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SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger product review

Max Trescott has written a very detailed product review about the SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger that is well worth reading by anyone thinking of buying a GPS device. To give you some backgrounder, the new SPOT 2 was introduced in October 2009 as an improvement over the SPOT Personal Tracker or SPOT 1 which was introduced to the market in early 2008. As Max stated in his review, the SPOT 2:

Is an innovative, satellite-based system popular with hikers, boaters and pilots that lets others track your position via the Internet. A SPOT user can send two or three (depending upon the model) different pre-programmed messages via a commercial satellite that triggers emails or text messages to up to ten friends’ cell phones. For people who travel in remote areas out of cell phone coverage, SPOT provides a low-cost lifeline to reassure loved ones or to get help in an emergency.

Max’s review includes tips on how to use the device, especially during an emergency, and what you need to pay attention to should you decide to purchase one.

As for pricing, the SPOT 2 sells for about US$159 and for US$99.95 per year, you can use the device to send send three customizable text messages as often as you want. An additional US$49.95 per year, a position location can be sent every ten minutes to a Google map where friends can view and track your position over the Internet.

Cirrus SR-22 Perspective in San Francisco

Seriously, with a title like that I don’t need to add any hype to get you to read this post. It can hardly get any better than flying a brand new plane with the latest avionics in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Well, actually, it does if you fly with a great instructor like Max Trescott. He literally wrote the book on the G1000 / Perspective and he’s great fun to fly with.

I flew for two afternoons with him. We met at the Sky Kitchen at San Carlos airport. It’s a classic American diner with an airport out of the window. The airport ICAO code is KSQL, presumably named for the Oracle database company which has its headquarters nearby.

On the first day, during lunch Max and I had a great chat about aviation and blogging. We were so absorbed in the conversation that the waitress threw us out because we were hogging the table but we hadn’t noticed that we’d finished eating. (If I had noticed, I assure you I would have carried on eating. An empty plate is a challenge for me.)

After lunch, though, the work began. We went to the West Valley Flying Club where Max briefed me on the basics of the Perspective cockpit. Then we went out to the aircraft – a beautiful, almost-new Cirrus SR-22 Turbo with Perspective avionics and all the toys. It was in its own hangar and so it was spotless and shiny; unlike the planes I fly here which live outside. There’s a little electric tow truck so you don’t have to break a sweat getting it in and out. To get fuel, you just radio the fuel company and in minutes a nice chap comes and fills the tanks. I think the US is aviation heaven.

We flew east towards Stockton where we did some auto-coupled and hand-flown approaches using the GPS and ILS. The weather was perfect – good visibility above cloud but a nice thick cloud layer from about 2,000 feet down to about 300 feet. Perfect for actual IMC practice.

Since I hadn’t flown for six weeks and there was a lot of new stuff to deal with, I felt very rusty. But Max was very patient and the whole thing felt relaxed and unstressful. Certainly, the Perspective makes it very easy to fly providing you get it set up properly. The highway in the sky indicators make it very simple to fly an approach and the autopilot will fly holds and other complex stuff that the Avidyne system I normally use won’t do. I also like the ability to climb at a given airspeed on the autopilot; this is going to help people avoid autopilot-induced stalls and improve engine cooling on hot days.

Other cool features include: satellite weather, XM radio for long trips, Jeppesen charts and the range circle which adjusts in real time as you lean the engine. With the keypad on the centre console, it looks, feels and works pretty much like an airliner FMS.

I had two concerns, which may resolve themselves with more familiarity. The first is that there is a lot to learn. I had a few “why is it doing that” moments. It’s all very logical but you need to understand how it thinks. For example, you can set the autopilot to fly an approach and it will descend with the procedure or glideslope automatically. Except if you have a higher altitude commanded on the altitude bug. The logic is that it doesn’t want to descend lower than the higher of the two settings. But if you don’t know that you can find yourself levelled off when you were expecting to keep going down.

The second concern is a more minor one, but I like the way I can switch the Avidyne MFD between north up and track up. With north up, I can make position reports and estimate distances easily – this is important with airspace restrictions and intensive ATC around London – and then I can switch to track up for terrain, TCAS etc. While the Perspective will switch, it requires major hackage in the system settings and so we flew with track up all the time.

The second day felt more comfortable. I was beginning to get the feeling for the basic features of the system so that I could concentrate on the details, the approaches and my checks. This time we headed southwest towards Salinas and Monterey. We did a bunch of different WAAS and GPS approaches, some with the full procedure using the autopilot. I love the way it can just fly itself into the hold and then sit there all day until you tell it where to go next.

The view out over the Pacific was fantastic and it was a real treat to be flying into Monterey. Max says that you can see whales sometimes.

