Dear Anywhere Map,

I purchased my Anywhere Map system at Oshkosh this year [2005]. I received a 4705 and began using and learning the machine with the help of your staff. This is one of the best decisions I have ever made!

On October 24, 2005 I planned a flight to visit a friend in Atlanta for his 65th birthday party that night. I left Palwaukee Airport [KPWK] my home base in the late morning for the three and one half hour flight to Atlanta.

About two hours after liftoff I was south of Louisville in IMC conditions and told by ATC to climb from 6000 feet to 9000 feet. As I passed though 7000 feet MY ENGINE SNAPPED AN EXHAUST VALVE. With no power and in IMC I contacted ATC and told them of my problem. I also looked at my new Anywhere Map in front of me and saw those beautiful green circles that surround every airport within gliding distance from my plane.

I had numerous choices because of my altitude and when ATC said State your intentions, it was Direct Standiford where there were nice long runways and emergency equipment if I needed it. I broke out of the clouds at about 3500 feet with that wonderful runway right in front of me and the prop stopped on my airplane. The landing was one of the best I had made in quite a while. Not a scratch on me or the plane thanks to Anywhere Map and the great controllers at Louisville.

Thanks for helping me be here to write this and thanks to your staff...

Vince Scott

Listen to Vince Scott's AVweb Podcast interview about his experience.

Dear Anywhere Map,

I just had a chance to really try out your Anywhere Map (w/ WXXM) on a long cross country flight in my Debonair. I departed Lancaster, SC and arrived at Front Range, Co. 11 hours later, requiring only one fuel stop. I flew VFR the entire route and the system performed flawlessly.

I can honestly say that the device was the critical element in the success of the mission. I was able to plan strategically and fly tactically. The ability to see graphical metars, NEXRAD and terrain simultaneously cannot be understated.

Finally, for $1500, the price/performance in my opinion is off the scale. Job well done!

Sincerely,

Blair Simpkins AVP

Dear Anywhere Map,

I recently picked up my new-to-me 1978 Cessna 152 in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area for the flight home to Daytona Beach.

As a low time pilot I always try to error on the side of safety. The Pre-Purchase inspection and 30min flight the day before were uneventful and all systems on the aircraft checked out fine.

Climbing out in the full loaded 152 for the trip home from North Perry Airport I thought all was well when Miami Departure gave me an "Immediate Turn Left 090" I was already heading 090 according to my DG... But the Anywhere Map was reading 340. My DG had failed and I was heading into Ft. Lauderdale airspace. I told the controller that I was unfamiliar with the area and my DG had just failed. "Now using VFR Handheld GPS and Mag Compass" The controller replied the he was about to give me a number to call but never-mind, "no harm, no foul"

Using the Mag Compass and my Anywhere Map we continued our trip home cross checking our progress with the dual VOR navs. I flew perhaps the most accurate course I've flown thus far.

I set my personal minimums fairly high having only about 65 hours. Had I not been equipped with the Anywhere Map I would have terminated the flight until the DG could be overhauled.

Thanks for your great product!

Sean C.

Dear Anywhere Map Folks,

Early morning conditions were typical Cape Cod fog. We had planned to be off by sunrise, but were delayed an hour. As soon as conditions began to improve, we made our way to the airport. By the time we got the plane loaded and pulled out of the hangar, it was clear for departure and we were off by 7.45am.

We flew through the fading remnants of a front on our way to Niagara Falls. Fortunately, I have in-cockpit weather from Control Vision's Anywhere Map. The system downloads real-time NEXRAD, lightning strikes, infrared satellite views, METARS, and TAFs. All the information is correlated to the GPS moving map display, so areas of precipitation, cloud cover, and low visibility are clearly shown. Being able to see the weather conditions all around you on a map certainly makes for much greater confidence when flying in marginal conditions. It's also a real kick to be able to tell the controllers that you have in-cockpit weather and can see the precipitation as well as they can.

Using the NEXRAD display, we easily skirted the isolated areas of light showers. We landed at Buffalo-Lancaster. Just after we landed, a small amount of rain was dumped on us. I knew from the Anywhere Wx that it wasn't going to last very long, so we just waited in the plane a few minutes until the rain stopped.

After a quick refueling at the self-serve pump, we were off for a tour of the Falls. Niagara has a special racetrack traffic pattern and its own traffic advisory frequency, due to the high volume of "flight-seers." The rainy weather must have discouraged everyone, however, because we did not see or hear any other traffic. The Falls were truly awesome, and we made sure to take plenty of pictures, making a point that we'd have to return and see them from the ground.

