KT74/Stratus 2S Pirep

[jlunseth]

I had a KT74 installed in place of my ancient King Mode C, and in preparation for the plane coming out of the shop I got a Stratus 2S from Sporty's. The manual for the KT74 is blissfully short. Unlike the old King it has pushbutton number entry for the squawk code, which is nice, and also a "VFR" button for the moment ATC tells you to that your cancellation was received, and to squawk VFR. There are a few functions accessible with a "FUNC" button. There is a timer, but I have a better timer on the pilot side of the panel so it probably won't help me much. The two functions that will be useful are the flight timer and the Flight ID function. The flight timer starts on takeoff, which is nice. I have an old King ADF with a flight timer, but it starts when the engine starts and I need to remember to reset it on takeoff for IFR flights. The KT74's works automatically. The Flight ID function allows changing the flight number from the preprogramed aircraft tail number. It will be useful for Angel Flights. Angel Flight recently assigned specific flight numbers for each pilot and we are required to file our flight plan under that number. The flight number is broadcast for ADSB, so I can put my Angel Flight number in. The other two functions are an Altitude Monitor and an ADSB Monitor. The Alt. Monitor lets you set an altitude and an annunciator goes off when you exceed it by 200 feet. I already have an altitude warning on my Icarus SAM so this function on the KT74 is probably not much help to me. The last function is an ADSB Monitor that let's you see what ADSB information is going out.

I have just one flight with the Stratus. It was a CAVU day so there was nothing to see weather wise, and I already have XM on a moving map, so the weather is not my main reason for getting the Stratus. The reason was traffic, and wow did it work. There was traffic all over the place. The flight was a short one, from Minneapolis out to Willmar for some mechanical work. In between is a small airport at Winsted, where parachute jumping happens all summer. Sure enough the Stratus showed an aircraft rapidly losing altitude over Winsted. I made a call on the radio and it was a jump plane saying there were six canopies over the airport. I gave the airport a wide berth. At Willmar there was a low aircraft converging on the airport. A radio call later it turned out to be a Cherokee inbound for landing and ahead of me, so I slowed a little to give them time to land and get off the runway.

I have to say, the traffic looks like it will be well worth it. The traffic symbols are easy to read and understand, the track lines are a real help.

I opted to mount the Stratus on the window. I needed to calibrate the AHRS display to get it perfectly aligned, but that was simple. It uses arrow buttons on the AHRS screen to calibrate until the V is on target. Minnesota is fairly flat so Synthetic Vision did not show much, but there is a wind farm near Willmar and it happens to be near one of the instrument approaches, so there is no doubt it would be helpful in IMC if the certified instruments were all to fail.

If you order a Stratus from Sporty's don't bother to order the RAM mount for the window. I did, and then found that there was already a RAM mount in the Stratus package. I only have the one short flight with it, but it worked fine.

I had turned the Stratus on for a flight that was aborted the day before I went to Willmar, and it must have sat turned on in the aircraft until the batteries ran down. I retrieved it and put it on the charger. I did notice that it took several hours for the AC current charger to fully charge the Stratus. I have no doubt that the battery lasts a long time, just be aware that if you use it to the end it will also take quite awhile to charge back up.

Maybe someday I will opt for a certified ADSB and traffic solution, but changes are happening rapidly. Deliveries for the Stratus 2S just started last week. Also last week Garmin announced connectivity with Foreflight, which we all thought would never happend, so for now this is a good and relatively inexpensive solution.

[carusoam]

Nice pirep, JL...

Answered two of my old challenges as well...GPSS and altitude alert.

What WAAS source do you send to the KT74?

Best regards,

-a-

[Alan Fox]

The weather and current conditions are amazing , as well as the TFRs and what not........I love my Stratus2 / KT74 ... 

[jlunseth]

I have a 430AW for the GPS source. The install of the KT74 was pretty much according to the thread we had recently about KT74 install. New coax, needed an airspeed switch.