Can anyone give a pirep on one of these - http://ifly.adventurepilot.com/HOME.aspx. I've seen one of the older 700 units but have never used one in flight. They are about half the price of a Garmin and seem to have a hell of a lot of neat features for the money. I just downloaded the manual and read through it and I'll have to admit it's got me interested. I've been using a Garmin 296 for the past three years and am thinking of replacing it but the new Aera's are pricey.

Silvaire,

You may want to compare this with the new iPad mini. they are roughly the same size and with foreflight, garmin pilot, or wingx you will have all of the features you have with the ifly. In addition the accessories for ipad are outpacing the accessories for ifly. the iPad mini will be cheaper too. iFly is a great unit from what I can see but for $750 you can get the mini, plus external gps an abs-b.

dplunkt wrote: iFly is a great unit from what I can see but for $750 you can get the mini, plus external gps an abs-b.

You can also email your girlfriend or surf BCP with the Mini.

For myself, having a "girlfriend" would be about as safe as smuggling drugs out of Turkey so I better pass on that option.

I did look at the mini's a couple of weeks ago and they are nice but for the Champ and soon to be operational Luscombe space is at a premium. In fact one of the things that got me looking at the iFly was because I see Airgizmos has a panel dock for it now and I'd really prefer to have something panel mounted rather than on a suction or tube clamp mount. I like having the 296 mounted in the panel with no connections to fuss with.

I have never however been too keen on using sectionals for the moving map display because it seems to me that sectional charts are what they are because they are purposely designed to be printed on a paper map so all of the information is present all of the time and that results in clutter (especially on a 7 inch display) it's something that is unnecessary on an electronic display. I noticed that the iFly and I suppose the ipad too, has a vector map selection that I guess is similar to what the Garmin's use. A map that will just display the course info, airports, navaids and airspace boundaries, the detailed information for each being called up as needed.

But, like I said, I haven't flown with one so I can't really say if it's an issue. I need to play around with them and I will give the ipad mini a closer look.

NO INTERNAL POWER SUPPLY! At least on the Ifly700. I had to build up a battery pack with an Odyssey battery in an ammo can with some cigarette lighter receptacles.

Maybe your airplanes have an electrical system?

EB

We enjoy our iFly 720. It is a good bang for the buck Very user friendly, about 1/2 - 1/3 what a Garmin is! They have a good suction mount that works good. We take it in the Citabria. We've also been transferring it to the Maule, that way co-pilot Lora Lee can monitor it even though the Maule is full IFR capable without the iFly. I like the fact it has all the private airports on it also, which the Garmin 430 doesn't. They also have good customer support.

silvaire wrote:But, like I said, I haven't flown with one so I can't really say if it's an issue. I need to play around with them and I will give the ipad mini a closer look.

Silvaire, if you ever get to S30 in Lebanon, OR, stop in at the FBO and I'll let you take and iFly 720 for a demo flight in YOUR airplane. For VFR use, you can't beat an iFly. You'll be using it out of the box in 15 min without ever reading the manual!

Thanks for the offer, I have a friend who has a 700. I think the main difference is that the 720 has a better screen (as well as added features) but I should be able to get a goo idea from it.

I'm trying to tabulate the bottom line on these rivals as far as end cost goes if you want weather. For Garmin you need to pay the XM subscription. For the 720 you need to buy some sort of ADS-B thing but no subscription cost. iPad maybe either way, I don't know.

Personally I think I'm going to hold off until the Luscombe is airborne. May as well catch the technology at it's prime, it's so hard to keep up with.