There are also a lot of Cessna 182s with S-TEC so that's the next low hanging fruit. Eventually they will need their own servos which are trivial to develop but hard to get certified for all airplanes.
They have the STC for the 182s now with Aspen.
The IFD440 doesn't look like a game changer to me. It looks like a clone of the GNS430 while Garmin have already moved to the next level.
I think that is a little harsh. It seems more like the GTN650 with with an Entegra R9 skin and some more FMS-like features. Of course the problem is Garmin can choose to update the GTNs to match.
There is a large user base of S-TEC 55X equipped Cirrus aircraft out there (almost 5000) and the DFC90 is a great improvement at a reasonable cost.
Unfortunately if you fit a DFC90 into an aircraft with STEC servos, then according to STEC, they won't service the servos even if they are out of warranty and you are paying them for it.
It's a good question how they will know, but there is some document route which will reveal it. The avionics shop that fills in the return paperwork will generally fill in the part number of the autopilot computer on the repair request so S-TEC will find out at that point. The only way around it would be for the avionics shop to collude with you 
So Avidyne will have to take over servicing of the STEC servos too.
It is a smart move for Avidyne to make their own King-pattern servos because those are far better mechanically than STEC's. They are rubbish electronically but assuming Avidyne do a google on "KFC225" they will have read the foregoing URL and won't make the obvious mistakes.
Unfortunately if you fit a DFC90 into an aircraft with STEC servos, then according to STEC, they won't service the servos even if they are out of warranty and you are paying them for it.
Well let's just hope I don't have a servo failure until Avidyne are done!
Hello all
I am looking at http://www.thuraya.com/products/voice/thuraya-xt-hotspot which on the face of it ticks the boxes for a wireless connection, it is quite a new product has anyone used one?
The intention is to work with the IPAD , I am very happy with the app I have which is sky-map.de and various german friends use this but with Gloabalstar and a tablet hard wired PC tablet which I want to avoid and use the IPAD.
The radar download is very quick and on 3G with a not very good signal takes a couple of seconds and can get all TAFS and METARS from the same programme.
My main concern is now to choose the right Sat Phone, Wireless Router combination.
Sounds like everybody is at it
A while ago, when I was playing with Thuraya phones, the XT model had not yet come out. When it did come out, I tried to get one on loan for testing but couldn't get one.
IMHO, the usability of a WIFI AP like this - for anything but very narrow applications like text messaging and accessing minimalistic websites - will hang entirely on the data rate, and here Thuraya scores massively, with its ~50kbits/sec "GPRS" service, compared with Iridium's 2.4k.
50k is actually usable. Well, not for e.g. sony.com 
but for anything practical.
In my tests with the earlier GPRS-capable Thuraya phones I found reliability issues on GPRS, so I can't comment from experience. I guess they must have fixed it by now otherwise this product would be a waste of time.
If this works it would be great because you could get wx etc in the air, with the Apple IOS products, with which it is currently virtually impossible.
How much does the Thuraya XT hotspot cost?
http://www.globaltelesat.co.uk/satphone/Thuraya-XT-Wi-Fi-Hotspot.html
£320 + vat
However I ordered today despite it maybe being to slow an irridium wireless point as i can try out with a mates iridium first with an additional aerial at at least rule it out before investing in the Thuraya handset etc.
It may be a week before get to try it but will let you know results good or bad ( I suspect Peter will say stand by for bad)
http://www.globaltelesat.co.uk/satphone/Thuraya-XT-Wi-Fi-Hotspot.html £320 + vat
It may be a week before get to try it but will let you know results good or bad ( I suspect Peter will say stand by for bad)
I'd be very glad to hear that it does actually work.
I did get Thuraya's GPRS running in the cockpit and the performance was great. The stripped down meteox.com images were coming down in just a few seconds. The cost was $5/MB which was vastly cheaper than the $1/minute I am currently paying on the 9.6k Thuraya dial-up internet.
Much as I like gadgets I hate having cables everywhere, and a simple solution whereby the satphone just sits there, velcroed near a window, with the WIFI AP running, is ideal because the various client devices "should just work" (famous last words in IT).
I spent ages trying to achieve a "neat" solution using the Thuraya dial-up, even to the extent of getting an Iridium/Thuraya rooftop antenna fitted, but in the end had to give up because the 7100 phone turned out to have a serious defect: sometimes it would not hang up, so by the time you landed you would have blown your entire prepaid balance. On GPRS, not hanging up is not an issue because you pay only for data actually downloaded.
What would be really interesting is how (or if) Thuraya or indeed Iridium too have addressed the other huge operating cost related issue: software auto-updates on the client device causing mega sized downloads. You can disable auto updates on Windoze easily enough, but doing the same on other apps can be much less obvious. How many know where to disable Java auto updates? The first time that one bites you, it will take about $100 off your bank account (it is in Control Panel / Java). On IOS devices, the continual "chat with the head office" cannot be disabled, short of a jailbreak and even then it is in serious hacker territory.
As I wrote before, WIFI access points which use satphones have been around for some time (for the gin palace boat community) and all of them have specially configurable firewalls to block stuff like auto-updates. But what is the difference between say Firefox going to firefox.com for a genuine reason, using HTTP, and Firefox going to firefox.com to download a 15MB update ($75 to you), using HTTP?
software auto-updates on the client device causing mega sized downloads. You can disable auto updates on Windoze easily enough, but doing the same on other apps can be much less obvious. How many know where to disable Java auto updates?
Ah, you are so 2010 What is Windows and why would I need it? All there should be is an iOS/Android tablet and at least iOS can be taught to not do things in the background.
