Forget the screen and go right to heads up. Superimposed or imaged onto your
sunglasses or whatever. Biggest problem with PDA's is the touch screen
thing - I like big round knobs that have solid clicks I can turn with my big
mitts. I hate poking (and squinting) at the iPaq, not very clever in my
opinion. Better yet with buttons on the stick and flap handle.

Best audio ever is the three-chord tone from an SB-8; Ilec should bring that
back for the -10 - it's like angels from Heaven in a climb.

Jim


"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
...

"Gary Boggs" wrote in message
...
I can't wait until the day when our entire panel will be a screen all
with
the other instruments, and info just superimposed on the moving map that
will be landstat photos of what we are seeing out the canopy.


Essentially, this could be done now. These 12V computer systems are the
same as the most powerful laptops and come with the same array of I/O
ports
like USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394. They can use hard drives or Flash Memory
virtual drives to make them more rugged. A single 7.5 AH SLA battery
would
power the thing for more than 6 hours.

You would use an "Air Data" sensor that measures pitot/static pressure,air
temp and TE probe pressure. Add a USB GPS engine and you have all you
need.
From this, compute and display IAS, TAS, Altitude, Vario (TE, Average,
Netto
etc.) - use vertical tape displays if you prefer. Of course, the glide
computer with the moving map would be in the center of the display.
Updating the panel would become a matter of just updating the software.

The display could be a thin, daylight readable LCD that hinges down over
the
existing panel containing the old round instruments. If the newfangled
computer goes belly up, just lift the screen up to reveal the old panel.

Bill Daniels