ITRA ActivePanel NAVSTACK

Hello,

does anybody have experience with this unit? It seems to be cheap, compared
to the "live-display" avionic stack available from Elite.

Thanks in advance for answers.

Kai

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IMO the driver software is as important as the hardware and maybe more
important than the price, depending on what you want to do.

I'm not familiar with either product per-se, but I do have the Precision
Flight Controls avionics stack which is a pricey item (about $2000 I
believe, although I got mine used). The driver is written by Pete
Dowson, who also wrote and maintains a number of other extremely useful
FS2004 utilities such as FSUIPC.DLL. Between that and the PFC.DLL driver
for my stack, I can program any knob or button to do anything that is
supported in FS2004, as well as generate keystrokes for control of other
add-ons (e.g. RealityXP's Garmin 530 add-on, or any other add-on that
can be controlled by keyboard commands). To my knowledge the Elite
driver cannot do this, unless they've added this in the last few months.

Also, as a real-world pilot, I continue to be amazed at how even the
basic COM/NAV/ADF/DME/autopilot functionality in my stack emulates
what's found in many GA airplanes (e.g. Bendix-King avionics). For
instance - on the NAV side, I can select either a standby frequency OR a
digital display of the VOR radial that I'm on - very similar to a KX155
B-K radio.

In my experience over the last two or three years with this hardware,
the driver has been 100% glitch-free, which not even FS2004 can boast
about.

In sum, be sure to get some opinions on how well the drivers for either
the ITRA or Elite products are written, both in terms of features AND
stability/bug count, before sinking US$1000 or more into the stack. The
fact that the ITRA stack is almost unknown in the US (I would not know
of it had I not picked up the printed Aerosoft brochure at the September
Avsim conference in Denver) makes me a little nervous. But - if it works
well, it would definitely be the most value-priced "full stack" (as
opposed to building something up using GoFlight panels) that is
available.

cheers,

Dave Blevins

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:52:51 +0100, "Kai Glaesner"
wrote:

Hello,

does anybody have experience with this unit? It seems to be cheap, compared
to the "live-display" avionic stack available from Elite.

Thanks in advance for answers.

Kai