This instrument practice flight was 1.5 hours. We did four approaches including a hold over the TOP VOR. The route of this flight was KOJC -> KTOP (LOC BC 31) -> KLWC (VOR-A) -> KIXD (GPS 19) -> KOJC (LOC 18). Overall I was happy with my radio calls. I was a bit detracted setting up the approach on the G1000 when I made my call to KOJC for the LOC 18 approach, you will hear it in there towards the middle.

This audio was edited to trim out the long delays and non-essential transmissions, but the content of the transmissions was left unaltered.

Next time, I’ll bring my digital audio recorder.

(Flash Plug-in Required)

You can also download the audio here [MP3]

According to the Twitter post the following browsers are supported at this time: iPhone/iPod Touch, Android 2.0+ & Blackberry Bold. The mobile URL is: m.liveatc.net

Testing with my BlackBerry Bold 9700 performed well! The interface is very thin/clean and you can search and browse the same feeds that are already available on the site. With single click you can start streaming any selected feed.

Thanks to this new mobile browser support, I can now delete my dozens of LiveATC.net bookmarks that I had created manually for my favorite ATC feeds.

If you have a supported phone, give it a try. I would love to hear your experience.

In this post, I will attempt to summarize some tips/tricks. This is in no way a substitute for a checkout on the G1000 platform with a CFI. There are lots of great G1000 training courses out there which will help you learn much more about the system, but here are a few of my quick tips.

1. Speed Tape – V Speeds are indicated vertically on the tape, but if you are slower than, say Vy, remember you need to lower the noise to increase speed not “pull up” to the Vy indicator on the display “tape”. On your first climb out in the G1000 you may experience exactly what I mean.
2. Traffic Information Service – TIS takes some getting used to – don’t forget to keep your head outside looking for the traffic. It’s easy to get stuck with your eyes on the MFD looking at the traffic map — which is delayed by several seconds. In addition, the Garmin G1000 will tell you “traffic” (in your headset) when TIS is active, which, in my opinion, is very annoying generic. I’m hoping Garmin changes this in a future software release to, at least, add a direction. Something like: “traffic, two o’clock.”

Update 05-31-2009: Per Eric’s comment, below, planes equipped with the Skywatch system will give you more detailed traffic information. I don’t have any experience in Skywatch equipped planes, so I don’t have any first hand experience, but check out Eric’s comment below for additional information. Thanks for the tip Eric!

3. User Preferences – Make sure your expected alerts and preferences are where you want them before you taxi. For example, if you are VFR, make sure the last IFR pilot did not disable the airspace alerts. Use the profile feature to store “your” settings. This won’t stop someone from potentially overwriting your profile but it is a lot less likely than someone changing the defaults.
4. GPS feed to Autopilot – Currently, only the GPS2 provides data to the autopilot . If you loose the GPS2 LRU, or the No2 Integrated Avionics Unit (IAU), don’t expect GPS NAV functions to work on your Autopilot.

Update 06-03-2009: Eric, from over at askacfi.com, did some additional digging on this (see comment section below), and it seems I had some bad information on this tip. My info was based on a comment by my CFII made on my original G1000 training in 2007 and notes I had from the King Schools G1000 course. Eric was very nice to ask a G1000 expert, Max Trescott, and confirmed that both GPSs feed the Autopilot, KAP140 or GFC700. I’ve rewritten tip #4 below. Thanks Eric!

4. Backup GPS feed to Autopilot – If you don’t check GPS2 manually during pre-flight checks, you won’t know that there’s a problem until GPS1 fails and you are left without any GPS NAV functions on your Autopilot.

5. Backup Charts – Make sure you have paper charts and plates. The electronic databases in the G1000 don’t have all the info that the approach plates have. According to Garmin’s G1000 Instructor Reference: “As of June 2006, electronic charts cannot be used instead of paper charts.”

What G1000 tips would you add?

To see all of my G1000 related posts click –> here.

Late this afternoon, I was listening to the KOJC feed over at LiveATC.net, and I overheard a pilot struggling with an approach into Johnson County Executive Airport (KOJC). As I listened and thought about it, there were several things (good and bad) that could be shared from his experience.

