NineThreeKilo wrote:..... I'm not sure what you mean about panel mounted WAAS GPSs and auto pilots becoming obsolete, a GNS shoots an LPV or ILS just the same as a GTN, if your autopilot can fly the GPS and also has vnav, I'm not sure how that's going to become obsolete, user interfaces change to get folks to buy new crap, but the meat and potatoes remain the same. ....

All that's required to make avionics obsolete is for the mfr to quit supporting it. That IFR GPS won't be worth squat for flying GPS without a current database. Pray to God that Garmin never goes belly up, or gets greedy and starts a "planned obsolescence" program.

Mark Y. wrote:...The ipad would have my vote as the best thing to come to general aviation in the last decade.

I would disagree. IMHO GPS itself was the best thing to come along, at least as far as navigation is concerned. Even the first-gen GPS's, with bearing / track / speed info only, were worlds ahead of VOR's & NDB's for actual point-to-point VFR navigating. The moving map versions were just an evolution of using GPS, as is the tablet. Other than GPS navigation, I feel that most tablet functions fall into the "gizmo" category, and are nothing that you can't do with paper: sectional checklists, flight planning, etc.

hotrod180 wrote:

Mark Y. wrote:...The ipad would have my vote as the best thing to come to general aviation in the last decade.

I would disagree. IMHO GPS itself was the best thing to come along, at least as far as navigation is concerned. Even the first-gen GPS's, with bearing / track / speed info only, were worlds ahead of VOR's & NDB's for actual point-to-point VFR navigating. The moving map versions were just an evolution of using GPS, as is the tablet. Other than GPS navigation, I feel that most tablet functions fall into the "gizmo" category, and are nothing that you can't do with paper: sectional checklists, flight planning, etc.

+1 for GPS over the iPad.
The iPad would be nothing more than a digitized sectional and fancy E6B without GPS.

GPS came into fairly widespread general aviation use about 25 years ago, way more than a decade. The track bar gps's in the early 1990's I believe ran about $5000 plus. too much for most owners to buy back then, probably the equivalent to $10K now with inflation. The actual invention of gps is another story, like going back even further and saying the gps would be nothing without the invention of an electrical system on an airplane.

Ipads came out in the last decade and are less than $800 and have way more functionality. Well within the means of owner pilots and renter pilots. My point was I believe the ipad expanded into widespread use by pilots faster than any other aviation used device in the past.

hotrod180 wrote:
All that's required to make avionics obsolete is for the mfr to quit supporting it. That IFR GPS won't be worth squat for flying GPS without a current database. Pray to God that Garmin never goes belly up, or gets greedy and starts a "planned obsolescence" program.

Jepp is the one who makes the nav data for garmin boxes, and as long as folks are willing to pay they'll keep putting data out, frankly I doubt it costs much money to make the same data avalabile in a few possibly slightly different formats, they still support some really old boxes, not too worried especially for the GNS 430s and 530s, tons out there and many people willing for fork over money for database updates.

Hammer wrote:Maybe I've had lemons, but my iPads have been way, Way, WAY to glitchy to ever trust my life to them. I'd never consider flying IFR with one as primary, legal or not. I wont even use one as my primary chart while IFR...no paper, no fly.

It's not certified either, but I trust my Garmin 696 10:1 over my ipad and ForeFlight. That Garmin was built to do one thing and one thing only, while the iPad was built to do ten million different things, some of which do not work and play well together.

An iPad with ForeFlight is a great tool, but it's NOT safety-of-life equipment.

Just my experience.

X2 Hammer. I've have yet to own an Apple product that lasts me a year. I'll stick to my android phone(can be glitch too I know) and my garmin 796.

A1Skinner wrote:

Hammer wrote:Maybe I've had lemons, but my iPads have been way, Way, WAY to glitchy to ever trust my life to them. I'd never consider flying IFR with one as primary, legal or not. I wont even use one as my primary chart while IFR...no paper, no fly.

It's not certified either, but I trust my Garmin 696 10:1 over my ipad and ForeFlight. That Garmin was built to do one thing and one thing only, while the iPad was built to do ten million different things, some of which do not work and play well together.

An iPad with ForeFlight is a great tool, but it's NOT safety-of-life equipment.

Just my experience.

X2 Hammer. I've have yet to own an Apple product that lasts me a year. I'll stick to my android phone(can be glitch too I know) and my garmin 796.

Yep… I have a few flavors of iPads. Each with Foreflight and various other sundries. Pack my charts, check my Wx, file a flight plan, or surf the web on the road… you betcha…
Use one as a primary navaid, or to shoot approaches with?… Ya… maybe if every other navaid in the airplane was tuned into something, locked and loaded, ready to roll….

