Pilots who have memorized Garmin’s peculiar button logic and carried it over from one portable GPS to another for years are in for a shock. The company’s new Aera handheld GPS line ditches it completely.
Instead, the slim, touch-screen GPS offers icons to guide pilots through the process of creating, activating, and editing flight plans, and answering the myriad navigation, weather, TFR, and alternate airport questions that can arise on each trip. The familiar Procedure, Flight Plan, Clear, and even Direct To hard keys are gone, replaced by bright and cheery symbols that look as if they were lifted from a McDonald’s cash register. And when pilots reach their airport destinations, the Aera becomes a nüvi—a full automotive GPS with aural street-name callouts and optional weather overlays and real-time alternative routings around traffic tie-ups.
The Aera’s rugged hardware is water resistant (Garmin says it can withstand 30 minutes submerged under one meter of water), oil- or fuel-soaked fingers won’t harm the screen, and it’s built to withstand heat, cold, and vibration. The roads database comes straight from Garmin’s popular nüvi.
The Aera’s 4.3-inch diagonal screen is one of its strong points. It’s easily readable in direct sunlight and takes much from the premium GPSMAP 696 that preceded it. Every Aera comes with a yoke mount for airplanes and a sticky windshield/dashboard mount for cars. But the automotive mount is so versatile, and the Aera itself is so slim, that it’s easy to imagine auto mounts in airplanes.
The Aera’s moving map shifts easily between VFR and IFR use. It shows airways and intersections in the IFR mode—a big plus for pilots on the East Coast where airway routings are the ATC norm. The airways also show MEA information (when prompted), and the Aera provides terrain warnings on both the VFR and IFR map screens. When linked to traffic systems, the Aera also can display aerial traffic warnings. (The obstacle, terrain, and traffic warnings appear in a pop-up screen on the lower left portion of the display.)
Garmin officials say they are convinced that pilots are ready to do away with buttons and rocker switches forever in favor of pure touch screens. The change eliminates the multiple screen “pages” and submenus on other Garmin aviation products. The Aera also offers a simple “back” option to return to the previous screen, and holding “back” for a few seconds is a get-out-of-jail-free card that brings up the home page.
The Aera also has an iPhone-inspired touch-and-drag feature on its map screens and a QWERTY keypad for data entry.
All Aeras can show Garmin’s “panel/HSI” page, a clever display that recreates aircraft flight instruments with GPS-derived data (groundspeed, altitude, vertical speed, heading/track, distance, time en route, and turn coordinator). The panel page is updated five times a second (the same update rate as the GPSMAP 495/496 and 696).
The Aera 550 and 560 include Garmin SafeTaxi airport diagrams and AOPA’s Airport Directory.
Internal Aera batteries can last up to five hours without recharging. But when connected to an XM antenna, that number is cut in half. And in a worst-case scenario (daylight and a colorful display that draws a lot of electrical current), battery life drops to about 90 minutes. Each Aera comes with both wall and cigarette-lighter power adapters. XM subscriptions showing weather and TFRs range in price from $30 to $100 a month. —Dave Hirschman
Price: $799 (Aera 500); $1,299 (Aera 510); $1,499 (Aera 550); $1,999 (Aera 560).
Contact: www.garmin.com
There’s something about aviation lights that brings out creativity in pilot-inventors. We’ve had lights you can wear around your neck, on your hat, on your head, and all over the cockpit. A newcomer to the market is betting the best place for a cockpit light is on your hand. GloveLite is a neoprene glove covering the thumb and forefinger with a small light of red, green, or white on the index finger and thumb. Directing the light is easy—just point. The glove is light, sturdy, and inarguably convenient. —Ian J. Twombly
Price: $24.95
Contact: www.glovelite.com; 207-945-6588