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Electronic flight bags / electronic in-flight data

You could easily run through 100MB in no time when abroad. A few google maps, checking email, and checking a few opening times would easily use that up.

For me, a local sim is the way to go, unless in a country where I can use my 3 Like Home sim.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

I use it differently. I never use Google Maps, becasue I have downloaded maps on my iPhone. So I only use the 100 MB for mail, weather and so on. Larger stuff I only open in hotels, cafes ….

Good grief, there are still people using Vodafone ??? Get a Three contract @ 15 quid/month, gives you unlimited data in UK plus 16 countries. For others in the EU it’s a fiver/day. If that’s too much, perhaps flying little airplanes is not the hobby you should have. Lawn bowling, anyone ?

Other than that, I haven’t been anywhere in recent memory where 3/4G or WiFi were a problem. In or outside the EU / US.

If that MiFi is not a typo I am curious to learn what it stands for.

No, not a typo. MiFi stands for Mobile WiFi and is a box or dongle which receives 3/4G and rebroadcasts it as WiFi. This is the one I have.

The same effect can be achieved by tethering your phone, but the deals are much better.

I have 6Gb data for £15 per month. That means that I can watch movies if I want to.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Thanks for explaining. There’s no end to learning, even outside piloting.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

For years I have used the E585 3G-WIFI modem

and in Croatia and Greece this has been a brilliant method. The main downside is that the AUTO APN feature often fails to work (a common problem in phones too) so you have to login to it and config the APN manually. Also you have to harrass the phone shop to set up the SIM and disable the PIN on it – Dublinpilot and I had a “fun evening” in Corfu getting a couple of these sorted.

Several people can bottom-feed off one of these – same with my Nokia phone running Joikuspot. There are multiple ways to skin this cat, but the E585 (and Timothy’s one) delivers a fully compatible “wifi access point” (not ad-hoc wifi which often fails to work and has e.g. been blocked by MS on windows 8) which works with everything.

Conversely and perversely, many countries simply don’t do PAYG data SIMs. I believe France doesn’t – many people have looked for them. Or not ones which make the slightest sense financially.

The Vodafone Euro Traveller is a great deal for brief travel abroad (and the contract can be as low as £10/month) and it has largely sidestepped the need for all these weird solutions, but they shaft you on foreign SMS (30p each) and foreign calls (£1/min), and they disable VOIP so you have no way to work around those charges – you have to find WIFI, or use a VPN to hide the traffic.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Over the past few years, I’ve been trying to figure out the – for me at least – perfect Electronic Flight Bag setup in terms of device, apps and cockpit setup. Since it’s still a work in progress, I’d like to know how others have incorporated this in their flying activities.

I have for the time being settled on this:

Device:
iPad mini 4 64GB + LTE
iPad Air (first gen.) 64GB + LTE as back-up
15600 mAh charging battery

Apps:
Jeppesen Mobile FD
Jeppesen Mobile FD VFR
AeroWeather Pro
World Radar
Aviation W&B
LogTen Pro
Pilots Atlas
Dropbox (documentation)

Cockpit setup:
RAM X-Grip with suction mount.

Up until two weeks ago, I also had a SkyDemon subscription which I have chosen not to renew.

Curious to know what others use.

Cirrus Perspective with Garmin Flightstream & Samsung Tab S2 w/ Garmin Pilot (have a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 w/ Avare as backup to backup).

Wireless transfer of flight plans and backload of ADS-B and weater onto the Samsung Tab…use the Samsung Note as a hotspot for the Samsung Tab.

Last Edited by USFlyer at 21 Feb 17:01

Ipad Mini 4
JeppFD – primary for plates
Garmin Pilot – backup for plates, used enroute and for ADS-B traffic
ADL-120 for inflight weather
Cessna Apps for W&B, Performance and POH

GDL-39-3D

MFD has plates as a second backup.

Telegram also as quick weather device for phone using autorouter portal.

Last Edited by JasonC at 21 Feb 19:08
EGTK Oxford

iPad Air
Bad Elf pro GPS
Powermonkey battery pack
Trialling Kingston MobileLite for flight plan upload and engine trend download via SD card

Inflight Apps:
Jepp FD for IFR charts + plates
Skydemon for VFR stuff
Goodreader for autrouter briefing packs + manuals

Preflight Apps:
Telegram with autrouter bot
Aeroweather for metars + tafs
Aeroplus weather for some more detail (winds aloft etc.)
CirrusProFlite for detailed performance calcs if needed

Last Edited by Roger at 21 Feb 18:57
EGBB
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