Dr. Randy Garrett
Alexandria, VA

Dear Control Vision,

I just made my third cross country since getting the XM upgrade to my Anywheremap subscription. I make the flight between Angleton, TX (LBX) and Grand Prairie, TX (GPM) at least a few times a month. I'm not instrument rated so I wanted the weather info the system provides to avoid the fronts that seem to hang-out between Houston and Dallas.

This flight was going to be before sunrise so I carefully checked weather on all available sources on-line, on the local news, and from the weather channel. I finally called FSS about 30 minutes before I took off. In each case the forecast was for visibility in excess of 10 miles, ceilings around 18,000 and no chance of fog, rain or convective activity along the route.

It was very dark due to the high clouds and no moon but I knew there were plenty of lights on the ground for most of the flight so I wasn't overly concerned. Since I had the XM weather, I zoomed out to see if I could find anything going on.

I started seeing indications of light rain near Waco, (about 100 miles beyond my position at the time). I kept track of it and about 40 minutes into the flight (about an hour before sunrise) I started seeing lots of yellow and red starting to form about 40 miles west of my planned route. It was heading my way so I kept a close eye on it, deviated to the east, and had an uneventful flight.

However, as I was passing 30 miles east of one of my original waypoints, the Groesbeck VOR (GNL), I saw that the heavy rain (yellow to red) was right on top of that area. That happens to be one of the few areas along the route without many ground lights and as dark as it was, I think I'd have had a hard time seeing the weather if not for my Anywhere XM.

I was able to avoid an active thunderstorm (seeing the lightning bolts on the display was a big surprise since there weren't supposed to be any storms) on my first flight with the system in early January. I've been a huge fan of the terrain, obstacle, and airspace information Anywheremap provides since I bought my first subscription in June 2004. I can't tell you how much stress relief the near real time weather information is providing. Thank you for making such a great product available.

Sincerely;

Gary Van Dyke
Angleton, TX

Mike Harbater - Far Rockaway, NY Email me

Anywhere Wx® Helps Save a Life

LifeLine is a volunteer organization manned by 1,500 pilots who donate their time and aircraft to transporting 10,000 critically ill patients a year on a moment's notice. They have flown over 30,000 missions since they were founded in 1978. They are merging with another organization, Angel Flight, this month. These organizations are responsible for saving thousands of lives through the quick and generous actions of member pilots across America.

Mike Harbater was sitting at his desk in the Bronx going through a warehouse inventory list for his construction business. He was a little tired of flying having spent a large part of Sunday on an AirLifeLine mission transporting three children and their chaperone from actor Paul Newman's "Hole In The Woods" camp for children with cancer in upstate New York. They flew to JFK for their flight home to Switzerland. He was, as he describes it, "flown out."

A call came in from Sacramento, California. The LifeLine dispatcher sounded urgent so he put down the list. A liver had been located for a transplant patient who had to be flown to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania for surgery. The window was six hours. Mike was an hour by car from Republic Airport on Long Island where his Cessna Centurion was hangared.

Five hours. A quick glance at weather radar on the Internet showed constellations of storm cells, some organized into large systems, all over the northeast. Heavy rain and storms stretched from the DelMar, Virginia Peninsula to Northern New Jersey and were moving slowly northward. The only chance he had was to get north of the weather before it blocked his path westward. He advised the flight coordinator that there was a pretty good chance that he couldn't safely make the flight but that considering the emergency nature of the patient, he would certainly try.

After accepting the flight assignment, called his wife at their home in Far Rockaway, and then called ahead to the airport to have the plane fueled and ready. The patient would be waiting at the airport.
The weather was miserable. A stationary trough aloft was pumping gobs of moist, unstable Gulf air up the Atlantic Seaboard from deep in Dixie to the far reaches of New England. Daily towering cumulonimbus and embedded thunderstorms had been the rule for a week and there were no signs of change.  Flying through the busy North East corridor even in VFR conditions is a demanding task, and many regional airports were now below minimums. The clock was ticking.

He drove as fast as traffic would allow through the Bronx to the Throggs Neck Bridge glancing nervously at the leaden gray sky above; a hand-held radio tuned to a local weather frequency reported deteriorating conditions. An hour later he pulled into Republic Airport and up to the terminal where a small group of people were standing outside waving him over.

