Is there any portable EFIS presentation which displays IAS or TAS? How would one implement it? You would need airdata in the aircraft (which most GA does not have) and then broadcast it over wifi or bluetooth.
I’ve been looking for an SV product too; it seems Foreflight is currently the best – e.g. here.
Peter wrote:
Is there any portable EFIS presentation which displays IAS or TAS?
The ilevil 3 AW link I believe will do this and has been around for a bit. You do need to hook up to pitot and static though.
I think as mentioned before the flightstreams will output that information to garmin pilot or foreflight.
How many pilots will die in a stall/spin accident just because they looked only at their toy and thought they are well above stall speed but in reality they just had 20kt tailwind ?!?
Short answer: none in the years that tens of thousands of pilots have been using GP and similar depiction of ground speed on devices like the Dynon D2.
But… if there really is a “pilot” somewhere who is so utterly incompetent, so ignorant of the user’s manuals for his equipment, so oblivious to the sound and feel of his machine, so incapable of setting power and attitude for desired performance that he can’t fly perfectly safely without a direct air speed indication, one might conclude that the human race as a whole would be better without him or his progeny. 
P.S. NO. RTFM!!! Flightstream 210 provides attitude to an iPad via Connext; it does not provide airdata.
The joys of all the gear and no idea…
In the relatively unlikely event that both g5’s fail, I cant see anything out of the window and need to fly a syn vis approach near the stall speed I had better remember to look at the mechanical ASI and question how I got myself into such a situation.
Jacko wrote:
But… if there really is a “pilot” somewhere who is so utterly incompetent, so ignorant of the user’s manuals for his equipment, so oblivious to the sound and feel of his machine, so incapable of setting power and attitude for desired performance that he can’t fly perfectly safely without a direct air speed indication, one might conclude that the human race as a whole would be better without him or his progeny.
It’s for others to judge if the human race would do better without me – and I’m obviously getting old.
However, when I learned instrument flying – back in those old days when pilots obviously were generally incompetent in your opinion – one of the key things I learned was, that unreliable instrument readings are actually even worse than clearly ionop instruments. For that reason, in the good old times I (and all the other incompetent IFR pilots I knew) always had a bunch of white stickers in my flight bag to stick them over any instrument that might show wrong information.
And by the way I don’t find your argument particularly compelling: If someone who can not fly with wrong indications is incompetent, oblivious, etc. and should not be part of the human race, why would any competent, observant and rightful member of the human race need something like a D2 or a fake iPad PFD at all?
Malibuflyer wrote:
why would any competent, observant and rightful member of the human race need something like a D2 or a fake iPad PFD at all?
Quality of life improvement or convenience.
Much as one shouldn’t need an autopilot to fly any long route in IMC It would certainly make it easier.
Going back to your bold statement that it literally is a killer, can you point out any fatal accident where the issue was someone using an synthetic vision / AH tablet item where the information was groundspeed rather than IAS?
why would any competent, observant and rightful member of the human race need something like a D2 or a fake iPad PFD at all?
Because they provide attitude information which supplements other instruments in the event of failure of a vacuum AI. Particularly useful in the event of incipient failure. If our “fake” iPad tells a different story to that of the kosher AI, we can quickly see that something is wrong and mask the offender.
As for the GS tape, which is what you object to, I find that it’s actually quite useful for off-airport ops where there is no windsock.
I’ve often practised pitot failure, but only once had it occur for real in flight, about 20 hours post-PPL. A duly licensed technician had installed the pitot heater element in such a way as to melt the Cessna’s plastic pitot hose). Anyway, I promise you, it’s no big deal to fly without an ASI.
As to whether the ground speed tape on Garmin Pilot could be confused for air speed – well, it is clearly marked “GS”, so if anyone thinks that stands for Air Speed, they clearly have special needs.
Jacko wrote:
Because they provide attitude information which supplements other instruments in the event of failure of a vacuum AI.
How often do you train “iPad flying” under real IMC situations?
Yes, if properly done (including an iPad which is integrated in the panel) it might be an additional lifeline for planes that really have only minimal IFR instrumentation (i.e. no second AI but rather a TC). Many people, however, have their iPad on the knee or even worse the yoke. I bet that with such a configuration you will pull your plane into stall or a deadly spiral faster than without any AI.
Jacko wrote:
well, it is clearly marked “GS”, so if anyone thinks that stands for Air Speed, they really should go back to primary school.
My experience is that in emergency situations one of the last things you realize is Texts on instruments. Visual impression is much more important than text. That is exactly the reason that stall speeds on airspeed indicators are marked with white and green arcs. Yes, you could obviously leave out the marks and and just write the stall speed somewhere as text on the dial – and you could even print that stall speed in mph (as long as the unit of measure is added) on a kt-airspeed indicator as you learned in primary school that this is not the same – it only doesn’t help in an emergency!
Off_Field wrote:
can you point out any fatal accident where the issue was someone using an synthetic vision / AH tablet item where the information was groundspeed rather than IAS?
Can you point to any proven situation where these toys actually saved a life? That should be much easier because people survive.
There are several accidents where people flew into IMC w/o proper IFR-Equipment and died. Most of these people these days had such tablet toys with them. As you can’t interview dead people, you will never be able too prove that the decision to fly into IMC despite the missing proper instrumentation was influenced by the availability of such toys – but it’s highly likely in these cases.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Can you point to any proven situation where these toys actually saved a life?
I’m not sure why I need to find an example of anything. I’ve not said that these are a literal life saver. Your statement was that “It literally is a killer !” and all I was doing as asking for evidence to back this statement up. I’ve tried to have a bit of a look to find such a case, but haven’t found anything. I’m interested to know if there actually is one.
How often do you train “iPad flying” under real IMC situations?
That’s not what it’s for – as explicitly stated in the Garmin Pilot manual. But for the few poor souls who still rely on a vacuum AI, it may help early recognition/diagnosis of all too frequent partial failure.
I do agree that the syn viz page on GP is a poor inadequate substitute for the real thing.
I also agree that the useful place for an iPad is in the panel or other fixed grip in primary field of view. Thus mounted, I find that it adds situational awareness in all flight conditions but it is emphatically not a primary PFD.
My experience is that in emergency situations one of the last things you realize is Texts on instruments.
Well, OK, but in an ideal world we might note which instrument or screen indicates what data (i.e. air speed or GPS ground speed) before taking off, rather than waiting until we have some unspecified in-flight emergency to deal with before looking at the screen(s). I’m only a simple farmer, but I don’t think it’s super complicated:
Panel dial shows air speed.
Portable iDevice shows ground speed (when it’s working).
Panel PFD probably shows both.
