An app, that would transform the iPad into an MFD / moving map display, with weather downloaded through 3G internet and overlayed, would be excellent for private stuff.
I can also see it getting very messy and distracting as well if the iPad isn’t exactly doing what you want it to do. Someone mentioned industry standard. That goes for the ergonomics and human interface as well. The iPad wasn’t designed around the ergonomics and human interface requirements of a cockpit.
Yeah…iPads will never takeoff in the cockpit….just a “fashion” accessory….yeah real pilots use old expensive panel mounted tech….sheesh!
Yes, and real pilots fly airways and NDB approaches, this new fangled GPS thing and “free routing” cannot possibly work 8-)
Human interface requirements – the iPad beats the GNS430 by light years :-)
Apples with Oranges….Who said an iPad replaces an IFR approved navigator?? The ipad (or chose your favourite tablet) replaces the MFD
The user interface design has nothing to do with “an approved IFR navigator” IMO.
The user interface design has nothing to do with “an approved IFR navigator” IMO.
AFAIK that’s only partially true, unfortunately. The dreadful 3 bit color palette (magenta line) is a tribute to very early symbol generators that could only turn red, green and blue on and off. But it’s so entrenched now that there are questions about it in the IFR exams. I guess everyone who tries to deviate from it will have a hard time.
Furthermore, AC20-138 directly mandates the pilot cannot fix database errors, as it mandates what information must be presented when.
The user interface design has nothing to do with “an approved IFR navigator” IMO.
Many aspects of the TSO C146 GPS user interface are specified in the TSO, or more correctly by reference to RTCA DO-229C/D.
Yeah…iPads will never takeoff in the cockpit….just a “fashion” accessory….yeah real pilots use old expensive panel mounted tech….sheesh!
Straw man argument.
If most of “you” (and that includes me) sat in front of a Collins Proline (Citation jet or bigger, for example) for a week, you would be doing well to work out 50% of it – and that assumes you already know a lot about advanced GA avionics, autopilot modes, etc.
So, why do professional pilots love the Collins Proline?
Because it does the job and does it very well.
If you developed an Ipad app which emulates it, the sales would be zero, zilch, nada. It would not be sexy. You would probably sell more if you emulated the panel in the Apollo lunar module – it would sell on novelty value.
There is nothing wrong with the magenta line stuff, or its colours.
The main reason why tablet apps are so much more feature-rich is because Jeppesen own the database business and the panel mount vendors have close deals with them. For example it is widely believed that Garmin and Avidyne are paid by Jepp for displaying Jepp data on their panel mounts; this in turn keeps Jepp database prices high and ensures the panel mount vendors are not going to offer alternative databases. Also Jepp offers a legal backstop – same reason the UK CAA uses Ordnance Survey data for their VFR charts and pays through the nose for an image of the UK showing, ahem, where the trees, roads, railways and towns are!
Another reason is that anybody who can knock up an Ipad app which runs for more than 5 minutes before it crashes and avoids certain things (a specified level of nudity, accessing undocumented APIs i.e. a lot of “really useful functionality”, etc) will get the app into the Apple app shop. There is no conceivable liability because it is widely accepted that nobody with a brain will use an Ipad app for non-VFR stuff, and nobody flying VFR can possibly fly into the ground, can they?
The panel mount certification process makes it very hard to put in nice features. For example we have waited so many years for any sensible means of flight plan entry, because any certified interface needs to include the device which will be connected to it (well, at least the software running on it e.g. the Flight Plan Migrator which picks up ex Flitestar routepacks – there are other ways today). One could argue the requirement is over the top because one could implement perfectly adequate error checking in the panel mounted box, so maybe the cert process is a statement of opinion that most of today’s programmers are incapable of writing the few pages of the required bug-free code.
Garmin have killed the competition pretty well (and purchased / shut down some e.g. Apollo) which enabled them to treat the GNS boxes as great cash cows. They could have easily put airway entry and the whole of the current and really sexy IFD540 predictive flight plan entry into the original GNS430. But why should they? No competition.
Back to the topic, is there anywhere a list of which parameters available to the GPS are visible over bluetooth? For example, Landing fuel on board?