Patient Frank D. who was staying on Long Island, had gotten "The Call" from the transplant coordinator in Pittsburgh, PA. A potential transplantable liver was available and he was finally first on the list. Frank had contracted Hepatitis C while serving a tour of Army duty in Vietnam in 1969. Over the years the disease had slowly destroyed his liver and the now, cirrhotic organ had to be replaced if he was to survive.

Harbater got out of his car and strode quickly into the building heading straight for the terminal to get radar images of the region and reevaluate the flight for Go/No Go. The terminal screen was black, the network was down. Mike owned a portable weather radar system for his aircraft, Anywhere WX, from Control Vision. Out at the plane, he started up, pressed the weather button and 45 seconds later got a current radar picture. The flight was a Go: the mission was ON.

The Centurion took off at 12:28 PM after 24 minutes waiting for a clearance, filed for IFR routing to get around the minefield of storm systems. The route Air Traffic offered didn't look right against the recent radar returns on his Anywhere WX. He requested, and ultimately got cleared to Elmira NY, just south of the Finger Lakes. Multiple requests for NEXRAD through the AnywhereWX system offered definitive, near real-time images that allowed him to pick his way through the cells and towering storm clouds that were hidden in the murk. As they approached Elmira and made their way north around the last active cell, Mike told his passenger that as soon as they cleared this last red blotch on the screen they'd be making a hard left, direct to Pittsburgh; there was no more weather between them and their destination. This was corroborated by Cleveland Center under whose control they were at that time. Harbater also told him that without the AnywhereWX system, they'd still be in New York and this opportunity for survival would have been lost.

For the next three hours, Harbater flew around storm cells with Anywhere WX at 11,000 feet. He couldn't fly any higher; his passenger wasn't in any condition to put on an oxygen mask. The route became a zigzag around thunderstorms and heavy rain cells: scud running for a good cause.

At 2:58 PM local time, the Centurion touched down at Allegheny Airport in Pittsburg. Taxiing in he could see the flashing lights of the waiting ambulance. He came to a stop, shut down the engine and helped his passenger out. At 3:05 PM with 55 minutes left in his transplant "window," Frank was on his way to the University medical center where a waiting transplant team prepped him for surgery. Seven hours later he was stable and recovering with a new liver-and a new life.

"The (Anywhere WX) weather system didn't just help, it saved this guy's life," said a very serious Mike Harbater. "I would never have made it through without it."

Norm Nolde- Peachtree City, GA Email Me

I've been a AWM user for almost 3 years now. Wouldn't be without it. Flew my Citabria all the way to Oshkosh From Peachtree City, GA, and the AWM never let me down. Got to meet all of you there and tell you what a great product you have. My installation is temporary and can be removed in seconds by removing the velcro strips that hold the sleeve that the iPAQ rests in. I get a lot of questions on the AWM at my home airport from recreational and professional pilots. Keep up the good work.

John L Austin - Memphis, TN My Anywhere Map & AI - Email Me

“I have been using Anywhere Map for over two years.  I have found the system to be extremely intuitive, stable, and (most importantly) useful!  Control Vision’s philosophy of continuing improvement and upgrades have reassured me that this is one of the best investments (at a relatively modest price) I have ever made in aviation safety and situational awareness.  The free Checklists program was a great new feature, and the numerous other updates in the program have also been totally without additional charge to database/updates subscribers.  When I thought it “couldn’t get any better than this!”, CV announced their new Attitude Indicator.  I just recently received mine – I was impressed (but not surprised) by the very complete array of accessories that I received so I could easily update CV’s yoke mount with the Sleeve Lock for easy and secure insertion and removal of my iPAQ.  The solid-state AI module appears extremely rugged and well-made, plus it has an automatic, internal battery backup that powers the AI and the Garmin GPS 35 (which was included with my AI).  I had investigated purchase of a panel-mounted electric AI as a backup, but the Anywhere AI gives me much more for a far lower price!

With the Anywhere Map, Anywhere AI, and my handheld transceiver, I now have the ability to aviate, navigate, and communicate completely independent of my aircraft’s electrical system.  Although these devices are only for situational awareness and cross-reference to my plane’s panel, it gives me great peace-of-mind knowing I have a backup system with capabilities that far outstrip my IFR-certified GPS and my panel’s vacuum-driven AI!  Thanks for a quality product!  You can check out my setup on the “Photo Gallery” page of my website.”

