"Hilton" wrote in message
news

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.


The key point that makes it acceptable to me are that I can view a readable
screen with the full plan view and profile view of the procedure, which also
contains the missed approach procedure. No manipulation is required during
the approach. I have to pan and scroll only during the approach briefing to
extract information (frequencies, minima, TDZE, etc.) from the portions of
the chart that are outside that window.

That is no more a distraction and compromise of safety than digging around
in the flight bag for the approach plates that were not planned for use,
finding the right one, etc. Plus I will always have current charts. Again,
the context of this discussion has been having current, readily accessible,
TPP information available for use when diverting to unplanned airports,
without having to own, maintain, and carry a bunch of printed charts. I
plan to download and print current charts for the primary and alternate
airports for each trip.

It is an individual judgement. I made my initial judgement by actually
holding the pda in my hands, accessing the software, experimenting with it
to determine the readablility under the required zoom factor, and how it
worked procedurally for an approach briefing. With the software I used for
the experiment, I found it acceptable. My evaluation was made against my
background of in-flight use of the PDA, having used the AnyWhereMap product
for two or three years. The PDA is yoke mounted, so the viewing distance is
not large, and it is well-positioned in my scan.

As I said in earlier posts, the final evaluation will be made with the final
software, in flight. I plan to go through the whole process: accessing the
desired procedure, briefing the approach, and flying the approach. It
remains to be seen how the pan/scroll/zoom features of the SmartPlates for
PocketPC product work out, relative to those of the Adobe Reader for
PocketPC that I used for the preliminary evaluation.

Stan