I have downloaded the archived audio and put together a time-lapse (edited out other aircraft transmissions and removed dead air time). This all took place over about a 15-20 minute period, but it is edited down to 3:23. I do not personally know this pilot/aircraft and it is NOT my intent to place blame or ridicule this pilot; however, there are several things that can serve as a reminders to all of us pilots regardless of if we are Instrument Rated or not. I think even the pilot would agree that he had a bad day, and I bet he is very thankful that ATC was there to help him out when he needed it. Take a listen…

Flash Plug-in Required (or download it here [MP3])

Here was the METAR observation from the period of the transmission:

KOJC 271953Z 32009KT 7SM OVC013 16/13 A2981 RMK AO2 SLP090 T01610133=

What questions do you have after listening? What do you think the pilot did correctly? What do you think the pilot needed to improve on?  Here are my thoughts…

The first question that popped into my mind was: Did the pilot have the ATIS information? I believe he did. He indicated to ATC that he was setup for Runway 36, but he thought he heard that he was cleared for the approach to Runway 18. Second, why did the pilot not read-back the whole approach clearance? ATC could have helped fix his issue much sooner had he read back the full approach clearance. To me, his read-back of the approach clearance was the first indication of a problem (0:20 into the recording, if you want to listen again). Approach clearances are usually always given in this order: Heading, Altitude, and the specific Approach you are cleared for. You need to read all this back to ATC to make sure you both are on the same page.

Now what did the pilot do correctly. First of all, the pilot did the right thing by asking for help and declaring the missed approach. He knew something was wrong, and he asked for help. Ego is probably the biggest problem with us pilots. In my opinion, there is no shame in asking for help/clarification if something looks wrong. I’d rather look like an idiot temporally then to not live to tell about it.

What could have been improved on. In my opinion, the pilot should have: 1, read-back all of the approach clearance; 2, followed turning instructions from ATC; 3, flown the plane. I believe he was behind the plane this whole time. Even on final approach, the Tower gave him an altitude alert (3:10 into the recording, if you want to listen again). On the approach end of 36, there is nothing but trees/fields waiting for you.

What are your thoughts? Leave your comments below, or contact me here.

Additional Information:
The LOC RWY 36 at KOJC (.pdf) - kojc-loc-rwy-36-05687l36

Today, via Twitter, I was introduced to the Girls With Wings organization (Follow them @GirlsWithWings). This organization seeks to introduce girls to aviation at a young age and encourages them to follow their dreams.

“Instead of encouraging our girls to wait for their knights in shining armor, how about encouraging them to explore the night in their shiny airplane?”

To learn more about Girls with Wings, visit their web site or their parent organization site, Very Important Pilots, LLC

For over a year, I’ve hosted the KOJC feed over at LiveATC.net. I know there are several people who listen regularly as I have seen the feed appear several times in the Top 50 stream list. I would like to get your feedback on some proposed changes based on my monitoring of the feed over the past month.

In a nutshell here is what I’m proposing: 1, removing the High Altitude ARTCC frequencies and 2, adding some of the area Low Altitude ARTCC frequencies.

I’m trying to reduce the number of transmissions for commercial aircraft transitioning the area. My thinking is this, I can’t pickup the center portion of the transmissions anyway, so transmissions like this would likely disappear: “Kansas City Center, Good Afternoon, United 123, Checking in level 3-3-0, smooth ride.”

It is still likely you won’t hear much from the center portion of the transmissions, however, Low Altitude aircraft should stop the scanner much less than all the big jets flying within 200 miles of my house.

Please let me know your thoughts on the proposed changes by emailing me or commenting below. The green shaded boxes are frequency additions, red are the removals, white is no change.

Update 05-26-2009: Hearing no major objections, I’ve made the change. Please let me know any comments/questions! Frequencies in green were added, frequencies in red were removed.

I have a BlackBerry Bold 9700 running BlackBerry OS v5.0 with T-Mobile so my instructions will be specific for T-Mobile users, however, I’m sure it will work with other carriers and newer BlackBerry OS releases as well, however, the procedure might need to be tweaked slightly. Let me know if you find something that differs on your model.

