AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2014 - 100

AOPA LIFESTYLES

P&E

AVIONICS

information, the ground stations must be
triggered by an ADS-B Out-equipped airplane. If you're in the neighborhood of one,
you may see the traffic positions sent up to
the other airplane. And you may see other
nearby ADS-B Out aircraft broadcasting
their position, but you won't necessarily
see airplanes with only a Mode C transponder, for example.
A tap on a traffic target shows details
about it and its trend information relative
to your position. Relative to our panelmount ADS-B traffic display, we found the
Stratus 2 traffic presentation to be mostly
comparable, although the traffic positions
tended to jump around more than what we
saw with the Garmin GDL 88 panel-mount
presentation.

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You'll likely run out
of iPad battery
before the Stratus 2
shuts down.
Among the new features of the Stratus
2 compared to the original model is a connection to the Horizon attitude heading
reference system (AHRS) app. Install the
free Horizon app on your iPad and it then
receives the AHRS information from the
Stratus, providing an advisory attitude, airspeed, heading, and altitude presentation.
The AHRS info can be viewed singularly
in the Horizon app or, most conveniently,
through ForeFlight where you can place
it on a split screen with AHRS info on
one side and EFB info on the other side.
The AHRS needs an understanding of the
Stratus 2's position. It mostly figures out
the correct attitude on its own, but it can
be quickly calibrated in flight to tweak the
position.
A frequent complaint with the original Stratus was that it would get too hot
on the glareshield and shut down. With a
built-in fan, Stratus 2 seems more immune
to such problems. On a particularly warm
day after several hours of use we received
a message on the iPad that Stratus 2 was
too hot and would soon shut down. We
moved the unit from the glareshield to
100 | AOPA PILOT November 2014

the shaded floor and it kept working, even
receiving GPS and weather and traffic from
that position. The WAAS GPS receiver in
Stratus 2 is also an improvement over the
original. The unit's ability to provide position information obviates the need for any
other external GPS receiver to support the
iPad. Access to the WAAS GPS also allows
use of ForeFlight's Hazard Advisor feature,
which shows high-resolution terrain and
obstacle information on the moving map.
Information about the Stratus can be
viewed from within ForeFlight, including
age of the weather products and battery
life. You can also dim the three LEDs on
Stratus 2 from within ForeFlight-a handy
feature we discovered during a recent
night flight.
While Stratus 2 was introduced in 2013,
new features added this year improve performance, especially when combined with
the latest versions of ForeFlight. Among
them is the ability to shut down the iPad
when not needed to save battery life. When
the iPad is awakened, Stratus 2 automatically sends any weather updates received
while the iPad was asleep. Another new
feature is the ability to animate the previous 30 minutes of national and regional
radar images-a handy tool for tracking
storm movements.
Stratus shares its information with the
iPad via WiFi; other ForeFlight systems in
the airplane can tap into the Stratus feed.
Once initially connected, the iPad instantly
recognizes the Stratus WiFi signal upon
start up and connects automatically.
Appareo claims an eight-hour battery life; we've not taken it all the way
to zero, but based on the long multi-leg
flights we've made, that seems reasonable.
You'll likely run out of iPad battery before
the Stratus 2 shuts down. The unit comes
with a mini USB connector to charge either
from a wall outlet or an onboard power
source-12 or 28 volts, but a minimum of
2.1 amps is required. Firmware updates can
be loaded via ForeFlight, so there's never
a need to connect Stratus to a computer.
Stratus 2 is available exclusively from
Sporty's Pilot Shop and sells for $899. To
learn more, visit www.sportys.com. AOPA
EMAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org
http://www.aopa.org/lifestyles http://www.aopa.org/lifestyles http://www.sportys.com
AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2014
