Starlink Mini in a J

[mhrivnak]

2 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

What about the speed restriction?

See my post above. It's been gone since some time in July. 

 

[LANCECASPER]

5 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

What about the speed restriction?

J models don't usually exceed 450 knots . . lol

 

Edit: I was beat by a few seconds by @mhrivnak

[Fly Boomer]

1 minute ago, LANCECASPER said:

J models don't usually exceed 450 knots

I can't keep up.  First, there was no restriction, then there was a speed restriction requiring a much higher-priced plan, now there is no meaningful restriction (again).  What's next?

[Pinecone]

Hopefully a small antenna that can be mounted outside.

[Schllc]

The roaming plan for unlimited is $165 per month for the mini.

I don't see 50gb being particularly useful, that will be eaten up pretty quickly.

I can definitely see the value in having internet onboard.  When i took our last trip out west, we changed destinations several times and it would have been a lot more convenient for hotels and rental cars, if that could be addressed inflight.

My understanding is that the first two years is compulsory then you can go month to month, but at 165 a month, i think its easier to just do the stuff on the ground.  We are only airborne for 4ish hours at a time, at the longest, and any portions of that below 7k you usually have coverage.

I am also in the wait and see camp.

[Ibra]

3 hours ago, Fly Boomer said:

What about the speed restriction?

It was removed for a while now: all “in motion” plans (roaming, priority…), the only restriction on speed is 550mph…

Now, I think they wanted to split airlines from anything bellow. Previously, it was splitting turboprops from anything bellow (240kts). Initially, it was splitting cars or walking from anything else (10mph, 100mph limit) and before that they had none. The only restrictions now for “in motion” plans are data (50Gb) and geographical (international waters, countries…)

Of course, it’s hard to know “what is next” 

 

Edited September 12 by Ibra

[Shadrach]

On 9/11/2025 at 11:29 PM, mhrivnak said:

PIREP: It worked great on a round-drip from NC to NYC with the regular $50/month roam plan. I have a 28V bus and bought these for power:

Cable: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DS6YX58K
Power adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZ7BL16W

You can get a dedicated power cable that plugs right into the cigarette lighter port. But I need to also charge my ipad, so having at least one extra USB port is handy.

I had the same experience.  I made a trip to New England Yesterday.  My transmission speeds in the at 165kts were well over 100MBPS.  I facetimed my wife as I passed over Manhattan and the call was flawless. No buffering or connection issues. I have the Roam-50MB at $50/month.

I had the antenna mounted to the passenger side windscreen but that is suboptimal.  I need to find a better placement.  I think we're less than 10 years from an inexpensive (relatively), GA version that feeds from a low-profile, external antenna. I know some of the corporate fleet has moved to Starlink but I am not sure how they are mounting the antennas.

 

[RoundTwo]

On 9/12/2025 at 9:30 AM, Fly Boomer said:

I can't keep up.  First, there was no restriction, then there was a speed restriction requiring a much higher-priced plan, now there is no meaningful restriction (again).  What's next?

It’s a rapidly evolving market of different plans as the GA use case catches on. It does appear to be settling out. However, the price point hasn’t changed much as it’s always been in the $50 to $65 range. Now, as soon as you cross over the beach, it does get pretty spendy. I’ll be taking mine to the islands in November and that will require the Global ($$) Priority plan at $265 for the remainder of that particular billing cycle.

[RoundTwo]

On 9/12/2025 at 12:48 PM, Schllc said:

The roaming plan for unlimited is $165 per month for the mini.

I don't see 50gb being particularly useful, that will be eaten up pretty quickly.

I can definitely see the value in having internet onboard.  When i took our last trip out west, we changed destinations several times and it would have been a lot more convenient for hotels and rental cars, if that could be addressed inflight.

My understanding is that the first two years is compulsory then you can go month to month, but at 165 a month, i think its easier to just do the stuff on the ground.  We are only airborne for 4ish hours at a time, at the longest, and any portions of that below 7k you usually have coverage.

I am also in the wait and see camp.

I think it would take someone watching movies to burn up 50GB. With our set up of BT audio muted when radios are receiving, no way you could watch a follow a movie with those interruptions, so 50GB goes a long way looking at internet pages and page scrolling.

