Garmin 496...

I have had a Control Vision with nexrad wx for about 6 years now. Most of my trips are between 2-4 hours duration. The long range ability to see wx in front of me has saved my bacon on a nunmber of occasions that my preflight flightservice, strikefinder, nor enroute flight service were able to provide. As a matter of fact, the reason I finally got this system was because pre-flight and enroute flight service drove me into a "hole" that ended up being an embedded CB. It wasn't pretty, and I swore that if I came out of the other side of it, I'd get something to help me with wx in the future.

Control Vision is not the end all and be all, but it is a good system. I've flown a few different C400 series airplanes recently with the 496, and it's a pretty sweet set up. It's not a replacement for radar, but, damn, my intention is to not get that close to CBs to begin with. For the price, I'll probably end up getting a 496 or whatever the next generation is that has approach plates on it. My control vision has plates on it, and it's pretty handy as a backup to see your plane superimposed over the actual plate as you shoot an approach.

FWIW

Keven
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