Weather and GPS to my Iphone???

[Herdbull]

My apologies if this question has already be discussed in the forums. I did a quick search of past threads and didn't see what I am looking for.

I am a private pilot. I earned my license in college and basically haven't flown since 1997. I am now 40 years old and getting back into flying. I just bought into a 172 flying club. I only have 120 total hours and only 4 or 5 this year.

Back in college (1997) when I was flying 1997 I had a garmin GPS. I no longer have that unit. I now need to buy a GPS. However, it is my understanding that possibly I can buy a reciever that interfaces with my iphone that will not only give me GPS capability on my iphone, but will give me weather as well.

As you can see, I am very behind the times on aviation technology. I don't want to buy more than I need and I don't want to buy junk. I am VFR pilot who plans to fly VFR routes generally less than 150 miles in Michigan. I am an Apple fan. I have an iphone and I was hoping to get a unit that interfaces with my iphone. My research has confused me a little and I am not clear on what I need. I am hoping for advice from this forum.

Again... my basic desires:

1. Interfaces with an Iphone... Not an Ipad. I don't want to buy an Ipad if I can help it. I prefer to use an Iphone only.
2. GPS
3. Weather

Don't want a tool that is capable of 10,000 more things than I am capable of or desire to do.

Price range...??? I don't know. Like anyone else, I only want to spend what I have to spend for a dependable and reliable unit. I value these tools as critical parts of a pilots safety system. So I am willing to pay for quality as I value my safety.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Again... I apologize if you have discussed this very subject and I missed the thread.

Jim

 

[Stewartb]

Use Foreflight or Garmin Pilot in your search and you'll have reading material that'll last for days. Both are iPhone apps and both require subscriptions to utilize full services. Both work well on iPhones. GPS services are not cell service dependent. Weather services are. The exception to that is the addition of external equipment but that falls outside of your inquiry scope.

 

[jsstevens]

Foreflight, Garmin Pilot and WingX (along with a few others). Since you have the phone, you don't HAVE to have an external GPS. The iPhone has one built in. (It's part of the cellular chip set, required for 911 service.)

If you just want an external GPS, choose your software first. Each app only works with certain external GPSs. I've used Foreflight with a plug in BadElf GPS and it worked fine. (iPad 2) I replaced the BadElf plug in with a Dual 150(?) bluetooth. I switched to WingX and it also worked with the Dual. I currently use WingX with a cellular equipped iPad mini, and use my iPod/Dual as a backup.

John

 

[Herdbull]

Stewartb... Thanks.

I do have Foreflight. I bought the VFR subscription and I have found it a useful pre flight planning tool.

However, I will expose my ignorance here. It was my understanding that I cannot rely on Foreflight and my iphone for reliable GPS coverage while flying because I may not get reception from cell towers while in the air?

 

[Stewartb]

Your iPhone's GPS should work fine in the air. Assuming you download the appropriate charts in Foreflight your nav capability is independent of cell service. The weather component is cell service dependent, as are other services like TFRs, etc. If you require those while out of cell range you'll need an external ADS-B receiver that's specific to your chosen app.

 

[jsstevens]

Stewartb... Thanks.

I do have Foreflight. I bought the VFR subscription and I have found it a useful pre flight planning tool.

However, I will expose my ignorance here. It was my understanding that I cannot rely on Foreflight and my iphone for reliable GPS coverage while flying because I may not get reception from cell towers while in the air?

You will not get reliable data service in the air. So your weather will be unreliable. You can get an ADS-B capable external unit which will get you ADS-B weather. I can't speak to how reliable that is.

GPS, on the other hand, does not require cellular data service to work quite well. It's satellite based. Now the iPhone will whine that location accuracy is better with the network on, but it is not required.

John

 

[Herdbull]

Very helpful. Thanks to both of you.

 

[Stewartb]

Jim, your confusion my stem from iPad user comments. IPads are available in wifi only or wifi+cell models. Only the cell models have internal GPS. Those do not need cell reception to use the GPS, though. Any iPad wifi-only model will require an external GPS receiver. Those conditions are specific to iPads and don't apply to iPhones. Your phone has the GPS capability. If you have more questions, ask.

Welcome back to flying.

 

[frfly172]

Welcome to the forum,I use fore flight on my I phone,as a backup to foreflight with the stratus on my I Pad. Works fine.

 

[petrolero]

Jim, if you haven't flown since 1997 you are in for a treat technology-wise.

iPhone + ForeFlight (or Garmin Pilot or WingX Pro7 or a dozen others) is the simplest as you've already found. The three mentioned above are the most popular.

A small step up: For under $100 you can get an external GPS 'puck' (see Sporty's) that provides WAAS GPS and feeds that highly accurate (+/- 1m is common) location to your iPhone. This allows you to mount the iPhone on the yoke or someplace where it might not get the best sat reception.

Another step up would be a GPS unit that receives ADS-B "in" data and traffic. This would get you in-flight weather like nothing you or I ever dreamed of in 1997. To do this with FF, the Stratus 1 is what you'd want and it's $500.

The next step up would be to get an iPad and use it with ForeFlight or other "EFB" (electronic flight bag) app + an GPS/ADS-B receiver. iPads are not cheap if bought new. $500 to $1000.

The full monte as far as this goes is probably iPad + ForeFlight (or other) + Stratus 2 (or other). The Stratus 2 is $900 and gets you WAAS GPS + ADS-B "in" weather + dual band traffic + AHRS. The AHRS is a micro heading reference system that can give you a last ditch backup attitude indicator. This setup is more for IFR guys who want that AHRS backup.

Good luck and welcome back to flying.

 

[DrPappy]

Welcome to the forum,I use fore flight on my I phone,as a backup to foreflight with the stratus on my I Pad. Works fine.

I use Foreflight in the exact same way as Ron, with an iPad 2 and Stratus, with my iPhone as a backup. One thing to note is that iPhones do not have the full functionality that iPads do for things such as Synthetic Vision, Documents, etc.