Heading back towards the Bay Area, the low cloud looked great over the peninsula.

As a special treat, we also flew an approach into Moffett Field for a close look at the airship hangars.

I won’t say that the best bit of the trip was putting the plane back in the hangar. It wasn’t. I was sad to be done with my flying on this trip. But getting to drive the electric tow tractor was a big compensation.

Speaking fluent WAAS video series

Pilots based across the pond may want to check out the four part WAAS video series produced by the Flight Academy. However and in case you have not heard the term before, WAAS stands for “Wide Area Augmentation System” and its an air navigation system developed by the FAA in order to improve the Global Position System (GPS). The goal of WAAS is to improve the accuracy, integrity, and availability of GPS. Moreover, other regions around the world are also developing WAAS like systems.

Parts one, two, three and four have all been recently posted on the Cirrus Owners & Pilots Association website and are also available on Youtube. Warning: although the videos are very comprehensive, they are a little bit on the dry and technical side!

Automation surprises: Something every pilot may soon experience

John Ewing has recently written an interesting post on Aviation Mentor where he noted that as general aviation becomes more and more complex, pilots should expect to experience more and more so-called “automation surprises.” What are “automation surprises” – especially in the aviation context? As John explained:

Automation surprise occurs when a system, such as a GPS receiver and/or autopilot, does something the pilot neither expected nor intended. The result is that the aircraft deviates from an assigned heading, route, altitude, or approach path and the pilot may lose situation awareness, too.

You have probably already experienced a few automation surprises behind the wheel of a new car in recent years; however, experiencing an automation surprise in an aircraft obviously carries a much greater risk. John classified various potential automation surprises into a couple of broad categories (operator error, unexpected mode changes, missing the missed approach and procedure problems) and he listed several suggestions to help pilots avoid automation surprises that are well worth repeating again here:

Know your own limits with regard to currency/proficiency
Know thy aircraft’s equipment
Monitor what the automated systems are doing
Stay ahead of (or at least be in synch with) ATC’s game plan
Maintain situational awareness
Develop and use SOPs (standard operating procedures)
And be prepared to catch and correct errors.

However and as John concluded at the end of his post, you are the last line of defense for when automation goes bad and its important to always monitor your technology to ensure that its working properly.

Hence and its worth asking: Have you ever experienced an automation surprise with new technology (GPS, glass cockpit)? If so, what happened and what advice or warnings would you give to other pilots?

The current state of and future of GPS

James Fallows recently wrote a short post on the Cirrus Owners & Pilots Association (COPA) blog mentioning that the worldwide GPS system run by the US government is at risk of “browning out.” In fact, he mentions a recent piece in Avionics Magazine entitled: “Fixing GPS: Almost half of the current constellation of GPS satellites are at or approaching ‘single thread’ operation, where a critical system failure could render a satellite inoperative. What are the options for replacing GPS satellites?” The article begins by stating:

“Brownout" is probably the last term one would ever think of using in association with the Global Positioning System. So when a Stanford University professor briefed a congressional committee in May with a presentation entitled "Mitigation of Possible GPS Brownouts," some might have dismissed this as yet another academic exercise — but only those who didn’t recognize Professor Bradford Parkinson as the man popularly known and respected within the satellite navigation community as "the Father of GPS."

Enough said there. In addition, James also mentions a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal about building a better air-traffic-control system that would be more efficient and safer. However, these next generation systems have their supporters and critics alike and given the many other current priorities of the US and other governments, don’t look for their implementation anytime soon.

Either way, both articles are well worth a read by anyone interested in the current state of this critical piece of aviation infrastructure.

Max Trescott’s GPS and WAAS Instrument Flying Handbook

Max Trescott recently did a survey of his readers and found out that more than half of them have difficulty at least some of the time getting a GPS to do what they want. Moreover, his experience as a CFI has told him that there aren’t many good reference materials that explain everything that one needs to know about the GPS – especially the latest GPS systems.

Hence, Max has recently written a handbook entitled Max Trescott’s GPS and WAAS Instrument Flying Handbook where he explains how to operate the latest GPS systems and he includes step-by-step instructions for the Bendix/King KLN 94, Garmin GNS 430, 430W, 480, 530, 530W and G900X, G1000 and Perspective glass cockpits. In addition, his handbook covers specific topics such as the differences between the Direct-to key and using a flight plan, entering flight plans, the right way to use load approaches,flying instrument approaches and about WAAS and other new capabilities. The book can be ordered online and costs US$39.95 plus shipping.

So if you are among the numerous pilots out there who are still fiddling with the GPS while trying to also fly the aircraft, Max’s book may go a long way to help you better understand how to properly use the latest GPS systems.