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Need physical charts if you have GPS/app with them on?

However, I would never fly trusting iPad, or 430, or any other gizmo alone. I always carry paper charts, and draw lines on them. Just in case.

Interested on why you think this. What failure mode are you worried about?

Database error?

I agree on having my plog in paper form and carry paper enroute charts (current but as we all know old would also be fine in practice) more for ease of reviewing the overall picture. I also bring the iPad with copies of the plates as sometimes easier looking for other airports etc on that rather than the MFD. But with dual Garmins and dual alternators, the only way I lose both Garmins is a complete electrical failure involving losing the battery and both alternators. If I lose all electrics, how am I going to fly an approach? Can't see how a paper chart will help me.

EGTK Oxford

Failure of the device - it's only a computer.

I am on my 2nd Ipad in 1.5 years. My GF is on her 2nd Iphone4 in 2 years. These things are nicely built (for consumer electronics) and withstand a fair bit of kicking about but are not 100% reliable. Pop into your local Apple shop and look at the broken stuff people are bringing in. Last time I was there, the chap before me in the "Genius Bar" queue, carrying a dead Imac said he will never buy another Apple product. I am sure the corresponding queue at the local "IBM PC shop" (if there was one) would be bigger, but that's not the point.

Actually I reckon Apple stuff is better built than most, and on par with the best in that market, and is more software-reliable than most due to the various limitations (especially IOS devices which are pretty well locked down) but nothing is going to be 100%.

Also, on a more obscure note, having say two Ipads running the same software is also not all that great, because it is hardly unknown for a particular PDF to contain something which crashes the PDF reader, and it will just crash both if they are used to show the same page (e.g. an approach plate). I fairly regularly find PDFs which don't display, due to corruption or perhaps containing a feature not yet supported by the reader.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Well yes I accept iPads are not the most robust items. But in my example, dual 650s. Dual alternators. If both Garmins fail, how do I fly an approach. Only real means is an iPad with GPS.

EGTK Oxford

GPSs are good, and so is the software, but I was flying with someone once who was using a GPS thing on the iPad and it shut down because of overheat... (By chance I was looking at a paper map for some reason when it shut down, so we were able to navigate without too much bother)

It did bring things home as I'd never heard a sphincter pulse before :D

EDHS, Germany

VFR sure, but IFR in IMC I don't see having multiple charts as actually doing much other than making you feel better.

EGTK Oxford

However, I would never fly trusting iPad, or 430, or any other gizmo alone. I always carry paper charts, and draw lines on them. Just in case.

Interested on why you think this. What failure mode are you worried about?

SE aeroplane mostly VFR.

430: One episode of "Memory card failure" which was unrecoverable. Several of lost satellites up to 10 mins, once over Bay of Biscay where there is no printed chart of military airspace. Also alleged problem of internal battery expiry > 10yrs coming any time soon. Several episodes of alternator failure causing it to be switched off. In flight unavailability : about 1 hour in every 250 hrs.

iPad / SkyDemon: Numerous uncommanded shutdowns. One episode of crashing and demanding SD password, locking it out completely. Several episodes of battery flat due to previous evening flight planning, power staying on overnight. (due to SD 'feature' of keeping power on even if unit is stationary). Loss of satellite similar rate to 430 (internal GPS) of about 5 mins in every 10 hours. Overall in flight unavailability: about 1 hour in every 20 hours.

Note that the iPad / SD figure is driven by the quality of the application software and that the hardware / operating system reliability is already far better than many items of 'professional' kit, meaning that the situation can improve. iPad / Foreflight is already far better (in my experience) than these figures suggest with zero misbehaviours in the 20 hours I've flown it.

EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom

Interested on why you think this. What failure mode are you worried about?

I can concur with some of the things mentioned by Aveling, I have experienced temporary loss of Satelite connectivity somewhere along the coast of Wales for about 10 minutes (we had to power it off / on again).

My main reasoning would be complete loss of satelite connectivity. In the UK there have been NOTAM'd satelite jamming exercises. What it if it wasnt a jamming exercise and it was for real? Maybe one wouldnt want to be poodling around in a GA aircraft should something so serious as a for-real jamming was occuring.

VFR sure, but IFR in IMC I don't see having multiple charts as actually doing much other than making you feel better.

True, even if you had paper charts, it wont really help you in a cloud, but if one is using the VOR in the GPS mode, one has to hope that flicking it over to VLOC mode that you are in range of the base station. Maybe you can descend and use visial features to locate where you are.

That said, there is a natural element of 'just wanting to feel' better.

PiperArcher

No issue with worries about GPS failure of course that is possible although very unlikely. But my point is that, with the more modern integrated dual GPS Nav/Coms, it is very unlikely both fail. If the GPS side fails on both, you can still of course fly the enroute and approach if you can navigate with VORs/NDBs and make an approach using ground based aids.

But I think that unit failure is the most likely problem which is helped dramatically by redundancy. To my original point, if both units fully fail I don't have any other way to track a VOR or fly an ILS. And because if that happens the most likely reason would be a complete electrical failure, my ADF would also be out.

My comments are of course directed towards IFR in IMC. If I am visual I should be able to recover from losing a GPS nav system otherwise I am not doing my job properly.

If I was planning to fly around VFR using an Ipad etc I completely agree having backups would be a good idea including always knowing where you are in case you have to go back to navigation by reference to ground features.

EGTK Oxford

I think that if you have an electrical/systems failure big enough to take out all your IFR navigation and landing capability, then you are having a seriously bad day and your Plan B has to be a handheld radio and calling up ATC for vectors to get back down, using what in the UK is called an SRA.

I don't know how many airports around Europe can offer an SRA because I have never seen them published. Obviously they can vector you down to their MVA, but that is essentially the local MSA and may not be low enough.

I bought an Icom handheld radio immediately upon getting a radio failure during a solo circuit in my PPL training.

One could fly a nonprecision approach to an airport using a handheld GPS but it might be a good idea to tell them first using that handheld radio.

A total loss of electrics is far from unlikely - even in some twins where there is a single point of failure somewhere behind the Master switch

And a total loss of GPS is possible, due to interference/jamming etc.

What is hugely improbable is a total loss of electrics and a total loss of GPS due to interference/jamming.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

It is actually an interesting reason for having a ground clearance switch in that should there be a problem at the master switch area, you could use ground clearance to get a single GPS/NAV/COM running off the battery.

EGTK Oxford
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