[Ibra]

3 hours ago, RoundTwo said:

so 50GB goes a long way looking at internet pages and page scrolling.

Indeed, that’s 20h of heavy streaming per month 

Unless one flies 300h per year, they won’t reach that…

[RoundTwo]

4 minutes ago, Ibra said:

Indeed, that’s 20h of heavy streaming per month 

Unless one flies 300h per year, they won’t reach that…

We’ve logged over 30 hours this month, thanks to our trip out to Washington, and right now I’m sitting at 30 GB used. Only one more trip planned for this billing cycle, so I’ll be abandoning some GB once again.

[kortopates]

3 hours ago, RoundTwo said:

It’s a rapidly evolving market of different plans as the GA use case catches on. It does appear to be settling out. However, the price point hasn’t changed much as it’s always been in the $50 to $65 range. Now, as soon as you cross over the beach, it does get pretty spendy. I’ll be taking mine to the islands in November and that will require the Global ($$) Priority plan at $265 for the remainder of that particular billing cycle.

The international use upcharge has been my problem as well. Really don't need it in the US since I have Sirius XM and Ads-B on my panel displays. But what I am really interested in is international travel; particularly Mexico and Latin America where we have no weather service. Europe is in the same boat. Starlink keeps updating their plans. Today they're showing $70/month for the Roam 50GB plan (and $189 for Unlimited data ). But despite the plan going up to $70 from $50/month  it might be more reasonable for international trips now since the latest terms say:

Roam plans include:

.....

• International travel is allowed in available markets for up to 2 months per trip. If you plan to stay longer, you may be asked to transfer your account to a new country. Learn more here.

So if I am interpreting this correctly to mean I can use the 50GB Roam plan for up to to 2 months at at time out of the US this is good news concerning international use.

Bahama's might be another challenge though while traveling as these plans only work within 12 miles of shore, as they say a maritime plan is needed to work outside of over land and more than 12 miles off shore.

 

[GeeBee]

I thought of this thread yesterday when I was enroute from KRAP (Rapid City) to KCOU (Columbia, MO). The forecast went bust as it was 1800z and T-storms were popping that were not supposed to pop until 2100Z. I wanted to file an IFR out of KCOU for my QT there. I had called Columbia Jet Center before leaving KRAP to arrange a QT but that went by the boards after the refueling truck ran out of fuel in the middle of fueling. So it was all for naught. I looked at some charts including index and skew-t and decided to play whack a mole going east towards ATL with the T-storms by going low (5000) staying in VMC and dodging the rain shafts with the aid of XM. XM was good....but not great. FIS-B was less than that. Real time NEXRAD would have been nice. If the fuel truck had not run out of fuel and I was able to file an IFR in the air with a full brief, even better.

[Hank]

Well, the weather is what you get, rather than what is forecast. I took my wife up to her mother's in NC late last week. The forecast was 1000-1200 broken; ATIS was 600 overcast; I descended into the tops at 6500, turned inbound on the ILS still high because the controller wouldn't let me descend early enough, and broke out just as Tower was asking if I had broken out yet--at 600 msl or 389 agl, light rain, mist, 2 miles visibility. 

Stuff happens. Weather sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't. There is no accurate, timely weather information available in our cockpits, but spherics can help a lot (i.e., StormScope). Having it makes me feel better about blundering into something, but I've been caught by low ceilings before--forecast of 25K, found 400 Overcast, 2-1/2 miles in mist.

Haven't found that magical instrument that resolves cloud height and visibility in front of you, other than listening to weather at airports in front of you, but many smaller AWOS broadcasts only reach about 30-35 miles out in good weather . . .

Starlink may bring weather to your cockpit faster and in greater detail, but it's still showing you what was happening 15-20 minutes ago, plus whatever delay is showing on the screen, and that delay is unrelated to your equipment, it is caused by assembling the Big Picture and getting it ready to broadcast.

Fly safe out there, ya'll!

