[Update 2008-04-13: I posted a "3 years after" review of the device here]
Last Friday was my first flight since I got myself a Garmin GPSMap 96C. This device is a handheld GPS receiver that can operate in Aviation, Automotive and Marine mode.
Complete specifications can be found here : http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap96c/
During my quest for the best GPS I could afford, I was unable to find any review of this device anywhere on the internet. That’s the reason why I’ll write a quick review of it here. It’ll only cover the aviation part.
The Screen:
One of the first things that struck me with this GPS is the screen. I was afraid the display dimensions would be too small to read anything on it (160x240-pixel, 256-color), but the people at Garmin really did a great job to make everything clear and crisp.
It is very readable, even under direct sunlight. I kept the GPS on my laps during the whole flight and I never had any problem reading the information on the screen in any of the display modes.
The backlight is quite good as well, but I didn’t use it during this flight, it was on only while learning how to use the GPS at home.
Learning:
Once you figure out the way the menus work, you can do anything in the 96c without any problem. The owner’s manual is good, although some parts lack explanations.
Flight Planning:
I thought planning my flight on a device with 8 buttons and a directional pad would be a pain, but it was not !
The flight planner can create routes from a lookup by name, or a visual edition directly on the map. I programmed my flight in the GPS in a couple of minutes from the route I had planned on my ‘real chart’ of the area.
The flight was in a PA-28 from Lognes (LFPL) to St Cyr L’Ecole (LFPZ).
During the Flight:
During the flight, I didn’t have any problem with the GPS whatsoever. It worked like a charm with no signal loss, even when it was sitting on my laps. The big numbers on the screen helped my read the information quickly, allowing me to concentrate on the vital flight stuff.
I found this very reinsuring compared to the times when I didn’t have a GPS on board with me. Now instead of being sure of where, I’m *really* sure of where I am, and that counts when you fly in the vicinity of the weirdly shaped Paris Class A airspaces.
The waypoint switch was seamless. When passing near a waypoint, the GPS automatically switched to the next waypoint in the flight plan.
The page I used the most during the flight was the Moving Map Page with 4 data fields, including the ETE to next, Bearing, the Distance to next and the Time to next. Of course, this was combined with the 1/250’000 map of the region on my laps as well.
Battery Life:
So far, I’m impressed! Almost 15 hours of use (okay okay, I play with it a lot, and I use it when I’m in a car as well …) and most of these 15 hours were spent with backlight on. The battery indicator now tells me 2 out of 4 bars. It really beats the PDA-GPS with their 2 hours top battery life.
Log Book:
I was surprised after the two flights to see that both of them had been logged in the logbook section of the GPS.
Tracks:
The track feature of the GPS is stunning. After the flight, I could review my flight path, and get the time at each position on the track. In this case, it couldn’t be a succession of straight lines, I had to avoid a lot of cities along the way. (maximum altitude was 1500ftQNH)
Reception:
No problem at all during the flight, I got a correct signal all the way to St Cyr and back.
Well, that’s all I can write for now, I’ll certainly post an update if I feel like some feature of the 96C is worth writing about.
Happy Landings !