LiveATC.net has now added mobile support for some browsers. For details check here. You can use this as an alternative to creating several standalone bookmarks as outline below.

1. Check out available airport feeds over at LiveATC.net and make note of the feeds’ airport identifier (example: KOJC. Sometimes an airport has multiple feeds, ie: KBOS_TWR)
2. Open the BlackBerry Browser Application on your phone
3. Open the Bookmarks Window and Select Add Bookmark
4. Use this firewall formatted URL of the feed: http://d.liveatc.net/<airport-identifier> (example: http://d.liveatc.net/kojc)
   (BlackBerry Storm: Use http://d.liveatc.net/<airport-identifier>.m3u — Thanks Maria!)
5. Give your bookmark a name. Something like KOJC Live ATC Stream
6. (T-Mobile Specific for BB OS 4.5) You need to specify the ‘t-zones‘ or ‘Hotspot Browser‘ in the bookmark configuration. In BB OS5.0 on T-Mobile, you no longer need to specify the t-zones browser. I’ve tested with both the Internet Browser and the Web2Go browser and both work fine.
7. Browse to the bookmark and when prompted, select Open, and after some buffering, you’ll begin hearing the audio from the feed.

You can duplicate this procedure and create several ATC bookmarks in a sub-folder on your BlackBerry to have them pre-programmed and ready to go.

I have noticed that when you open your bookmark the Media Player will “buffer” for about 2 minutes. I found an overview of why this is happening here. Basically since LiveATC uses so little bandwidth, it takes almost 2 minutes before it fills to the buffer. Hopefully they work around this when they release their official BlackBerry application which is in the works.

Let me know how this works for you! I welcome your comments/suggestions/questions below.

Note: I’m not affiliated in anyway with LiveATC.net other then donating my own hardware/bandwidth/time for an airport feed; however, if you enjoy LiveATC.net, I encurrage you to leave a donation (the link is right on the front page). The guys that maintain the site do so as a hobby; however, it does cost real money to host/maintain the site.

Updated 05-31-2009: Added minor tweak for BlackBerry Storm based on user feedback.
Updated 06-18-2010: Added information for “Buffering Delay” and my current hardware information.

The new Sporty’s video short course titled Pilot’s Guide to Modern Autopilots highlights some of the differences, and similarities, of both the Garmin GFC-700 and the S-Tec 55X; two of the most popular autopilots in airplanes today.

Video Pros:

• Good screen shots of the various APs in action
• Points out several lesser known functions on both systems
• Provides real world flight examples using both systems in VFR & IFR conditions

Video Cons:

• The video was shot Standard-Defintion (SD) with a 4:3 aspect ratio
• The pace is fast, you’ll want to view this a couple of times to catch everything

Bottom line, this video is a great addition to your ground reference materials. It has the standard Sporty’s price tag, but contains lots of good info. It is available for $29.95 on DVD or download at Sporty’s Web Site.

As a pilot of the Garmin G1000 system for several years now, (I still don’t know how I ever put up with the KAP140) I still learned several things about GFC-700. Let me know what you think!

Editorial Note: An evaluation copy of this course was provided to pilotmikekc.com

The GA aircraft were flying through an active military operations area (MOA); however, center controllers had no method to communicate with military controllers in real time.

Besides the fact that this F-16 pilot did something completely dangerous, there is a major opportunity for improvement in ATC communications here. Is anyone else surprised that the ARTCC was not able to talk directly to controllers for these military aircraft?!? I fully support AOPA’s recommendation for the FAA to develop a method for center controllers to communicate with military controllers in real time.

Take a look at the video as the radar echos show on up on top of each other. The radio traffic playing while the radar echos paint will send chills down your back!

Be safe out there folks!

Read all the details after the jump…

At first I was a little disappointed in the release date estimates, but in taking one look at the features being planned, you can see why it has been a while since a major update.

“Logbook Pro vNext [the official version number is not yet known] will support the single user from student through airline pilot as well as the new multi-user enterprise features including group and user management, role based security and other enterprise features.”

The next version of Logbook Pro will also offer a new user-interface as well as several Web 2.0 enhancements allowing for updates from a multitude of systems all with a similar interface. Personally, I’m hoping for a BlackBerry application, but I’d settle for a BlackBerry bookmark application to a mobile enhanced web interface. Need a mobile beta tester guys?