Sam Buchanan- Athens, AL My Anywhere Map - Email Me

"Imagine my surprise when I discovered the cool little iPAQ I use for all things schedule-related could also serve as a full-featured, quickly updated, highly competent aviation navigation instrument! Yep, in addition to keeping up with which clients I am supposed to see this afternoon, my iPAQ now serves as the primary navigation device in my VFR RV-6. During the course of many cross-country trips in the speedy RV-6, I have come to appreciate the wealth of features packed into the AnywhereMap software, and the ease with which I can maintain a current nav database. In this age of instant stealth TFR's, it is comforting to know I can have airspace info that is updated daily, and is probably more precise than what the FAA briefers usually provide! The vast airport info and frequency datebase is invaluable, and being able to always find the nearest center and AWOS frequencies contributes to my overall comfort level on trips."

"Details of the AWM/iPAQ installation in my plane can be found on my web site. While there are several means to interface AWM with the plane, I have settled on the reliable Garmin GPS35, and am constantly amazed at the robustness of this receiver."

"But the neatest feature of AnywhereMap is the lack of obsolescence the iPAQ platform provides. Control Vision appears to be dedicated to maintaining its position on the leading edge of affordable navigation instrumentation, and as software updates become available, my AWM system can be as up-to-date as the latest software revision even though my present iPAQ may be a few generations old. Knowing that I won't be forced into buying new hardware with the introduction of every new feature of the software means the AWM architecture represents a fantastic value for those of us who are iPAQ users."

Thanks Control Vision...great product! Flew to Nashville to land at Cornelia Airpark, which is alongside the Tennessee river tucked in behind trees and not visible from as close as 3 miles from the west, but with Anywhere Map and keeping my head up too, it was an uneventful approach… Without Anywhere Map it would have caused some tense moments until I located the small strip. I promise I will still fly with updated sectionals and keep my eyes over the glareshield, but talk about taking a load off! It was also helpful in flying around the Springfield, MO airspace because of transponder problems… Again thanks, I love it! - via e-mail

It seems insane that for approximately $1200 U.S. I get better coverage than what I paid more than ten times the cost for in a certified unit. The IPaq also gives me the convenience of the touch screen, which is so nice to find out the particulars on a navaid or airport in my field of view. Being able to zoom in to the runways on just about any strip in the database is amazing. The MX20 only does that to the larger airports out there. Situational awareness is pretty darn good and the screen is larger than the Garmin 430. - John Megyes

To mount the IPAQ with a Compact Flash Sleeve, I attached the Sleevelock to the yoke mount from which I removed the brackets and screws. I then Velcoed the yoke mount to the NAVBOARD using a strip of industrial strength Velcro. I also added a small piece of Velco to the top of the IPAQ sleeve to prevent the IPAQ from pulling away from the Sleevelock. I could then position the NAVBOARD at any angle on my leg to get the best view of the IPAQ screen and take advantage of the Sun's angle.

The features of the Anywheremap software easily out performed my copilot's Lowrance handheld and the panel mounted Garmin GPS 95 that were available.

Flying through the hazy Midwest and mountainous terrain in Wyoming made the terrain feature invaluable. We had to fly at 2500' through most of the Midwest so having the obstacle data base as well as the terrain altitudes made flying low very comfortable. Also, having the small town names pop up was a valuable tool to have while cross checking the Sectionals.

I look forward to future upgrades that will only make this tool even more valuable. I can now see how the Weather software would be a great addition for cross country flying.

Keep up the good work. - Ed Cole (Past President EAA Chapter 338)

Norm Goyer, Private Pilot - Custom Planes

Returning from Oshkosh on July 28th 2001 we were on our way back home (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) and flew though the tail end of a weather system moving North East of Shelby and Conrad Montana. The storm looked fairly isolated … and we continued forward. As we bounced our way into what we found out later were concentrated CBs topped at 45,000 we first noticed the heading on the MX20 shifting to the right. I was flying and my partner informed me that I should be altering heading to track the MX20. Something did not feel right and my iPaq with [Anywhere Map] software pointed me on course straight ahead. We carried a Lowrance handheld with us as a backup and it was having problems with track, and bounced inaccurate fluctuating ground speed numbers at us. Through all this the old iPaq and Anywhere Map software stayed right on track and steered us safely back home. Hats off to your excellent product! - John Megyes