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Mark,
You didn't try it out tonight aroud 6:00 did ya?

Senate briefly recesses after plane violates airspace [suntimes.com]

Yeah, I haven't flown formation with an F-16 in a long time, so .......

Well, I finally got to fly with my new Airmap 500. I really like it. And Greg you can customize pages how you want them. So in essence you could possibly get the screen to look like the one on your 100. I really love how it is smaller but has a bigger screen and it weighs quite a bit less. I need to keep playing with it to figure out everything. I am not disappointed at all.

I finally got to use my 500 this evening. I didn't really do much wayfinding with it. I mostly just used the moving map to help keep me aware of Nashville and Smyrna's airspaces as I flew a big circle around the city. Worked like a charm. I still had the ol' sectional by my side, though. I don't trust the thing that much yet.

I had to sort of rotate the yoke mount about 20 degrees counter-clockwise to keep the screw-arm-thingy from blocking the VSI. But once I got it the way I wanted it, the mounting system put the GPS right where I needed it.

Oh, and as other have reported, it picked up the required signals just fine right there on the yoke. I had the external antenna in my flight bag, just in case, but I never needed it.

- Jeff

Given all the enthusiasm for the 500, I've been thinking about upgrading my own Airmap 100. I've got the older style 'square' (not ramshorn) yokes. Is the included yoke mount compatible with the rectangular yokes??

They provide 2 types of mounts with the 500. A suction type mount for attaching to your glareshield and the yoke mount. It looks like you could position the yoke mount over top of the square yoke pretty easily. I like these yoke mounts better than the old ones that came with the the 100. Oh, and Jeff remember you should always keep a sectional in your plane with any GPS.

Yeah, Lowrance includes a fully articulating RAM mount with the 500. Not to be confused with "rams horn"...no relationship. BUT, the RAM mount will work in nearly any situation and should work OK with the closed yoke. RAM makes the best mounts in the industry and you can buy individual parts to make the unit even more adaptable if need be.

Oh absolutely. In this case, I had it literally "at my side", and was constantly cross-checking the info there with what was on the screen.

One thing I noticed while doing this was that the 500 (like most GPSes, I guess) will drop certain map items, depending on your zoom level, to reduce screen clutter. This is a nice feature, but it means that if you're flying "low and slow", you'll probably want to make sure you're zoomed-in fairly close. Otherwise, some of the shorter obstructions will not appear.

And, of course, that also unlines the importance of having that sectional!

- Jeff