Lightspeed Tradeup Program

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KennyFlys

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This is a pretty decent deal for the Thirty 3G owners such as myself. I got my Thirty 3Gs for only $520 almost three years ago. I can upgrade to the Zulu for only $350. If they are as good as Scott has claimed, I may have to do this at some point.

To: All Lightspeed Customers

What: Planned Launch of the Lightspeed Zulu Trade-Up Program!

Earlier this year, we announced plans for a Zulu trade up program for select Lightspeed headset models. Lightspeed is pleased to announce that on April 20, 2008 we will start accepting orders from 3G-series owners who wish to trade in their Twenty 3G or Thirty 3G headsets for the Zulu. Other Lightspeed models will be eligible for the Zulu trade-up in Fall 2008, so please stay tuned.

Trade-up Pricing:

Part Number - Description - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your Cost*
TR0001 . . . . .Trade-Up: Thirty 3G to Zulu . . . $350.00
TR0005 . . . . .Trade-Up: Twenty 3G to Zulu . . $450.00
*Shipping extra

How to Place Your Order:
1. On or after April 20, 2008 visit Lightspeed Aviation on the web at www.lightspeedaviation.com and log into the customer space.
2. Place your order online. (Do not ship your old headset to us quite yet!)
3. Lightspeed will confirm the order with you.[/font]
4. Later, Lightspeed will notify you by email when your Zulu becomes available.
5. Please check the trade-up documentation that is sent to you. If any changes are needed, simply make corrections right on the trade document.
6. Ship your 3G-series headset and trade-up document to Lightspeed at the address in the email.
7. Your new Zulu will be shipped within two days of receiving your headset and trade document.

Thank you for flying with Lightspeed!

Sincerely,
Your Lightspeed Zulu Team
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I made a slight change to a missed text modifiers.
 
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Once I have the money, I'm definitely upgrading to the Zulu's. It's an additional $450 that will likely last me a good 5 or 10 years, and safe ear protection.
 
So, just how much better are the Zulu's? I love my 30 3G's but must admit, sometimes, say after 8 or 9 hours, they do feel a little heavy/tight.
 
That's real great for us QFR SoloC owners...I got the email, but nothing I can do with it.
 
Matt, re-read the part where they say "Other Lightspeed models will be eligible for the Zulu trade-up in Fall 2008, so please stay tuned."
 
bstratt said:
So, just how much better are the Zulu's? I love my 30 3G's but must admit, sometimes, say after 8 or 9 hours, they do feel a little heavy/tight.
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I think *anything* would feel heavy/tight after 8 or 9 hours!!! :hairraise:

My longest day of flying was 8.8 hours, EFD -> SIK -> MSN. Couldn't have done it without my Lightspeed 3G's and the big, comfortable 182 cabin. :no: By the end of it, I was ready to take off the headset and get out of the plane, but it was also 1 AM and I was tired.

I'm hoping to fly the 182 out to Sunriver, OR in August. We'll see how that goes! :D Maybe I can trade up to the Zulus before then...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I think *anything* would feel heavy/tight after 8 or 9 hours!!! :hairraise:..
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Longest I've done in one day was 6:30am departure from Gander, Nfld, with final stop for the day Oshawa, Ontario, at 7:30pm - 13 hrs plus picked up 1 1/2 hrs time zone change for a total of 14 1/2 hrs.

I regularly do 6-7 hours.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I think *anything* would feel heavy/tight after 8 or 9 hours!!! :hairraise:
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I disagree. I have worn my DC many a times at that amount and longer and they stayed comfortable. They fit me well.

Maybe that is because I am used to wearing headsets for a long time. In the USAF 14 hours with them on was not unusual. In my commercial flights I often have a set of headsets on to quit out the background noise and listen to movies or music. My flights are 10-14 hours commercially.
 
smigaldi said:
I disagree. I have worn my DC many a times at that amount and longer and they stayed comfortable. They fit me well.

Maybe that is because I am used to wearing headsets for a long time. In the USAF 14 hours with them on was not unusual. In my commercial flights I often have a set of headsets on to quit out the background noise and listen to movies or music. My flights are 10-14 hours commercially.
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I took the Thirty 3G's on the last commercial flight. The made a huge difference on comfort when cutting out the noise.
 