Call me a weenie, but I have no interest in betting the farm on something that I can watch a kid blow a gasket on the second it fails… (which is fairly regularly) Itoys are exceptionally cool, and provide EASY situational awareness, that's a far cry from guaranteed situational awareness. How may seconds will you last in the soup when the magic smoke escapes?

Take care, Rob

Hammer wrote:Maybe I've had lemons, but my iPads have been way, Way, WAY to glitchy to ever trust my life to them. I'd never consider flying IFR with one as primary, legal or not. ....An iPad with ForeFlight is a great tool, but it's NOT safety-of-life equipment....

This brings to mind that I heard on the TV news recently that the latest version to the iOS is prone to locking up. Just saw an example of that yesterday. Not what I want happening in-flight.

Mark Y. wrote:GPS came into fairly widespread general aviation use about 25 years ago, way more than a decade. The track bar gps's in the early 1990's I believe ran about $5000 plus...

I missed that "last decade" part. But I think GPS made more of an impact than ipads have, for me anyway. I started flying in 1995, affordable handheld GPS's were just starting to come on then. I bought my first one (Garmin Pilot 3) in 1998, I think it cost about $600. I flew with that for about 10 years. Upgraded to a Garmin 196 in 2008, which I still have mounted in my 180, in spite of getting an android tablet a few months ago.

Bagarre wrote: +1 for GPS over the iPad.
The iPad would be nothing more than a digitized sectional and fancy E6B without GPS.

I agree. The 196 can navigate me anywhere the tablet can, and the other stuff on the tablet (AF/D, sectional, etc) is available on paper. I will admit that the availability of real-time weather via tablet can be a pretty big deal, esp on trips. However, depending on wireless internet access can be pretty iffy out in the boonies, so to some degree this falls into the "gadget" or novelty category.

I've had 2 iPad 2's for well over 5 years. They are still dead reliable. I'll take foreflight any day of the week and twice on sunday over any portable gps. Of course it's not a primary nav instrument for ifr (or even for vfr) - but these days it's still pretty indispensable - and WAY better than a clunnky gps.

My Garmin 396 is a part of my body. The XM started having trouble in 2010. I got a new antenna and reset the system and all that jazz and it still didn't work right. Then just last week the entire GPS went on the fritz. It does about 10% of its features and the plane is facing the wrong way like it's "tracking through China" I've never seen anything like it. But luckily I had my iPhone with me with ForeFlight. In summary I'm a Garmin man and an iPhone man. It's nice to have back ups. They all suck but are also mind blowing little devices that will take you all over the freaking place .

I think part of the draw to iPad/FF is how intuitive the interface is. I have a panel mounted 296. It took me about 70 hours of flying before I even cared to start trying to figure the 296 out beyond the "direct to" function. My iPad/FF is just too easy to operate and manipulate. The 296 is still a great tool, though. It just took more learning than the iPad.

Heck, my niece used to call us from her mom's iPhone when she was 4 or so. Ridiculously easy to operate.

wyomingiswindy wrote:My Garmin 396 is a part of my body. The XM started having trouble in 2010. I got a new antenna and reset the system and all that jazz and it still didn't work right. Then just last week the entire GPS went on the fritz. It does about 10% of its features and the plane is facing the wrong way like it's "tracking through China" I've never seen anything like it. But luckily I had my iPhone with me with ForeFlight. In summary I'm a Garmin man and an iPhone man. It's nice to have back ups. They all suck but are also mind blowing little devices that will take you all over the freaking place .

Hahaha... That actually made me laugh. I'm with you though, I just use both.

"The iPad would be nothing more than a digitized sectional and fancy E6B without GPS"

Yep, but it DOES have a GPS, and it's brilliant. I've used nothing but an early iPad and iPhone running Airnav Pro around 5 years now, wouldn't be without out it and touch wood, not one issue as yet. They're just so convenient and easy to use

I guess that I must be an Apple "Fanboy" but I like them. As far as them being nothing but a digitized sectional without GPS, how does the Garmin differ? Without GPS they all are nothing but a boat anchor with loaded databases. I don't fly IFR so my needs are different, but I'm not willing to worship at the alter of Garmin or Jepsen. I think their devices are obscenely overpriced for what they are, annual upgrades/subscriptions included. There was a comment on the thread on Ameri-King transponders about "Chinese chips". I'd be curious to look inside the range of certified aviation electronics and would be at least mildly surprised if all components were of US manufacture.

I made a short flight to Vermont the other day to meet friends for lunch. We had a wet snowstorm a couple days before departure and my static port line froze up after we climbed up to altitude and I lost altimeter, asi and vsi. My iPad gave me all the attitude data I needed and kept me out of Burlington's airspace on the way to MVL. I realized that between looking at the display for nav and attitude data I missed out on all the scenery.

