Gearing up

Now that I own my own airplane, and am on my way to becoming a more "serious" pilot, I've been picking up some additional gear to enhance my flying experience.

When I began my pilot training, I did what many student pilots do and purchased the least expensive headset the FBO sold in the pilot shop. The ASA headset worked perfectly well, though, and I kept it through my training and beyond. When I became current again late last year, I pulled it out and, although the cushions had been indented from sitting in their case for all those years, it still fit fine, and still worked fine. It's reasonably comfortable and I have no issues with it.

For Christmas, my wife gave me a David Clark H10-13.4 headset. While the ASA headset is fine, the DC is far superior in terms of comfort. Back in the day, the standard was that the microphone boom was basically a metal framework that had a hinge in the middle. Now, flexible booms are the standard and they're much easier to adjust, not to mention lighter.

The DC worked great, especially since the airplanes available for rent have Garmin GPS/comm units with ADS-B in. While flying, I can hear traffic alerts from the Garmin unit since it's also the radio.

But then I bought my own airplane.

While my plane has a GPS receiver and the required ADS-B out capability (courtesy of the Garmin transponder the previous owner installed), it doesn't have ADS-B in, at least not yet. The radios are the original KX-155 units from the factory. Maybe someday I'll upgrade but it will have to wait for now; the Garmin GTN-650xi, for example, retails for over 12 grand. In the meantime, I'll be doing what a lot of other pilots do and use a portable ADS-B receiver, a tablet, and a Bluetooth-enabled headset.

First up, the headset. There are several available, but there are three that are by far the most popular: the Bose A20, the David Clark DC ONE-X, and the Lightspeed Zulu 3. After researching these online, reading various reviews, and so on, I decided on the Zulu 3. It should be arriving today.

Next up, the tablet. An iPad is pretty much the only real option for this. I already have an iPad Pro, but I think it will be too large so I ordered an iPad Mini. The plane already has a Ram mount installed with an iPad Mini holder so it should just slot in.

Finally, the ADS-B receiver. This one probably took me the longest to make a decision on. There were initially two contenders I was looking at: the Foreflight Sentry, and the Stratus 3. Both work with Foreflight, of course, but the Stratus also works with other EFB apps. I'm currently trying out FltPlan Go, since it's free, but there's a good chance I'll go ahead and subscribe to Foreflight or Garmin Pilot.

I didn't want to be locked into Foreflight, though, so I was looking very closely at the Stratus. During my research I became aware of the Stratux, which is based on an Open Source platform. But it's generally bought as a DIY kit that you have to assemble. But there are pre-built options available. After looking into it further, I decided on the unit available from Crew Dog Electronics. The fact that it's less than half the cost of the Stratus 3 helped with the decision. It arrived yesterday and I tried it out briefly with my iPad Pro. It also worked with FltPlan Go running on my Android phone. I was able to see aircraft flying in the vicinity, even though I was in my house. The iPad version FltPlan Go also has audible traffic alerts and supports AHRS. As I understand, the Stratux should also support the synthetic vision functionality in Foreflight, Garmin Pilot, and other apps.

It's not as slick and compact as the Stratus 3, but it appears to work just fine, supports a ton of EFB apps, and is a hell of a lot cheaper. And, if it turns out I want to upgrade to a Stratus, or even a Garmin unit, I'm sure I can find someone to sell or give the Stratux to.

Ultimately, the set up will look like this: the Stratux will be attached to the window (probably the left rear) with suction cups. The iPad will be connected to the Stratux via wi-fi. The iPad will be connected to the Lightspeed headset via Bluetooth. With that configuration, I should be able to receive traffic alerts from whatever EFB app I'm using and hear them in the headset.

Once I've had the chance to try it all out and have used it for a bit, I'll post what I think about it.