Stratus Insight by Appareo Pirep (not the Stratus Horizon app)
Since there I could not find any information on any of the boards, I purchased the one month subscription of $9.95 (1 year/$100) mainly to try the ATC transcription service. I was hoping it would help with clearance delivery read backs and general read backs of ATC instructions. Note: You do need the special wire adapter that you use with your existing headset and iPad for it to work.
The EFB is an added bonus to the transcription service.
Transcription service:
The verbal to written transcription service is overall pretty good, it does a very good job with transcribing verbal numbers to text, which is probably the most important to me. It does have some difficulty with some terms. Accuracy is about 80%-90% overall. It does do a good job of organizing the verbal transmissions, so if the text transcription does not make sense, you can always tap and listen again to the original verbal message. It is like having a copilot next to you, where u can turn to him/her and ask “what did ATC say?” Not too bad for $100 per year, plus the cost of the cord.
Using the transcription service is nice to be able to multi task in the cockpit, when there is a long 2-3 minute long ATIS that reads back every single NOTAM over the last 6 months, and you miss the most important part, either the winds, the barometric pressure, the active runway and what letter designation is current (e.g. bravo) , it is nice not having to repeat and listen to it. You can just look at the transcript.
Electronic Flight Bag (EFB).
The strongest part of the EFB is actually the weather planning aspect of the Stratus Insight program. It can almost be a stand alone program by itself, it is overall all a pretty good weather planning tool with the temporal metogram and other meteorologic tools .
Using the program for VFR flying and weather planning, is where the program is at it’s strongest. The AHRS is also very good, especially when used with the Stratus, which would be expected.
The EFB program is a little weak in my opinion for IFR flying, as compared to ForeFlight and Garmin, which are much more polished, but more expensive. Stratus Insight is usable as a stand alone IFR EFB, but just not as good.
In conclusion, I think when used with ForeFlight (or Garmin) it is a good weather adjunct program for both, especially for VFR only flights. By using the transcription service, I am much more likely to file an IFR flight plan, mainly by helping me understand my read back clearance without getting flustered during the read back. I use the middle cost FF plan, $199 per year. I do not think the $299 FF plan is worth the extra ($100) cost, compared to what you get. But I do think, putting the extra $100 per year toward the Stratus Insight EFB makes more sense, especially with the forward looking weather planning data and the transcription service.
If you fly VFR, I think Stratus Insight is well worth it as a stand alone EFB, it has everything you need, it is very simple to operate and the weather part of the program is perfect for helping plan a more safe VFR only flight, while avoiding IFR conditions. The EFB also has a flight log book, that keeps track of currency and airplane check lists also as part of the Stratus Insights EFB program.
If you do not want to spend the money on a Complete EFB like ForeFlight or Garmin, it is worth is as an inexpensive option, you can download the program and play around with it to get a feel of the program, but you do not get complete access to the whole program unless you sign up for the free month.
The vertical profile is essentially a visual depiction of Skew-T soundings for your route ("vertical" is a clue), depicting expected cloud layers and convective activity. That's the weather strength most are referring to - the translation of Skew-T data into something more easily understandable, along with a comparison to other predictive models. Perhaps obviously, all predictive models have limitations.