Garmin GPSMap 296

[XNachoX]

Hey guys I was just wondering if anyone had bought one of these yet.  I'm looking into one to use for both flying and trips into the mountains.  Any opinion would be welcome because from what I've seen they are awesome.
__________________

Misty tales and poems lost
All the bliss and beauty will be gone
Will my weary soul find release for a while
At the moment of death I will smile
It's the triumph of shame and disease
In the end Iliad

[Maverick]

Nacho,

They are the best thing you can get short of a Garmin 430 or 530. They do love the juice so have a ship power cable set up so you don't have to change batteries every hour or so. Frankly it's more accurate than most "steam guages" in an IFR bird today.

[RTStuka]

I use a Garmin E-Trex for all my hiking and traveling, works great and I have not had any problems with it. It has about 2000 things that I dont use but probably would be handy if I took the time to play with them. Never had it up in a plane so I dont know how it would work there, but for anything on the ground I have not been dissappointed.

[Habu]

I have had a 296 for about 2 months now.

Great unit. You can download your flights from it to your PC and it automatically logs them with all the details such as flight hours, landings, destinations, x-country time, miles flown, max speed and alt. This is a very nice feature as your logbook is always accurate and you don't forget to log any flights even if you don't log them right after.

The unit is very easy use as all Garmins are. I did not have to read the instruction manual and found all the different features quite easily.

It comes with a small built in attenna that you can remove and replace with a remote one that fits on your dashboard, so you get great reception even if you mount it on your yoke.

It automatically starts up when you turn on the master and turns off when you shut the master off even with batteries inside. It turns off 30 secs after shutting down your master so it is a logic feature and not just it cutting out when the aircraft power is off. That gives you 30 secs to decide if you want to keep in on for some reason like checking your flight information.

The terrain feature in nice as well.

Excellent all round unit but the dealers have all fixed the price so it is hard to get one below $1699

[XNachoX]

Thanks Habu that's exactly what I'm looking for.
__________________

Misty tales and poems lost
All the bliss and beauty will be gone
Will my weary soul find release for a while
At the moment of death I will smile
It's the triumph of shame and disease
In the end Iliad

[Habu]

You won't go wrong with this unit and the colour is bright as well.

I forgot to mention the yoke mounting hardware, dash mount hardware, remote antenna, cigar lighter adapter and a database update are all included with the unit in the price.

If you fly a Cessna you might want to check that the cigar lighter still works. There was an AD a few years back where you had to install a resistor in them and many people who did not smoke just disconnected them instead.

[Habu]

Yesterday I had a cool experience.

I bought a pair of Dave Clark headsets last fall and a week ago the earpiece snapped off. The rivet that holds it on snapped. The Canadian warrenty repair place is at Waterloo airport which is 50 or so miles west of Toronto. I flew there in my Cessna 182 from my home airport which is on the east side of Toronto.

After dropping the headset off I decided to fly back via the south route. To cross Toronto you have to fly by Pearson International which is a very busy airport. Normally I fly well north of it and stay out of its control space. However for the flight home I wanted to see the city from the sky.

After taking off from Waterloo I called Toronto Terminal and was routed along Lake Ontario south of Pearson. The terminal controller kept giving me traffic updates and correcting my course to avoid any potential traffic. A different type of flying but kind of fun for a change.

I was told to maintain 2500' the whole way along. Nice to look down and see the city slipping by on your left wing from such a low height. Once I was past Pearson I was switched to Toronto City Tower which is an airport on an island right at the base of the city. As I approached it I was directed to fly north of the CN tower and maintain my altitude before following a major expressway (the DVP) north to Buttonville my home airport. This was a bit unusual as they usually keep you over the water until it is time to swing north. However there was traffic inbound for the airport and I guess he wanted me well out of the way.

Here is the cool part. I was low enough that the top of the CN tower was higher than I was at that point. As I approached it a window poped up in the Garmin 296 with a warning of a potential collision and my track and the tower shown. It was nice to know if I had been in fog and lost that the 296 has the ability to know when a tower may conflict with your flight path and warn you well in advance.

[Torque]

Hey Habu, have you ever flown up to Tobermory and the Manitoulin Island area?

[Habu]

I flew up to Sudbury last Monday and 2 weeks before  as well. But I went straight over Georgian Bay and did not fly over Tobermory. However I could see it off my wing. I crossed the bay at 10,000' and had a bit of a tail wind on the way back. My ground speed was actually 150 kts.

I want to fly over there one day as I hear it is the cheapest fuel in the area and also they have a good restaurant at Tobermory.

Who knows, next summer I plan on going to Oshkosh.

I own an unltralight as well and was considering taking it instead of the Cessna. If I do that I will have to fly over land as much as possible and would do that Tobermory Manitoulin route.

Have you flown up there at all?

[spitfiremkv]

you've got too much money on your hands. maybe you should chat with Estes more

[Habu]

My two planes combined cost less than some of the cars I see discussed in here.

I posted pictures of them in this thread a while back.

O Club Aircraft