KennyFlys said:
I took the Thirty 3G's on the last commercial flight. The made a huge difference on comfort when cutting out the noise.
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That is true. Did you try laying on your side with them?

I use in the ear headsets a lot now when I try to sleep on planes. I put the set into full flat recline and listen to quiet music. I sleep well that way. I used to try and use the noise canceling headsets for that but even the Bose is to big to allow for comfortable laying on you side.
 
smigaldi said:
That is true. Did you try laying on your side with them?
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On a 757 in coach? Yeah... no problem! :P

I use in the ear headsets a lot now when I try to sleep on planes. I put the set into full flat recline and listen to quiet music. I sleep well that way. I used to try and use the noise canceling headsets for that but even the Bose is to big to allow for comfortable laying on you side.
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I reiterate my earlier response. I doubt I'll ever be flying on a commercial flight such I'd have the room to lay back that comfortable.
 
Teller1900 said:
And that comes with the added bonus of looking really really cool! :yes::rofl::rofl::D
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Yeah, I'm sure I looked real cool having that mic boom hanging back over my head. The guy behind me had to wonder what the heck was up in my case. :D
 
Brings up a good point about the noise level on commercial flights. On those rare occasions in which I am forced to take public transportation, I always wear ear plugs. Just the cheap foam ones, since my ANR headset is too much work, but it makes a big difference. Don't fly without ear protection in any airplane.

I traded my ancient Lightspeed 20XLs for a Twenty 3G a while back. It was a good deal then...I got rid of totally worn out equipment and got a brand new model in its place for a good price. Now I suppose I'll have to look at the Zulus.

Jon
 
KennyFlys said:
Yeah, I'm sure I looked real cool having that mic boom hanging back over my head. The guy behind me had to wonder what the heck was up in my case. :D
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Now I was wondering about that. It would have been much more fun to keep the mic boom down, and every once in a while make an ATC call:

"Dulles approach, United 1234 25 west inbound for landing with Oscar." :D
 
nddons said:
Now I was wondering about that. It would have been much more fun to keep the mic boom down, and every once in a while make an ATC call:

"Dulles approach, United 1234 25 west inbound for landing with Oscar." :D
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:rofl:
 
nddons said:
Now I was wondering about that. It would have been much more fun to keep the mic boom down, and every once in a while make an ATC call:

"Dulles approach, United 1234 25 west inbound for landing with Oscar." :D
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That's better still if you have a laptop with Flight Sim running on it...
 
Teller1900 said:
That's better still if you have a laptop with Flight Sim running on it...
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Absolutely! Because in these modern airplanes being a pilot just means being a button pusher, right? Just don't enter a graveyard spiral on Flight Sim yelling "she's breaking up, she's breaking up" on your Lightspeeds with a nervous Nellie sitting next to you. :eek:
 
KennyFlys said:
Yeah, I'm sure I looked real cool having that mic boom hanging back over my head. The guy behind me had to wonder what the heck was up in my case. :D
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I wore my DC on a Delta flight from Nice. I was stuck in coach and had my pilot stuff with me so what the heck, use the noise canceling feature. The stewardess kept telling me radios were not allowed on the plane. I thanked her for that inof and told her I knew that. Turns out she thought the mic boom was a radio antenna and that I was wearing a throw back 1970's headset radio. :dunno:
 
bstratt said:
But how do you plug them in to listen to anything?
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The audio input plug is a normal 1/4" stereo connection. For the planes with the normal jacks and not that stupid plastic connector tube, you can use a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter to plug into the plane's audio source. It works great.

Otherwise, you can also plug the 1/8" adapter into your own source capable of accepting it which is most personal audio devices these days.
 
