Peter wrote:
I am not sure we can establish why Avidyne failed.
It’s obviously always difficult to point out one single reason. My personal experience being in the market for such a solution at that time (and finally decided for Garmin) and the experience of many people I talked to at that time is, however, clearly based on Avidyne reputation and the big question on how long such an investment would be usable.
At that time, the company was in a really bad shape. Their popular line of EX500 MFDs had massive problems – the original ZIP-Drives (who does remember) they used for updates where out of lifecycle and they struggled to switch to USB drives. The windows (2000) version they used as a platform struggled to handle the growing database sizes as did the compact flash card that was integrated into the device. Situation was unclear for pretty long time and customer support did not really help. That alone was creating much noise because the EX500 at these days was the only non-CRT display option for many WX-radars.
The IFD line of navigators have been vaporware for quite some time and the release date was frequently pushed further into the future.
To cut a long story short: If BendixKing would offer such a receiver these days. How many people would spend 20k+ on it and drill holes for it in their plane?
The airlines use mostly land based stations for their on board WiFi (except when over the Atlantic or similar). It would be simpler just to tap into that network. In Norway we have Ice.net with 4g on 450 MHz. Perfect for boats, road and GA, but don’t know exactly how high up it goes
Peter wrote:
I thought the MLX770 contained an Iridium modem. What happened to customers who installed it shortly before this happened?
airways wrote:
It still works.
You’re right @Peter. I was confusing the MLB700 and the MLX700. The MLB700 was for the Americas market and used the Sirius WSI InFlight service that was killed at the end of 2017 leaving it as simply a way to get Sirius music. The MLX700 was for the international market and does indeed use the Iridium network. Avidyne may still support both, but they have disappeared from the product line and there is nothing to be found on any non sign-in areas of their web sites.
First Starlink airborne receiver installation?
While waiting for my Starlink kit to arrive, I thought about opening this thread, in case someone managed to make it work in flight…
Based on Starlink FCC application, The Commission has granted a blanket license for operation of up to one million end-user customer Earth stations [dish antennas]. SpaceX Services seeks a blanket license authorizing operation of such end-user earth stations for deployment as Vehicle-Mounted Earth Stations (“VMESs”), Earth Stations on Vessels (“ESVs”), and Earth Stations Aboard Aircraft (“ESAAs”) (collectively, Earth Stations in Motion (“ESIMs”)),” SpaceX wrote in the FCC filing
As far as I understand, the antenna is too large for our purposes currently. But yes, I hope that it will work out at some point in future.
What does the aircraft antenna look like?
I hope that we can find a way to get internet into our cockpits in a reliable way. It will open up many new services and businesses. If anyone has some spare billions lying about…
I did a google but could not find info on this antenna.
You can get internet in various ways, and have been able to for years. Here is an old writeup and the Thuraya option should still work. But you won’t get megabit speeds on the cheap. There are bizjet systems (and have been for years) but 5 digits +
Google ‘starlink receiver’’ rather than antenna and switch to image view of the results.
Not suitable for ga. I also think it needs to be aligned so not suitable for a moving vehicle.
It’s a circular phased array antenna dish with a diameter of 59cm. You would probably need some kind of radome hump on the turtledeck:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
Also, there is geofencing:
https://spaceexplored.com/2021/11/03/starlink-geofencing/
I assume it has to do with the amount of satelites, they have 1500 and plans for 40 000 (!)
But since it’s so obvious, I’m sure there will be a mobile solution some time in the future.
I predict a major impact – just imagine, instead of ADS-B and all the issues with too many signals at the same time, you could simply send your position to the internet. Or use text based ATC or internet based communication instead of analog radio.
My (future) plane is made almost entirely of carbon fiber, so the elevator receives a glass fiber “window” for the antennas – no way I could fit that thing anywhere.
For now I’m thinking along the lines of a mobile hot spot with a small external antenna – but you can’t mount that to the outside for certification reasons as far as I understand.
