives you partial information concerning the position of the traffic. So what do you do on those many occasions when it is alerting you of traffic and you can't find the traffic. Do you always take some evasive action? Do you spend a lot of time looking for it and being distracted from flying the airplane. In the end, I found it terribly disconcerting to be warned of traffic and usually not being able to spot the traffic. It's like I was always waiting for death but not knowing where to look for it or from whence it was coming.

I still have the Traffic Scope and I keep thinking I should give it another try.

 

[RV7Guy]

Annoying

Yes the 496 has some annoying features. I have traffic on the 430 with the same voice. Regarding the terrain on the 496, go in and set up the parameters so it announces at a closer distance. That will solve one of the problems.

You can also isolate her side during this time

I wish there was there was a way to import other voices in for the announcements. I could just imagine Chris Rock telling you, you have traffic!!!!

 

[L.Adamson]

That was great!

I passed it on to a few RV flyer's that don't read this forum as often as they should...

L.Adamson

 

[pierre smith]

Disable alerts

You can also press "menu" while you're on the terrain/obstacle warning page and one of the options is "disable alerts" and then you just press "enter". I do this every day while I'm crop-dusting because the warnings never go away. I don't use the voice alerts either for this reason. You have to disable the alerts every time the 496 boots up because it defaults back to factory settings.

Regards,
Pierre

ps Yep, three women are bad to all be speaking....seems to me you're gonna have to pick one

 

[jantar]

My experiance

A few weeks ago I flew from Maine to Pennsylvania. The whole flight was at 8,500 feet and I used flight following. The aircraft I flew was Diamond DA-40 with Garmin GNS 430 with traffic. While passing close to New York class B airspace I got conflicting traffic warning from my Garmin. There was no vertical separation. I quickly made a call to ATC but with no immediate response I decided to pull the power all the way back and dive. As I lost a few hundred feet a small transport jet passed over us. I had my wife and my son on board. After this encounter my wife stated she would not fly with me in any aircraft unless it is equipped in traffic avoidance equipment. A year earlier I had a very similar encounter while flying to Chicago. I got into wake of a small jet. It was not an experience I want to remember. If you want traffic avoidance system buy Garmin GNS it will give you very useful information right on the screen and do not use it while low. I mainly pay attention to traffic on Garmin when flying higher than 3,000 feet that is where a lot of fast aircraft will be.

 

[RV7Guy]

Traffic

Not to hijack Bryan's excellent and humorous post, but I would not be without the TIS system in my 7. I have a GNS 430 and 330 Mode S transponder, for the reasons you mentioned.

I was somewhat ridiculed because of my support of the TIS hardware. Some have said it was foolish to spend the money when it will be obsolete in a few years. It was also pointed out that there are a few areas where has been decommisioned.

DON'T CARE. It is functioning in the very busy area where I live and in the areas I frequent. I feel it was money well spent and will be for years to come. I'm confindent that Garmin will come out with a plug and play replacement for the 330 when the new system comes into play. They won't leave the 1000's of users out there hanging.

 

[Finley Atherton]

The worst thing about these alerts is that you have to put up with an American female voice. I would rather an Australian woman any day.

Fin 9A
Australia

 

[mburch]

YYou have to disable the alerts every time the 496 boots up because it defaults back to factory settings.

If you never want to receive terrain alerts, you can permanently change the terrain sensitivity to "Off" using the "Set Up Terrain" menu option on the terrain page. Or, if you want to leave the terrain awareness feature active but not hear audible terrain alerts, you can change the "Terrain Audio" setting to "Off" on the Sound tab of the main menu.

mcb

 

[gvgoff99]

Confirmation

My wife also in a nervous flyer. For that reason I never wired up my 430 & 330 audio for the TIS. I thought that I would not particularly like the annoyance described by Bryan (very funny, nice job). My wife, like Bryan's, would never see the humor though. Thanks for the confirmation of my decision to can the audio alerts. I feel very comfortable with the visual on the 430 screen for traffic and terrain. The screen is enough to get my attention and (unfortunately) my wife notices it too. She is a great plane spotter and will provided the voice if needed!

 

[Paul Eastham]

Hi Brian,
I was thinking the same thing today as well:

This is the busiest I've ever seen it (alas, in my not-so-busy Phase 1 test box) -- but ended up being a big distraction. The only time I've seen traffic close enough to *need* a course change it wasn't showing up on Mode S.

Paul