Stan Prevost wrote:

Peter wrote:

Is the screen size and resolution on a PDA enough to view an approach
plate?

The problem is that one needs to be able to see the whole plate, I
think, not just one bit of it.


Peter, that was part of the earlier discussions.

For normal use, you need a tablet PC or something like that so that you
can
have a full-chart presentation that is very readable. This discussion was
about use as a backup only so that you can have current charts for an
unplanned destination without carrying around and updating a large set of
charts. For that usage, you can tolerate some inconvenience as long as
safety is not compromised.

How can safety not be compromised when you have to pan and scroll on the
approach? I develop aviation software for the Pocket PC (W&B, FARs, route
planning etc), and a significant amount of development time goes into
usability. I considered adding approach charts and decided that flying an
approach in the clouds using a PDA increased the risk level to a point to
which I was not comfortable. Did I miss out on some revenue? Sure.
However, I am a firm believer in safety, and I cannot believe that flying an
approach using a PDA does not compromise safety.

That's just my opinion.


I determined for myself, by experiment, that the PDA display is adequate
for
the intended usage. I am able to brief the approach by panning and
scrolling, make some notes of frequencies, minima and such on my
kneeboard,
and then position the view so that the plan view and profile view are on
the
screen. The readability is good enough for that, and the info outside
that
view I extract during the approach briefing. It is not like looking
through
a soda straw as you might expect, and as I thought it might be. My
experiment was at my desk, and I intend to repeat it in the air before
fully
commiting to this approach.

Hilton