[RoundTwo]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

I thought of this thread yesterday when I was enroute from KRAP (Rapid City) to KCOU (Columbia, MO). The forecast went bust as it was 1800z and T-storms were popping that were not supposed to pop until 2100Z. I wanted to file an IFR out of KCOU for my QT there. I had called Columbia Jet Center before leaving KRAP to arrange a QT but that went by the boards after the refueling truck ran out of fuel in the middle of fueling. So it was all for naught. I looked at some charts including index and skew-t and decided to play whack a mole going east towards ATL with the T-storms by going low (5000) staying in VMC and dodging the rain shafts with the aid of XM. XM was good....but not great. FIS-B was less than that. Real time NEXRAD would have been nice. If the fuel truck had not run out of fuel and I was able to file an IFR in the air with a full brief, even better.

If you had Starlink, you could have re-read the whole thread. 

[GeeBee]

44 minutes ago, Hank said:

Haven't found that magical instrument that resolves cloud height and visibility in front of you, other than listening to weather at airports in front of you, but many smaller AWOS broadcasts only reach about 30-35 miles out in good weather . . .

XM weather will give you the METAR for any airport and the FT.

[cliffy]

I'm having flash backs of "Children of the Magenta Line" video :-)

Sure we have advanced in technology but to what end?

But, now we have antennas up in the windshield blocking the view outside?

We can facetime a phone call and divert our attention from looking out the window to playing games and reading books while flying? 

Are we to believe we ae riding in a Waymo airplane now? :-)

I guess I don't understand how I have done 60+ years of flying in all kinds of weather without internet connections.

Ya'll be careful out there

[Pinecone]

9 hours ago, cliffy said:

I'm having flash backs of "Children of the Magenta Line" video :-)

Sure we have advanced in technology but to what end?

But, now we have antennas up in the windshield blocking the view outside?

We can facetime a phone call and divert our attention from looking out the window to playing games and reading books while flying? 

Are we to believe we ae riding in a Waymo airplane now? :-)

I guess I don't understand how I have done 60+ years of flying in all kinds of weather without internet connections.

Ya'll be careful out there

As always technology can make things better or worse.

Are you ready to go back to an ADF being your primary nav?  Or how about 4-course radio ranges?

Personally, I want internet in the cockpit for better weather info.  Not for watching videos.

But it watching videos make the SO happy, that is a good thing also.

[RoundTwo]

8 hours ago, Pinecone said:

As always technology can make things better or worse.

Are you ready to go back to an ADF being your primary nav?  Or how about 4-course radio ranges?

Personally, I want internet in the cockpit for better weather info.  Not for watching videos.

But it watching videos make the SO happy, that is a good thing also.

Forget about embracing technology, first we need to get @cliffy to embrace electric gear and flaps. 

[philiplane]

Remember when we used to fly, to simply get away from the world for a little while?

[EricJ]

32 minutes ago, philiplane said:

Remember when we used to fly, to simply get away from the world for a little while?

I still do. 

 

[Fly Boomer]

13 hours ago, Pinecone said:

But it watching videos make the SO happy, that is a good thing also.

Probably the FO too.

[kortopates]

As always technology can make things better or worse.
Are you ready to go back to an ADF being your primary nav?  Or how about 4-course radio ranges?
Personally, I want internet in the cockpit for better weather info.  Not for watching videos.
But it watching videos make the SO happy, that is a good thing also.

I guess i would like to learn what better weather source i am missing out on that i don’t have with XM in the cockpit?

i do want it for international flying but i didn’t think there was any advantage for US flying.


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[RoundTwo]

12 hours ago, kortopates said:

I guess i would like to learn what better weather source i am missing out on that i don’t have with XM in the cockpit?

i do want it for international flying but i didn’t think there was any advantage for US flying.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don’t do it because it can’t be justified and will be just another piece of discarded kit in the hangar. It can’t be rationally justified to be an absolute necessity. 
 

On the other hand, anyone that ever flys with you will think it’s cool AF that they can take pictures and share them instantly and even make phone calls to rub it in to all of their FB friends that they’re flying in a Mooney. 

[cliffy]

On 9/24/2025 at 5:00 AM, RoundTwo said:

Forget about embracing technology, first we need to get @cliffy to embrace electric gear and flaps. 

And YES I did fly an A-N Range approach (in my IR training) using the last Radio Range system in the continental US going into Burbank CA- dee-dah  dee-dah -solid tone on course-  dah-dee  dah-dee   :-)

BUT point well taken  :-) :-)  Probably the best zinger yet on this forum!!!