Stratus 2

[GusMcRae]

I tried out a used Stratus 2 last Friday and Sunday.  Not much weather to look at on Friday, but had more than my fair share to see on the iPad Sunday.  Instrument departure and landings both going and coming back.  No AWOS at destination airport, but I'm guessing the ceilings were around 500'.  Return trip descended through a layer that lasted from about 8000' all the way down to again about 500'.  AWOS back at home was reporting 1200' last I checked, but there's no way it was 1200' by the time I got down. 
Experienced a lot of roughness after flying so long in moisture, using carb heat, may have fouled my plugs a little during all of that. 
Was satisfied enough with the Stratus 2 to buy it for $500.  There's still a slight delay in what you're seeing on the map and what is happening in real time, but it does help in shooting a gap when you need to, confirming what ATC is telling you in regard to seeing the weaker gaps, and seeing all the traffic on the map is kind of cool too (although practically all of them were 20,000' higher than my cruising altitude.

For some reason, I was thinking that the Stratus gives you a wifi hotspot for any application needing a connection.  If so, I don't have all of the settings set properly.  Foreflight is the only thing that it worked for.  The stratus wifi does show up on my iPhone, it just didn't seem to do anything for my phone (foreflight is not on my phone, only on the iPad).  Just for grins I tried checking e-mail in the air, etc...  No worky.

I did read in the manual that there is an app called stratus horizons for backup attitude, heading, and reference system.  But I didn't have it loaded on either mobile device to check it out. 

Here's a pic between layers at 9,000'.