Some of you may remember I did knock the Logbook Pro application about a year and a half ago in this post, where I noted my installation problems under Vista. I do understand that they are a small development shop, however, if they manage to pull off everything they are claiming in this next release, we are going to have one heck of a logbook application on our hands! I can’t wait to see the finished product — just don’t take too long.

According to the post by Tom Haines, the G1000 (Perspective Option) does have some unique to Cirrus (for now) features including: Impressively large dual 12-inch displays, Garmin’s recently announced synthetic vision technology (SVT) and several crew alerting messages.

Another cool little feature Tom mentioned is: “…a blue “LVL” button on the GFC 700 autopilot mode controller. The LVL button is a pilot’s get-out-of-jail-free card when things are starting to go bad. Simply push the LVL button and no matter what mode the autopilot is in or even if it is off, the autopilot will roll the wings level and hold altitude.”

AOPA has posted a First Look video clip here. Of local Kansas City Interest, note the sample approach in the video is an approach into Lawrence, Kansas (KLWC).

Enjoy the show…try to keep the drool off the keyboard.

What were my impressions? I must say, the plane stood much taller than I had imagined — much taller than a Diamond DA40XL. However, the primary competitor is not a DA40XL, but more the Cirrus SR22.

The Cessna 350 had an amazing ramp presence but the visibility from the cockpit was not quite as good as the DA40XL. I have not sat in a SR22, but Cessna reps were claiming that it has more overall glass than the SR22. Another thing I noted was there was more to the cockpit in terms of controls scattered than what I am used to in the DA40XL. The plane does have some advanced features like speedbreaks. I’m not sure we’ll be seeing this plane on the rental line anytime soon, but time will tell.

While Mr. Hopkins was describing resources the AOPA Air Safety Foundation has made available to pilots, he mentioned an entry in the section called “Real Pilot Stories” about a pilot who discovered he had a snake in the cockpit. The idea made my skin crawl — I hate snakes almost more than the idea of FAA User Fees — so I had to take go take a look.

In this two minute video recap, pilot Monty Coles talks about what went though his head as a small head peared at him though a hole in his instrument panel during an routine instrument scan; yes he was airborne. Yikes!

Real Pilot Stories, Snake in the Airplane

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment, or sending me an email from the About Me tab at the top of the page.

Update 03-29-2008: I got a couple of emails and a comment posted that there was some interest. Without much work, I am now providing the feeder site for KOJC at LiveATC.net. Additional information is available on my Live ATC page.

How is it that a US$200 million airplane does not respond when the throttles are pushed forward? This plane, and many others like it, — including some newer GA piston powered aircraft — utilize computer software to control all aspects of engine operation. This system is called Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC). Read more about FADEC after the jump…

The primary advantages of a FADEC system are ease of operation, better fuel usage, engine protection from out of spec limitations and the list goes on and on. The Cirrus SR-22 utilizes a FADEC system which removes the mixture leaver from the cockpit. The FADEC system controls the fuel flow and spark plug timing. What an awesome deal — no more jacking around with the mixture control during various aspects of the flight. …Or is it?

There are also some downsides to FADEC. A common argument in the disadvantage column is that a software defect can be critical if not fatal. Even the best computer systems are still designed by humans and subject to bugs.

FADEC and aircraft manufactures argue that redundant system components can help mitigate this risk, but as years of managing network equipment for a living has taught me, failures on systems with redundant components never seem to fail clean. You can test and test in the lab by removing hardware and manually creating crash conditions, but in the real world, the active system usually gets stuck in a funky state and the backup system never seems to take over the whole system.

It will be interesting what the investigation teams find on this crash in London.

Additional Reading:

The Times of London has a great story about the accident at Heathrow Airport.

My wife and I don’t really watch too much TV anyway but if I was going to ditch my cable, it was going to not be without a few caveats.

Read all about our new TV setup after the jump…

Since “a la carte cable” is not going to happen anytime soon, I was going to have consider other options. However, if I was going to ditch the cable TV, there were a few requirements. My wife was amazingly patient as I threw our whole A/V setup into a tizzy and came up with the new design.

