Ohhh goody, PDA software price wars!

Forget the screen and go right to heads up. Superimposed or imaged onto your
sunglasses or whatever. Biggest problem with PDA's is the touch screen
thing - I like big round knobs that have solid clicks I can turn with my big
mitts. I hate poking (and squinting) at the iPaq, not very clever in my
opinion. Better yet with buttons on the stick and flap handle.

Best audio ever is the three-chord tone from an SB-8; Ilec should bring that
back for the -10 - it's like angels from Heaven in a climb.

Jim


"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all
with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.


Essentially, this could be done now. These 12V computer systems are the
same as the most powerful laptops and come with the same array of I/O
ports
like USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394. They can use hard drives or Flash Memory
virtual drives to make them more rugged. A single 7.5 AH SLA battery
would
power the thing for more than 6 hours.

You would use an "Air Data" sensor that measures pitot/static pressure,air
temp and TE probe pressure. Add a USB GPS engine and you have all you
need.
From this, compute and display IAS, TAS, Altitude, Vario (TE, Average,
Netto
etc.) - use vertical tape displays if you prefer. Of course, the glide
computer with the moving map would be in the center of the display.
Updating the panel would become a matter of just updating the software.

The display could be a thin, daylight readable LCD that hinges down over
the
existing panel containing the old round instruments. If the newfangled
computer goes belly up, just lift the screen up to reveal the old panel.

Bill Daniels

"Jim Phoenix" wrote in message
...
Snip-------

Better yet with buttons on the stick and flap handle.

Snip------

Jim

Cool idea - buttons on stick and flap handle. Limited vocabulary voice
commands would work too.

Bill Daniels



"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all
with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map
that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.


Essentially, this could be done now. These 12V computer systems are the
same as the most powerful laptops and come with the same array of I/O
ports
like USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394. They can use hard drives or Flash Memory
virtual drives to make them more rugged. A single 7.5 AH SLA battery
would
power the thing for more than 6 hours.

You would use an "Air Data" sensor that measures pitot/static
pressure,air
temp and TE probe pressure. Add a USB GPS engine and you have all you
need.
From this, compute and display IAS, TAS, Altitude, Vario (TE, Average,
Netto
etc.) - use vertical tape displays if you prefer. Of course, the glide
computer with the moving map would be in the center of the display.
Updating the panel would become a matter of just updating the software.

The display could be a thin, daylight readable LCD that hinges down over
the
existing panel containing the old round instruments. If the newfangled
computer goes belly up, just lift the screen up to reveal the old panel.

Bill Daniels

Cool idea - buttons on stick and flap handle. Limited vocabulary voice
commands would work too.

Bill Daniels

And when it heard certain words, it could activate the robot arm to mop your
brow with a cool cloth, whisper calming sounds into your ear, and drop a
valium into your drink, 8-0

Keith

Bill Daniels wrote:
...
Limited vocabulary voice commands would work too.
...

Only for english speaking pilots with the proper (i.e. probably american) accent.
Definetely not for me. Anyway I hate to have to speak to a machine.

"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Bill Daniels wrote:
...
Limited vocabulary voice commands would work too.
...

Only for english speaking pilots with the proper (i.e. probably american)
accent.
Definetely not for me. Anyway I hate to have to speak to a machine.

Spot on! Now add differing wind noise, audio vario tones and the fact that
your radio might break squelch at just the wrong moment and voice controlled
instruments are a long way off technologically.

Ian

"tango4" wrote in message
...

"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Bill Daniels wrote:
...
Limited vocabulary voice commands would work too.
...

Only for english speaking pilots with the proper (i.e. probably
american)
accent.
Definetely not for me. Anyway I hate to have to speak to a machine.

Spot on! Now add differing wind noise, audio vario tones and the fact that
your radio might break squelch at just the wrong moment and voice
controlled
instruments are a long way off technologically.

Ian


Come on, guys, it's the 21st century already - this stuff works. Robert,
computers aren't American or any other nationality, they can speak French
too - really. (Actually, they speak Japanese best. Ever thought about the
problem of putting 6000+ Kanji characters on a keyboard?)

Using voice input with my cell phone to control a remote computer works even
when driving a car with the radio on and the windows open. Voice input has
come a long way in the last three years. Wind noise, accent, vario audio
even radio background can be dealt with very successfully.

If you are really worried that it won't work in a critical situation, just
have a backup input method like a button or switch that does the same thing
the voice command does.

Anyway, Ian, why is your cockpit so noisy? Mine is so quiet that I have to
set the vario and radio volumes no higher than 2 -5% or they blow me out of
the cockpit.

Bill Daniels

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...


Anyway, Ian, why is your cockpit so noisy? Mine is so quiet that I have
to
set the vario and radio volumes no higher than 2 -5% or they blow me out
of
the cockpit.

Bill Daniels


Usually because I've got the damned turbo running to keep me out of some
field.

:-)

My cellphones ' voice control can't keep up with the changes in my voice and
in the car it gets confused regularly.

Ian

Bill Daniels wrote:

"tango4" wrote in message
...
Come on, guys, it's the 21st century already - this stuff works. Robert,
computers aren't American or any other nationality, they can speak French
too - really.

Yes, I know that from a long time ago. I was working from 1968 to 1985 in
the University of Orsay, were we had a pioneer team working on speech synthesis and
recognition. What I doubt is that commercially available systems would be
speaking French, as the market of French is a very small one. This is not
a technical problem but an economical one.

Robert Ehrlich wrote:

Bill Daniels wrote:
...
Limited vocabulary voice commands would work too.
...

Only for english speaking pilots with the proper (i.e. probably american)
accent. Definetely not for me. Anyway I hate to have to speak to a
machine.

Just out of curiosity, have any other Brits here tried to use the American
Airlines automatic system to confirm a flight reservation?

Last time I did it heard "Miami to Chicago" as "New York to San Francisco".
Weird.
--
Soar the big sky
The real name on the left is richard