Approach plates on pocket PC?

Hilton wrote:

I find it highly 'optimistic' that pilot would use a Pocket PC's
instrument chart in flight as their primary which is what most pilot tend
to say; e.g. "I don't always have my paper charts", or "This is cheaper",
etc...

With what are you comparing the use of a palmtop for plate display in your
determination that it is unsafe? A complete lack of plates? Or having all
the necessary paper plates?

Even if the latter, why do you view the palmtop as less safe? Size of the
display? Reliability of the device? Something else?

What would the electronic device need to be/do/have/etc. for you to consider
it at least equally safe as paper?

- Andrew

Andrew wrote:
Hilton wrote:

I find it highly 'optimistic' that pilot would use a Pocket PC's
instrument chart in flight as their primary which is what most pilot
tend
to say; e.g. "I don't always have my paper charts", or "This is
cheaper",
etc...

With what are you comparing the use of a palmtop for plate display in your
determination that it is unsafe? A complete lack of plates? Or having
all
the necessary paper plates?

Even if the latter, why do you view the palmtop as less safe? Size of the
display? Reliability of the device? Something else?

What would the electronic device need to be/do/have/etc. for you to
consider
it at least equally safe as paper?

I just want to be able to see all the information clearly - simple as that.
During an approach, you're looking at the top for the frequencies, at the
bottom for the minimums and missed instructions, also looking at the chart
for step downs, intersections, VOR frequencies, radials etc etc etc.
Basically, I believe that during an approach, a pilot is referencing the
*entire* plate and I have to assume that the added task of scrolling on a
small device while in IMC on an approach is adding an unnecessary
task/distraction.

Hilton

In article ne.com,
Andrew Gideon wrote:
Even if the latter, why do you view the palmtop as less safe? Size of the
display? Reliability of the device? Something else?

What would the electronic device need to be/do/have/etc. for you to consider
it at least equally safe as paper?


The PocketPC is just as "safe" as paper as long as you properly brief
the approach. The PocketPC is legal to use instead of paper.

Now, if you were single-pilot IFR without an autopilot, properly
briefing the approach on the PocketPC would certainly be a challenge, in
my opinion.



JKG

In article .com,
"paul kgyy" wrote:
I'm looking for the ability to just load and read approach plates on my
Ipaq. I know that Control Vision has their Pocket Plates, but with a
Garmin 430 I don't need geo-referencing, etc etc.

Anyone know of simpler setups available? I'd guess there should also
be a way to limit what you load by area or type of approach.


I have tried both PocketPlates and the Seattle Avionics product. Of the
two, PocketPlates is much better on the PocketPC because it displays the
plate in its own "lightweight" viewer--the Seattle Avionics product
relies on Adobe Reader PocketPC to view the plate (seemed like a huge
slug on the iPaq 4705). The PocketPlates update and sync operations
were much, much simpler. You do not have to use the geo-referencing
ability of PocketPlates.



JKG

On 9/8/2005 10:03 PM, Jonathan Goodish wrote the following:
In article .com,
"paul kgyy" wrote:

I'm looking for the ability to just load and read approach plates on my
Ipaq. I know that Control Vision has their Pocket Plates, but with a
Garmin 430 I don't need geo-referencing, etc etc.

Anyone know of simpler setups available? I'd guess there should also
be a way to limit what you load by area or type of approach.



I have tried both PocketPlates and the Seattle Avionics product. Of the
two, PocketPlates is much better on the PocketPC because it displays the
plate in its own "lightweight" viewer--the Seattle Avionics product
relies on Adobe Reader PocketPC to view the plate (seemed like a huge
slug on the iPaq 4705). The PocketPlates update and sync operations
were much, much simpler. You do not have to use the geo-referencing
ability of PocketPlates.



JKG

The speed issue doesn't surprise me. Seattle Avionics uses the MS "dot net"
framework, which is a huge slug. The SA product has been very slow on the two
regular machines I have tried it on as well. Especially in rendering the plates
for printing. IMHO relying on almost anything from Microsoft is a bad design
decision for many reasons, speed and size being the most relevant here.

That being said, I like the fact that there is no ongoing subscription cost.
That was the clincher for me.

In article ,
Mitty wrote:
That being said, I like the fact that there is no ongoing subscription cost.
That was the clincher for me.


That's true, but who knows how long Seattle Avionics is going to be
around? Based on the published bio of its CEO, it sounds like he
basically specializes in starting companies and then selling them.

The SA product DOES, however, let you grab the plate updates from the
FAA instead of the SA server, which is nice.



JKG

On 9/11/2005 7:39 PM, Jonathan Goodish wrote the following:
In article ,
Mitty wrote:

That being said, I like the fact that there is no ongoing subscription cost.
That was the clincher for me.



That's true, but who knows how long Seattle Avionics is going to be
around? Based on the published bio of its CEO, it sounds like he
basically specializes in starting companies and then selling them.

The SA product DOES, however, let you grab the plate updates from the
FAA instead of the SA server, which is nice.

Yes, that was a factor for me. I figured I was safe. But it appears that the
software talks to the mother ship to get some kind of database update before it
actually goes for plates. So that may mean that the thing dies if the mother
ship sinks. I hope to not find out.

Jonathan,

That's true, but who knows how long Seattle Avionics is going to be
around? Based on the published bio of its CEO, it sounds like he
basically specializes in starting companies and then selling them.

The SA product DOES, however, let you grab the plate updates from the
FAA instead of the SA server, which is nice.

Not really. If the FAA changes one character, then the software vendor
(e.g. SA) has to update all their programs or have some way to tell their
program where to find the actual data. It has happened before, and it'll
happen again. Things change a lot more often than you think - a well
designed program hides this from you.

The way we've written the new *free* WingX Browser (Weather Service) for the
Pocket PC is to grab all the data on our server and make it available to the
WingX Browser clients. That way, if anything changes on the 3rd party
server, the worst our pilots will experience is a minor hickup while we
re-direct our code - no updates required by the user, in fact they may never
know anything changed. The key to all this is that you are dependant on
your software vendor. If the company get sold, goes under, etc, your
downloads will stop working sooner or later and you won't get any updates.

Hilton
FYI: By *free* I mean no signup, no registration, no fees, nothing, zippo,
zilch.

In article et,
"Hilton" wrote:
Not really. If the FAA changes one character, then the software vendor
(e.g. SA) has to update all their programs or have some way to tell their
program where to find the actual data. It has happened before, and it'll
happen again. Things change a lot more often than you think - a well
designed program hides this from you.

I disagree. First of all, the optimal way to obtain the updates is from
the SA server, but they are compressed. You can obtain the uncompressed
diagrams from the FAA server. I can't recall whether the SA program
permits you to change the server address, but it would be ideal if it
did.


JKG

Anyone tried the Cheetah product? I know that it's much more than plates,
but I'm wondering how well, on their dedicated hardware, they've done
things like approach plates.

For a while, this was a non-starter for me because of how they retrieved
weather data. But they recently made XM an option, so I'm now considering.

- Andrew