First of all my requirements:
HDTV — The new solution had to support HDTV. We had the HDTV add-on package with our Comcast cable, but this was pretty much the primary (XX.1) local HD “Over the Air” (OTA) channels and a few other HD cable networks. We pretty much always watched the 10 or so HD channels with the cable box since HD televisions make standard definition TV look really bad.

DVR — I was late to jump on this bandwagon, but as my friends and co-workers warned me, once you got it, you cannot live without it. If I was going to ditch the cable box, I had to have a solution that supported recording. I also want need to record one channel while watching another. Our DVR recording lineup pretty much consists of shows that air on the broadcast networks — making OTA a viable option.

Remote Control Support — I’m not joking. Whatever solution I chose, I did not want to have to “rig” something just to change the channel. The small “junky” remote controls do not count — I wanted a “real” remote control with a skip button, and more than four keys. (Yes, Apple, your junky remote controls do not meet this requirement)

Monthly Recurring Expense — My goal of the new solution was to totally eliminate, if possible, the monthly recurring charges we were seeing with the cable; or at least reduce them. I knew I was going to have to spend a little bit of money up front, but my payback goal was 4-6 months.

My options:

Microsoft Media Center — We got a new computer back in February 2007 with Microsoft Vista Home Premium. This version of Vista includes Windows Media Center. Up until now, I had never used it, but I had launched it a few times and the interface looked pretty well done. If I went this route, I would need a tuner card of some sort and a remote control. The DVR function is built in to Media Center.

Computer with a Media Extender — Since I liked the Media Center interface I considered an Extender. It would keep the TV area clean and neat, but there was one small problem. That is until the past couple of weeks, the only Media Extender that supported Vista Media Center was the Xbox 360. I don’t want a game console and it seems like a waste to spend that money only to obtain the extender functionality. My timing for this project was impeccable as the Linksys DMA 2100 and 2200 had been announced and were due out in late November, but there were some last minute delays that made this box at least a month out. The D-Link DSM-750 had already been released, but it too was $300 and I still needed a tuner for my PC if I went that route.

TiVo — The ‘TiVo Series3 HD’ and new ‘TiVo HD DVR’ (marketing departments never cease to amaze me in the technology industry) had pretty good reviews, however, my goal was to eliminate the recurring monthly cost; TiVo charges for monthly guide data and their online services.

My New Design:

Vista Media Center — This provided the HD Support, DVR and eliminated the monthly recurring cost. I did purchase the Media Center keyboard and remote control which worked great!  The Microsoft Media Center remote control and Keyboard is pretty nice and they worked natively (no need for drivers) with Vista. The video card (Radeon X1300) already had a DVI output so this was a good fit. The skip feature is about ten times more responsive vs. my Comcast DVR.

TV Tuner — Our DVR line-up pretty much includes shows from the broadcast networks, so an OTA ATSC tuner would be perfect. A quick check of AntennaWeb reviled that all but one independent network was broadcasting a digital signal here in Kansas City. I opted for an ATSC tuner since I really don’t care to watch the analog channels; they will be turned off in 2009 anyway. The first tuner I used to test the Vista Media Center TV functionality was an ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI (about $130). It worked well, but I quickly realized that not having two tuners was an issue. We’d be watching one show when the DVR needed to take control and would flip the channel. The additional cables going into the back of the PC also was cluttering up the living room. After checking many sites, I settled on a network attached dual ATSC tuner (SiliconDust HDHomeRun). It was a little bit more expensive than a single tuner (but less than two PCI tuners), but I loved the fact that I could tuck it away in another room with an antenna hooked up and it would stream the signal down to the Vista Media Center over the home network. Dual tuner functionality without adding wire clutter — perfect!

Antenna — I originally started with an old set of rabbit ears, however, the dual tuner introduced the need for a splitter for the second tuner which took the signal level too low for an unamplified antenna. After doing some research, I settled on a Terk TV5 Amplified TV Antenna and it worked great. I set it upstairs in the office on top of a bookshelf next to the HDHomeRun box.

