Same opinion here. The WX500 served me very well and I am excited to find out how much more/less the RDR2000 will deliver.
Sebastian I have sent you an inquiry regarding the WiFi interface. I’d like to put one of your boxes in my plane too.
>There is something wrong with your WX500/MFD as it should display a good bearing and a rough distance that will err on being too close to your position
I find exactly that. The bearing is pretty accurate. The distance can vary and yes it does tend to depict them a lot closer than they are.
> Personally I fly with on board radar, datalink and the WX500. The WX500 is the least usefull comparmed to the other equipment. Ours will not display correctly the range and bearing. Bascially it will tell me there are thunderstorms somewhere around but not much more.
There is something wrong with your WX500/MFD as it should display a good bearing and a rough distance that will err on being too close to your position. Here in the SE US, there are daily thunderstorms and avoidance capability is critical. In most single engine aircraft, onboard radar systems are next to useless because they lack the power and antenna size to penetrate storms and can lead one into a bad cell because of attenuation. It is often a different matter on a twin where an onboard radar is the only tool I would trust for tactical use. Both Nexrad and Stormscope are not well suited for picking your way thru closely spaced convective activity. Nexrad because of the time delay and the Stormscope because of its distance accuracy. The nice characteristic is that with both Nexrad and a Stormscope, some weather can be safely penetrated as one can determine if the Nexrad display is convective or not by observing the Stormscope. Also, the Stormscope does not have as much delay in the presentation and when the activity is convective, it is often easy to see where the storm is located now. I have multiple sources for Nexrad on my aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza. I have only one source for the Stormscope. If I had to choose only one, based on my experience, I would choose the Stormscope. If I only had Nexrad, I would keep a wider berth from the weather, particularly if I couldn’t use my eyeballs to spot it.
Thanks Sebastian, that sums it up correctly I think.
So if you accept my feedback. It would be great to have a clip on system like the Dynon to install the small Screen it in an existing instrument hole without screws. The whole power data feed could go through a single connector a la mini XLR or similar…
And last but not least having an Android version would be great …compatible with some existing solutions on the European market…
> Flight plan transfer
Yes we have to distinguish two things. First there is sending flight plan data into a GPS device. For the GNS boxes this can only be done using the secret cross fill protocoll.
But then there is the Aviation Data RS232 format. This is data which comes from the panel mount device and is used to drive other equipment like MFD etc. The data is simply broadcast on a RS232 line by the GPS in a format which is well documented in the installation manuals. Very important, contrary to the cross fill there is no return line. So there is no way to somehow disturb the GNS box with any kind of data.
> certification ADL110/120
For EASA planes you can buy a minor change. This does not exist for N-reg. So all equipment must be removable without tools by the pilot. But as Peter wrote you can have a connector somewhere in the plane. The Garmin 695 for example accepts the same RS232 data and not beeing certified can also be interfaced, if it is done by a connector, to the GNS boxes.
Besides that the flight plan transfer is only one small feature so the pilot has not to enter the flight plan on the ADL110 trouch screen or the iPad again. There are plenty of great map displaying MFD solutions on the market so this is not the primary focus. The thing these devices are about is affordable datalink weather.
mhmhm…well the cigar lighter socket doesn’t sent data to an EHSI for GPSS roll steering….;)
I agree that if the panel mount unit’s STC does not include connecting its data output to Product X, then Product X can’t be legally connected – without additional certification work.
But does anybody care if you bring the RS232 output out on some connector in the panel, and then “temporarily” connect handheld stuff to that?
I reckon this debate is in the same ballpark as plugging stuff into the cigar lighter socket. That is illegal too because the only thing certified to be plugged into the cigar lighter socket is the [cigar lighter itself](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Car_cigarette_lighter.jpg) 
Well I think misunderstood FROM the GPS..a KLN90B has no means to inject or cross-fill. But outputs waypoint Flight Plan Data. I doubt you can connect a panel mount GPS to the ADL under the current FAA rules..even with a field approval…
This is digressing but I don’t think there is any panel mounted GPS on which flight plan transfer is openly documented, let alone possible.
On the GNS boxes it is clearly possible via the crossfill interface – see the Voiceflight thread here for example. Voiceflight reverse engineered it.
But there appear to be complications even with that, which for some reason require the flight plan generation device to have the same version (same AIRAC cycle) database as the GPS. My speculation is that this is because the GNS is doing an exact string match on some waypoint lat/long coordinates which are expressed as e.g. N45.65656565 E1.543754889 and in the following cycle the number might be slightly different due to the variability in the IEEE floating point calculations. I don’t think there is any device where you can just squirt in a normal waypoint list.
Flightplan transfer from panel mounted GPS “as advertised”..;-)
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