I've only had one iPad, a first version Air, and just got my first cell-u-lar tel-E-phone ever with the last two months, an iPhone 6S. Both have performed flawlessly. I did get caught by the iOS upgrade that prevented the handshake for GPS data to Forelight, my fault for not waiting to verify functionality of the upgrade. Won't happen again. iPads can be difficult to see and will overheat (not had that issue yet) in direct sunlight but beyond that my experience has been flawless. I worked on submarine navigation equipment back in the days of Mk2, Mod1 SINS and WRN-5 NavSat receivers (that should be familiar to QMDV), both were less accurate and less reliable than an iPad and we still got where we needed to go in the hardest possible "IFR". For those of you who routinely fly hard IFR consider this, the Navy is now training those with navigation responsibilities to navigate and stay proficient using hand held sextants to be prepared for enemy hacks on the GPS array of satellites or a large scale EMP pulse strike. That should give you pause!

If I flew hard IFR I'd probably feel different but while I have no experience with Jepsen, I find Garmin no more accurate and not appreciably more reliable than my experience with Apple products. I often think of what Lindberg would have given for an iPhone. I'm probably too blue-collar in my roots, but I'm not impressed by overpriced electronics as a status statement. If your flying requires them for safety, or you have enough money that you want to buy them just because you want to buy them, you should buy them. If I logged a lot of business miles or needed to fly hard IFR, I'd feel differently but I'm looking forward to going back to nav by paper charts and pilotage to help me to better enjoy the real reasons I fly, the challenges and the view.

YMMV

Frank

While this may be thread drift and no one asked me, my favorite panel shown on this site is Rob56's. Leave out the iPad and it's what Lindberg flew on his flight to Paris; through hard IFR, and icing, at night, in May, over the ocean, behind a J-5 Whirlwind, with rudimentary charts, exhausted, to an airport he'd never seen, on a continent he'd never been to. Think about that the next time you're getting your Bad-Ass Air-Man swagger on. Reminds me of a saying the old salts used to have when I reported to my first submarine: "Used to be wooden ships and iron men, now it's HY-80 (steel) and ...." If you figure out that last word, don't use it around the women folk or during polite dinner conversation.

To you folks up in The Great Land, if I had a hat on I'd doff it in recognition to your proud heritage as well.

Lindbergh did have a fancy compass though.

Frank

iPads and iPhones are great tools and can be very accurate. I plan to use one a lot in my new bird.

However, I noticed some people mention that they used their iPads next to other equipment and the iPad performed as good or better. Just because you use it once and it works amazingly, doesn't mean it will always work.

I use an iPhone and iPad all the time for just about everything. Most of the time they work well, but every now and then something goes wrong. I have worked quite a bit with computers and operating systems, and because I have, I don't trust an iPad with my life.

The iOS that is used is a general operating system which allows work with the many programs and hardware available. Thats great for a general use tablet, but not for a dedicated navigational device. This means that OS is susceptible to bugs that may have nothing to do with navigation.

The bottom line is that the tablet and smart phones SO FAR are not reliable enough. Its fine to use a tablet, but make sure its NOT your primary.

Anyway, thats my two cents. Most of you may already know all this, but I figured it might help those with little experience with aviation or computers.

The number of bugs in a system is directly proportional to the number of lines of code in that system.
That's been proven time and time again.

Think about that the next time you download Angry Birds into your Navigation device.

ShadowAviator wrote:iPads and iPhones are great tools and can be very accurate. I plan to use one a lot in my new bird.

However, I noticed some people mention that they used their iPads next to other equipment and the iPad performed as good or better. Just because you use it once and it works amazingly, doesn't mean it will always work.

I use an iPhone and iPad all the time for just about everything. Most of the time they work well, but every now and then something goes wrong. I have worked quite a bit with computers and operating systems, and because I have, I don't trust an iPad with my life.

The iOS that is used is a general operating system which allows work with the many programs and hardware available. Thats great for a general use tablet, but not for a dedicated navigational device. This means that OS is susceptible to bugs that may have nothing to do with navigation.

The bottom line is that the tablet and smart phones SO FAR are not reliable enough. Its fine to use a tablet, but make sure its NOT your primary.

Anyway, thats my two cents. Most of you may already know all this, but I figured it might help those with little experience with aviation or computers.

X2, that has been my experience as well.

I flew my ol 210 backnforth to AK a couple of times, Has a 430, 696, and foreflight on the Ipad mini, used the ipad almost full time, 696 for music and weather, 430 for the com!!
Had both the 430 & 696 drop off a couple of times each for a few minutes, Ipad had 1 hicup while I plugged the power cable back in!!