Closing Comments:

After running with this setup for about 6 weeks now, I’ve made a few observations. First, having the computer next to the TV is not ideal, but the functionality does work pretty well. We did run into times where we wanted to just use the computer for a quick minute, but had to turn on the TV to see the screen — not cool. We quickly moved the LCD monitor down with the computer and setup “Hotkey” activated monitor profiles (Alt-1: LCD, Alt-2: TV, Alt-3 LCD+TV) using the ATI Catalyst Control Center application. Second, a Media Center Extender would probably be the cleanest setup if you only have one home PC; however, it can be done with just the PC just fine. Having a network attached tuner simplified the cabling into the PC and is a much cleaner looking install. Third, spend some time getting your LCD resolution setup correctly on your HDTV and play with your graphics card advanced controls to fine tune the picture. I had a horrible interlacing issue on the stations broadcasting in 1080i. This issue was resolved by activating, what ATI calls, the “Automatic Deinterlacing” feature — ah, much better. Third, the Media Center DVR functionality is great. Add a Media Center remote control/keyboard and you have a great DVR alternative to the, in my opinion, crappy, Comcast DVR service. Forth, there is a lot of legal online content (eg: iTunes), however, if you are a big sports fan, you will probably be disappointed with just OTA. Sports are probably the farthest behind getting themselves positioned into new waves of distribution. Vista Media Center has some pretty nice Internet TV shows which use your Broadband connection to stream content; however, much of it is still in SD.

Cost Breakdown:

SiliconDust HDHomeRun: $160
Media Center USB Remote Control and Keyboard: $90
Amplified TV Antenna: $50
Total: $300 (Payback at $90/Month with Comcast: ~3.5 Months)

Mission Accomplished…

Read all the details after the jump.

The climb out of KC went fine — the cooler air was nice and it showed me the DA40XL could really hit 140 KTAS once we leveled off. As we got about 50 miles northwest of the Kansas City Metro we could see the overcast layer building where the snow cover line started. We asked ATC for 6000 feet to keep us out of the overcast not knowing if the clouds had developed any ice or not. The METARs in the area were not getting any worse so we continued on, but I had my approach plates out for a OMA instrument procedure if needed.

As we approached Omaha, the Blair ASOS (recently added) was reporting 3200 overcast as we were handed off to Omaha Approach Control. I was initially concerned because approach said they could only give us 3000 for IFR separation with the large towers on the north side of Omaha. However, remember that ASOS reports are given AGL not MSL. That extra 1000 foot was what we needed. We descended to 3000 feet through the overcast with no ice and had a great landing at Blair. We enjoyed Turkey and all the fixings then packed up for home.

I was much less concerned about the flight back to Kansas City a few hours later, because we knew there was no ice and Kansas City weather was fine. We got PD down to 3000 about 75 miles out of Kansas City and I set the Auto Pilot for a slow 100 FPM decent until we got to the top of the overcast. The sunset was amazing on top of the overcast and the pictures I snapped with the cell phone camera do not do it justice — now this is why I learned to fly!

We were too early to fly over and see the Plaza Lights, but we met NewsChopper 9 on the way into OJC — Johnny Rowlands was headed out to provide aerial shots for the live coverage on KMBC.

Read all the details after the jump.

So why was I attracted to the BlackBerry Curve? It has a faster processor, has Wi-Fi/UMA (the ability to make calls over Wi-Fi), and a full QWERTY keyboard.

What’s New? (Stuff I care about)

