Peter wrote:
The consumer tablets are too unreliable. They crash, or just do weird unexpected things
Maybe, but you still have the glass (MGL, dynon, garmin, whatever) with integrated GPS, you are not totally lost if SD suddenly stop working. My point was simply that in a modern (VFR) cockpit, this new garmin device is not needed for anything. It adds nothing of value that isn’t already there unless there is something very revolutionary about it. In an old cockpit things are different of course.
Purely anecdotal, but I was told that Garmin switched from aviation-grade to more readily available consumer technology when the touchscreen Aera 500 and 795/796 were brought to market. Look at the styling of the 795 – it certainly looks and feels different to earlier Garmin devices.
Just to let you know that the Garmin Aera 660 Pilot’s Guide is now available for download from Garmin’s support website.
The GPS isn’t shipping yet.
I wonder if anyone is having the difficulties I have with updating this unit.
I have managed to update the device software to V2,50
I cannot get any other updates to work. Using either flygarmin for windows or the older plugin for IE I get the same problem.
The software cannot find the Aera 660.
I have tried and tried, with the unit in either the normal mode or the mode where I can see the device in File Manager (it appears as Garmin aera)
Any clues anyone. I have been on this for 4 hours now, I’ve updated USB drivers, Ive added the web site to the trusted zone, and I even found a test page for the old connector plug in that found the device and said all was OK, but when I went back to actually load an update it cannot find the device
Try connecting the 660 to your WiFi and using the Downloads page.
The 660 is a new device…I have the jaundiced impression that you are probably part of Garmin’s extended beta testing programme. (Been there, done that. I now try to let new tech settle down in the market for a while before rushing to buy one.)
Because of pressure from competition in a very fast moving market many of the tech operator have to operate on the basis of Design, Manufacture, Release, Test. (Doing all the testing first just means they are behind the competition with released products and by then they may have missed the boat… or the plane!)
I have in the past phoned the Garmin support line and they were helpful. That was a while ago mind you.
Good luck
Howard
p.s. I have a Aera 795 that has had its difficulties in the past. It’s great most of the time. I bet the 660 is too.
I cracked the problem, and it was all my fault.
You have to register the device on flygarmin.com in order to get the downloads. I had omitted one digit when I typed in the number from the device screen.
A call to garmin support fixed it.
I have not tried the unit out in the air yet. I am hoping the airspace depiction is as smart as it claims. On the ground it shows airspace at all levels, making the screen almost totally covered with lines. I really only want to see airspace that affects me, and in a Super Cub at 1000 ft I don’t care whats going on 10,000 ft above me. Maybe theres a setting but I cannot find it.
Anyway, the readability is fantastic, so far so good
If it’s like the 795 you can change the map settings to show airspace up to a defined level only, and not the stuff above that. You can also define the level of detail (roads, rivers etc) that you want to see / remove to declutter the screen.
Howard wrote:
Because of pressure from competition in a very fast moving market many of the tech operator have to operate on the basis of Design, Manufacture, Release, Test. (Doing all the testing first just means they are behind the competition with released products and by then they may have missed the boat… or the plane!)
Once upon a time, when Ericsson was a major brand in the mobile phone business, I was told by a developer that if there were too few customer complaints about bugs in a phone, then the development group would be criticised by corporate management for having spent too much time on testing — time that could have been used to bring the phone to the market earlier.
@Airbourne_Again – That’s very interesting. Management books regarding the tech industry talk about this practice at some length and of course it makes sense. It’s no use having worked hard to design and test the world’s best boat if by the time it is finished the tide has gone out and all the guys selling inferior sloppy rafts have sold all their stock to the customers that might otherwise have bought your product.
The pace of change is incredible. I just bought a 200Gb microUsb chip for £80. It’s smaller than my fingernail and it has a 200Gb capacity and I have plugged it into the side of my Mac to act as an extension to the main storage. A few years ago no one would have thought this kind of capacity in such a small form factor was possible…and in the meantime the phone manufacturers are trying to keep us happy with 3Gb or so of internal memory in their devices. Hmmm. I see some change happening there.
