I realize this is an oxy-moron.
My goal for this year is to get the 310's avionics to have a fully appropriate setup for the kind of flying we do with it. To that end, we're planning on acquiring and installing a real radar unit, likely a stormscope. I'm also interested in adding traffic of some sort to the plane.
The obvious easy way to do this is with a GTX330 transponder (we may end up needing to change the transponder anyway, in which case that'd be a simple solution). However, that only gives me TIS. While that will give me traffic in the areas where I arguably need it the most, it's still a partial solution.
Given the fact I do a decent amount of flying in uncontrolled airspace, it would be nice to have some sort of real traffic that can give me an idea if there is actually someone else in these clouds I'm flying in above wilderness nowhere in Canada.
From what I can tell, the "cheapest" solution is the Ryan/Avidyne 9900BX, which is "only" about $20,000. The various 8800/9900 lower end TCAD stuff Ryan puts out is interesting. However, the fact that it requires the transponder to be getting pinged by another source in an area where there's no other source to be pinging it (hence why they call it TCAD and not TCAS), only seems marginally more useful than TIS. To that end, I might as well just get the 330 installed and leave it at that.
Of course, in those areas things are uncontrolled because there's so little traffic anyway. Admittedly, the big sky theory works well out there, and the majority of incidents are CFIT caused by people either skud running or having some other screwup, especially at night. But I'm wondering if there are some more affordable options out there that could be considered, either installed or portable. The portable units I've seen I've not been very impressed with, but there may be new ones out there that I haven't seen.
Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.
My goal for this year is to get the 310's avionics to have a fully appropriate setup for the kind of flying we do with it. To that end, we're planning on acquiring and installing a real radar unit, likely a stormscope. I'm also interested in adding traffic of some sort to the plane.
The obvious easy way to do this is with a GTX330 transponder (we may end up needing to change the transponder anyway, in which case that'd be a simple solution). However, that only gives me TIS. While that will give me traffic in the areas where I arguably need it the most, it's still a partial solution.
Given the fact I do a decent amount of flying in uncontrolled airspace, it would be nice to have some sort of real traffic that can give me an idea if there is actually someone else in these clouds I'm flying in above wilderness nowhere in Canada.
From what I can tell, the "cheapest" solution is the Ryan/Avidyne 9900BX, which is "only" about $20,000. The various 8800/9900 lower end TCAD stuff Ryan puts out is interesting. However, the fact that it requires the transponder to be getting pinged by another source in an area where there's no other source to be pinging it (hence why they call it TCAD and not TCAS), only seems marginally more useful than TIS. To that end, I might as well just get the 330 installed and leave it at that.
Of course, in those areas things are uncontrolled because there's so little traffic anyway. Admittedly, the big sky theory works well out there, and the majority of incidents are CFIT caused by people either skud running or having some other screwup, especially at night. But I'm wondering if there are some more affordable options out there that could be considered, either installed or portable. The portable units I've seen I've not been very impressed with, but there may be new ones out there that I haven't seen.
Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.