The battery drain seems to occur having location enabled, but with a paired GPS this seems to be moderated/eliminated
In my experience the iPad battery life (3-4 Hrs) is pretty nominal with the GPS enabled. It’s the daily mission length and need for at least 25% battery remaining for landing that are the issue.
It’s interesting about saving battery by using external GPS but I’m not keen on the additional complexity, small though it is.
Regarding internal iPad GPS performance, I have never suffered an outage but occasionally see momentary sqiggly track lines. Ther 430 does something similar, but not so often.
I don’t much like to fly with a tablet relying on battery power. Mine is powered by the plane at all times when in use and I don’t typically need to charge it otherwise when on a trip. The spare is charged to 100% before starting the trip. Both are only occasionally shut down.
For the DIYs amongst us 
Perusing LAA’s magazine back issues, I’ve found this article which describes how to make a cheap and seemingly effective cooling cradle/mount for your favorite iPad.
The Chinese post delivered a couple of those “magnetic radiators” courtesy of Alibaba the other day… though I haven’t done any trial yet, will probably swop my tired X-Naut cradle and try building one according the article.
I have two iPad mini 4, Garmin glo and gns2000 external GPS and a charged usb power pack and modern android and iphones
Bring it on
Dan wrote:
For the DIYs amongst usPerusing LAA’s magazine back issues, I’ve found this article which describes how to make a cheap and seemingly effective cooling cradle/mount for your favorite iPad.
The Chinese post delivered a couple of those “magnetic radiators” courtesy of Alibaba the other day… though I haven’t done any trial yet, will probably swop my tired X-Naut cradle and try building one according the article.Taming_iPad_Ts_pdf
Let us know how it goes, Dan!
Does anybody look out of the window these days?🙂
Hi everyone,
I am not sure if I am missing something, but find it surprising that pilots seem to continue being fixated on using iPads when it seems that the “shutdown in flight” scenario is a constant worry. It’s a lovely piece of kit (I have one too) but I wonder it it is just a bit too fancy, clever and high-powered for its own good in this particular setting.
About a year ago, on a whim I bought a little Lenovo 7" tablet. It was so cheap (under 90 Euros) that I figured I could just take the chance and see how it would work out. So far, it’s been unbeatable:
- It has never overheated and shut down, even on the hottest days in full sunlight, and without any special ventilation. It sits right in the centre of the panel, on top.
- The built-in GPS has – so far – never lost signal.
- The battery life seems to be around 10 hours – inflight charging is therefore hardly ever necessary. In fact I now tend to use if for several flights in a row without bothering to charge. When I do need to charge it, the cigarette lighter charger does just fine in flight.
- As an added bonus, visibility in full sunlight is unexpectedly good.
I run both Sky Demon and XC Soar on it (sometimes concurrently, depending on my mission profile – I fly a motorglider, so I might be touring or I might be thermalling with the engine off). And just to clarify, I live in central Spain where it gets plenty hot in summer, and sit under a giant big bubble canopy in full sunlight.
I guess this was a lucky choice. My only explanation is that possibly a lower-powered tablet like this may be less prone to overheating, short battery life etc, as it’s just not working very hard. These apps don’t seem to be hugely resource-hungry, so this basic tablet handles them without any problems. (To be fair, I have not used ForeFlight – so can´t comment on that). Additionally, this unit came with a light blue (kind of ugly) rubbery protective back cover which I suspect might help by insulating it from direct sunlight.
When touring, I carry my iPad pro with its bigger screen in my bag in case I want to look up approach charts, live weather etc, which is admittedly a bit fiddly on the small screen.
All in all, it’s been a very good solution for my needs. Your mileage may vary :-)
I agree 200%.
I have tried to make my 12 year old Samsung T705 shut down, totally without success. And it runs all relevant software (it would probably run EVFR or SD but not 64 bit versions) except Foreflight which currently I use for a few things including running the UK charts. For that I got the Ipad 5 mini, but that shuts down anytime there is sunlight on it. I guess Apple’s POV is that people prefer to eat their quarterpounder, regular fries and strawberry shake in the shade 
What, year 2000-something, why is this sh*it accepted?
Fortunately, for IFR one needs any kind of tablet much less (when enroute), and anyway FF usually tells me it cannot load the approach plate because last time it got a chance to update was last week. A brain-dead design. It should display plates for at least a month or two. Instead it blocks them if a new AIRAC cycle is out which is completely dumb. You literally must have the Ipad on charge 24/7, with FF running, on wifi, and take it off charge when you go to fly. Then repeat this in the hotel, every day…
So I fly with printed (Jepp) plates. But still no good solution for unplanned diversions.
I used SkyDemon for VFR & IFR, works OK with AIPs (I do NOT use Jepp at all), including geo-referencing.
Two Android devices, all good.