1. The BlackBerry Curve has the new navigation ball that was introduced in the BlackBerry Perl and it replaces the “click wheel” on the side. I was hesitant at first, but after adjusting the ball sensitivity to my liking (90% sensitivity), I’ve gotten used to it and I like it much better than the “click wheel” I had on the 7100t.
2. Wi-Fi Support — the BlackBerrry Curve has integrated Wi-Fi, but don’t expect it to drastically improve your web browsing speed. It is maybe a little bit faster, but it is hard for me to tell the different between EDGE and Wi-Fi if in a good coverage area. No issues getting the Wi-Fi setup at home using WPA security, however, we’ve had lots of problems with our Enterprise Wi-Fi at work which uses much more robust type of security (802.1X – PEAP). We have been working this issue with both RIM and Cisco the past few days and the support cases on pending on both sides. RIM did acknowledge to us on a phone call that their are “known issues” with the Wi-Fi and Over The Air (OTA) software “pushes.” I’m guessing these will be resolved with a patch or the upcoming BlackBerry OS version 4.3. You should have no issues with the 8320 on on your home Wi-Fi network or down at the local coffee shop.
   Update 12-2007: In working with RIM, we have discovered the root cause of the 802.1X PEAP authentication problem I mention above. See my post over at BlackBerryForums for more information.
3. UMA Support — the T-Mobile version of the 8320 has UMA support which is the ability to make phone calls and receive “push email” via a Wi-Fi connection. Even if you don’t subscribe to the T-Mobile “Hotspot@Home” service, the device will route your calls over Wi-Fi if a connection is available. You can override the network preference if you don’t want your device to utilize the Wi-Fi for voice/data which is a nice option. I have not whipped out my packet sniffer yet to see if this data is encrypted going to T-Mobile/RIM, but given it uses UDP ports 500 and 4500, I suspect they are doing some sort of tunneling for security; if you happen to be using an unencrypted WLAN. Using UMA does allow your BlackBerry to get email and access other data services while on the phone — pretty cool!
4. Multi-Media support — the BlackBerry Curve has music, video, and picture support. The 8320 has a camera with flash, but don’t go replace your digital camera just yet. Personally, I really don’t care for a camera on a cell phone and would rather give-up the camera if I could get integrated GPS support like the BlackBerry 8820. Currently, only AT&T has released the 8820 so I’m happy with the trade off — plus I do not like the 8800 series keyboard.

Other Impressions:

• My 7100t only had GPRS data service and even though EDGE is no 3G or EVDO Rev A (Verizon/Sprint), it does boast a noticeable improvement in download time. Web sites that are optimized for mobile browsing work great and are speedy to download, however, hit a site that is not optimized and you’ll be waiting a while for it to render — even on Wi-Fi.
• Why does it seem there are not very many pilot or aviation applications for the BlackBerry OS? With all the corporate pilots out there you would like someone would be developing some killer aviation apps for BlackBerry. If you know of any cool ones, send them my way, but my searching has not turned up much of anything worth loading on my device.
• Update 10/11/2007: Reception: I have used this phone for a couple of weeks now and have been pretty happy with the reception and sound quality. The volume seems to be much louder than my 7100t, however, like the 7100t it does have a “sweet spot” to get max audio output. I had a co-worker that noticed a “pop” or “click” sound when making a calls on his 8320 on UMA. I have not had this issue, but I pretty much keep my Wi-Fi off unless I need to use it.

Why T-Mobile?

1. I have had nothing but great customer service from T-Mobile. Sure, I’ve had my share of issues, but they always seem to get things fixed and in almost 8 years of service, I’ve only had to call a customer care a handful of times.
2. GSM — the sound quality on GSM is much better than TDMA or CDMA. I can tell when someone calls me from a Verizon or Sprint cell phone, both of which use CDMA. I could go into a million reasons why I like GSM, but I’m sold.
3. T-Mobile RIM BlackBerry support is pretty good. If Customer Care does not know the answer, they are happy to hand you off to RIM’s support team who can usually help you out.

There you have it, my brief, and somewhat random review of my new BlackBerry Curve 8320.

Find out all the details after the jump.

Assumptions

1. 10% down payment
2. Pathfinder insurance
3. You have desire to administer (paperwork, etc) all aspects of owning your own aircraft
4. You are okay with flying your own (brand new) helicopter for your initial training
5. Acquisition January 1 of year 1 and sale of aircraft on December 31 of year 5
6. Flight time of at least 100 hours per year
7. Inculdes some cost for a CFI in year 1 and recurrent training (you may need more or less)

Robinson R22 Ownership Cost Calculation

Disclaimer: This information is strictly hypothetical and should not be relied upon as advice to help you with your specific situation. Each aircraft purchase situation is unique and must be analyzed by professionals including, but not limited to, an attorney and tax professional licensed to practice in your area.

If you are interested in the actual spreadsheet so you can customize your own figures, please contact me.

Let me know what you think!