On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 23:29:06 -0400, Jonathan Goodish wrote:

Your non-essential weather didn't require $30k worth of avionics, or a
glass cockpit. All it required was a $2k or less investment in portable
technology.

More, there are advantages to portable technology.

The first, and most obvious, is the freedom from the certification process
for built-in avionics. This has two direct consequences: more advanced
technology and a lower price.

A second advantage is the ease with which one upgrades. A purchase at
Oshkosh, a sale on Ebay, and the upgrade is complete.

A third is the independent power supply on portable devices.

A forth is related to upgrading: the ease with which a device is fixed.
Instead of taking the aircraft to the local avionics shop, the device is
packed and shipped for repair.

There are also disadvantages to portable technology. The largest is the
limited "space" for these portable devices combined with the need for
cabling. Bluetooth, or any other wireless communication, helps. But
until we can move power wirelessly - or have significantly enhanced
batteries - we're still be dealing with some cables.

Devices like RAM Mounts may help address this; I've yet to try this
approach. But from what I've read, it could be a good way to eliminate
this disadvantage.

In some cases, the utility of the technology is limited by the lack of
certification. The only example of which I can think for this is WAAS,
but there may be others I'm missing. Will there be portable ADS-B devices?

- Andrew