I'm planning on doing the upgrade, but am starting to rethink it. We were up in the 210 today, and found that Leslie's Zulu seems to be having a problem with the avionics. It seems to give a stuck mic. I don't know if it's a problem with the Zulus or the avionics, or just an incompatibility. It's got a GNS430 on COM1 and a KMA-20(?) audio panel. Should we be looking at the plane's avionics, a bad Zulu unit, or maybe an incompatibility?
 
gprellwitz said:
I'm planning on doing the upgrade, but am starting to rethink it. We were up in the 210 today, and found that Leslie's Zulu seems to be having a problem with the avionics. It seems to give a stuck mic. I don't know if it's a problem with the Zulus or the avionics, or just an incompatibility. It's got a GNS430 on COM1 and a KMA-20(?) audio panel. Should we be looking at the plane's avionics, a bad Zulu unit, or maybe an incompatibility?
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Check the microswitches it might be the noise gate on the microphone.
 
smigaldi said:
Check the microswitches it might be the noise gate on the microphone.
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Well, we went back to the airport after we saw your post to try that. First, though, we tried to replicate the problem with no changes. Despite the fact that we've had it happen to us three times now, we couldn't replicate it! We even fired up the engine to make sure that it wasn't some sort of interaction with the alternator or something. No go! So it's still a mystery. If (when) it happens again, we'll check the microswitches. Good idea!
 
gprellwitz said:
I'm planning on doing the upgrade, but am starting to rethink it. We were up in the 210 today, and found that Leslie's Zulu seems to be having a problem with the avionics. It seems to give a stuck mic. I don't know if it's a problem with the Zulus or the avionics, or just an incompatibility. It's got a GNS430 on COM1 and a KMA-20(?) audio panel. Should we be looking at the plane's avionics, a bad Zulu unit, or maybe an incompatibility?
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How old are the headset jacks? I had a problem with my 20-3G's on a rental 172 where the mechanic or the avionics shop wired the jack backwards and the headset wouldn't function properly. I called LightSpeed and they told me to notify the school it was likely an issue with the jack and that Lightspeed headsets are very sensitive to the issue. Of course I left the school a few months later for other reasons and never had to deal with it again.
 
BTW an update on battery life. The set I had in there went dead. That was about 15 hours of batt life. I am going to watch them. I had the bluetooth on a lot when flying playing with the cellphone interface. I cannot find out the class of BT device in the Zulus but if it is the high power one then it could be that running that really suck down the batteries fast. This next set I will leave the BT mostly off except for when I need it.
 
smigaldi said:
BTW an update on battery life. The set I had in there went dead. That was about 15 hours of batt life. I am going to watch them. I had the bluetooth on a lot when flying playing with the cellphone interface. I cannot find out the class of BT device in the Zulus but if it is the high power one then it could be that running that really suck down the batteries fast. This next set I will leave the BT mostly off except for when I need it.
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It seems I get only about 8-10 hours out of a set of batteries in the Thirty 3Gs.
 
KennyFlys said:
It seems I get only about 8-10 hours out of a set of batteries in the Thirty 3Gs.
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I changed to a LiION 9v for the DC and have been much happier. I will try another set on the Zulus that are alkaline, then I may throw in a couple of LiION AA's to see how much better. If they last 5x Alkalines then they are worth the price.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Wow... What kind of batteries are you using? I get ~40-50 hours on a pair of regular old Duracells.
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Eveready alkalines. It could have been from more consistent use and more hours than it seemed. Often, I'd forget to turn off the headset and they would remain on until the auto-off feature kicked in.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Wow... What kind of batteries are you using? I get ~40-50 hours on a pair of regular old Duracells.
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The battery life with Thirty 3Gs is very dependent on the noise level in the cockpit. But I still get at least 20 hrs for a pair of good alkalines in my airplane which is noisier than most singles.

-lance
 
KennyFlys said:
Eveready alkalines. It could have been from more consistent use and more hours than it seemed.
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Naah, I get 40+ when I use 'em in the truck for 12+ hrs/day too - Reading Jason's post too, I think you just need to switch to Duracells. ;)
 
I did the trade-up from my 3Gs to the Zulu. I got the new headset last week and used it the first time this weekend for 2 or 3 hours. My first impressions are very favorable. The Bluetooth is great to use with my Blackjack mobile phone to call for my clearance. The audio quality of tunes through my Sirius Stiletto II satellite radio receiver was excellent. Very comfortable on my head, and the noise reduction did seem better than my 3Gs. Two thumbs up (at least until I get the hit on my credit card bill).
 
yea i also upgraded from 303Gs to Zulu and am happy so far.
 
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