5" PNA & APIC

It's thanks to this group that I bought a PNA and loaded it with a
moving map. The Garmin IQue and APIC combination has been a great boon
cross-country despite the well known problems with bright sunlight and
small text on screen.
And now I have ordered a chinese 5 inch PNA for the same purpose.
The question: is there a more comprehensive software offering to load
that would be suitable for powered flight?
Something that depicts airfields well, that needs no setup...

Thanks for any clues...

Brian W

On Jun 29, 3:32*pm, brian whatcott wrote:
It's thanks to this group that I bought a PNA and loaded it with a
moving map. The Garmin IQue and APIC combination has been a great boon
cross-country despite the well known problems with bright sunlight and
small text on screen.
And now I have ordered a chinese 5 inch PNA for the same purpose.
The question: * is there a more comprehensive software offering to load
that would be suitable for powered flight?
Something that depicts airfields well, that needs no setup...

Thanks for any clues...

Brian W

Your last sentence is the killer ......"Something that depicts
airfields well, that needs no setup"...

There are good flying tools like the Garmin Airmap type units that
depict airfield layouts, that comes loaded ready to go...however I
think you had low price as part of your criteria?

You might want to check the Oudie, but its basically like the unit you
bought but preloaded with the software.

I have been using XCSoar in the motor glider and now even better the
LK8000 spinoff of XCSoar on a 4.3" iPAQ 310......
works great and gets improvements to the LK8000 software monthly.

Takes abotu 5 minutes to do an update and is simply a copy of the
latest software on top of the old stuff on the SD chip.

I have simply made copies of the 2mb chip and loaded their local area
maps for those that are not gadget geeks and they are up and running
instantly.

LK8000 is free and I believe you can load/attach auxilliary info for
airfields, although I have personally not tried that yet.

The existing airfield information includes coordinates, airspace
frequencies, runway numbers and occasionally comments so I dont find
the need to see an airport map since I dont fly in to anything more
complex that Class D airspace.

It would take some work however to gather the extra airport info and
load it up yourself if you wanted more details ....ie setup....

Perhaps we need a couple guru's to offer combos preloaded and
configured like the Oudie marketers are doing.

Ray

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:15:25 -0700, jb92563 wrote:

LK8000 is free and I believe you can load/attach auxilliary info for
airfields, although I have personally not tried that yet.

The existing airfield information includes coordinates, airspace
frequencies, runway numbers and occasionally comments so I dont find the
need to see an airport map since I dont fly in to anything more complex
that Class D airspace.

XCSoar and LK8000 currently use the same method of handling airfield
information. You create an airfield.txt file that contains textual
information about one or more airfields, each preceded with the airfield
name in square brackets on a separate line, i.e. "[AIRFIELD]", which must
be an exact match on the name of a turnpoint in one of the turnpoint
files - preferably a TP carrying an 'airfield' or 'landable' annotation.

Tapping the airfield on the display brings up a scrollable page of
information about it.

Its worthwhile setting up an airfields file containing your home field,
even it its the only entry, and marking it as your home field. Here's
what mine looks like:

[GRL GrnsdnLd=HOME]
Gransden Lodge

because the program tends to default to it if there's no current task.

It would take some work however to gather the extra airport info and
load it up yourself if you wanted more details ....ie setup....

Yep - as always, the problem is getting hold of the airfield information
in a suitable, machine-readable form.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

jb92563 wrote:
/snip/
Something that depicts airfields well, that needs no setup...

Thanks for any clues...

Brian W

Your last sentence is the killer ......"Something that depicts
airfields well, that needs no setup"...

Thanks for this response, despite my misleading spec.
The setup I had in mind was the operational setup when
preparing to fly.

I can accept the need to specify a destination airport in the other
Garmin - how else would I get course, distance and time en route?
I like the hands off map display from the APIC.
Just wondering if there are more splendid displays I'm missing!

Brian W


There are good flying tools like the Garmin Airmap type units that
depict airfield layouts, that comes loaded ready to go...however I
think you had low price as part of your criteria?

You might want to check the Oudie, but its basically like the unit you
bought but preloaded with the software.

I have been using XCSoar in the motor glider and now even better the
LK8000 spinoff of XCSoar on a 4.3" iPAQ 310......
works great and gets improvements to the LK8000 software monthly.

Takes abotu 5 minutes to do an update and is simply a copy of the
latest software on top of the old stuff on the SD chip.

I have simply made copies of the 2mb chip and loaded their local area
maps for those that are not gadget geeks and they are up and running
instantly.

LK8000 is free and I believe you can load/attach auxilliary info for
airfields, although I have personally not tried that yet.

The existing airfield information includes coordinates, airspace
frequencies, runway numbers and occasionally comments so I dont find
the need to see an airport map since I dont fly in to anything more
complex that Class D airspace.

It would take some work however to gather the extra airport info and
load it up yourself if you wanted more details ....ie setup....

Perhaps we need a couple guru's to offer combos preloaded and
configured like the Oudie marketers are doing.

Ray

Yep - as always, the problem is getting hold of the airfield information
in a suitable, machine-readable form.

--

In the US, at least, that's not a problem at all. LK8000
supports .CUP files, which can be created on my website from current
FAA NASR data. You can do a custom query for airports in a specific
area, choose from various levels of comment detail, and optionally
select a companion file that can be viewed in Google Earth. It's also
easy to integrate contest turnpoint lists with the latest FAA airport
data. And it's completely free of charge, and freely
redistributable. My website is at:

http://www.soaringdata.info

My website also has current US airspace files that should work with
LK8000.

Lynn Alley
"2KA"

On Jun 30, 4:56*pm, brian whatcott wrote:
jb92563 wrote:
*/snip/
Something that depicts airfields well, that needs no setup...

Thanks for any clues...

Brian W

Your last sentence is the killer *......"Something that depicts
airfields well, that needs no setup"...

Thanks for this response, despite my misleading spec.
The setup I had in mind was the operational setup when
preparing to fly.

I can accept the need to specify a destination airport in the other
Garmin - how else would I get course, distance and time en route?
I like the hands off map display from the APIC.
Just wondering if there are more splendid displays I'm missing!

Brian W





There are good flying tools like the Garmin Airmap type units that
depict airfield layouts, that comes loaded ready to go...however I
think you had low price as part of your criteria?

You might want to check the Oudie, but its basically like the unit you
bought but preloaded with the software.

I have been using XCSoar in the motor glider and now even better the
LK8000 spinoff of XCSoar on a 4.3" iPAQ 310......
works great and gets improvements to the LK8000 software monthly.

Takes abotu 5 minutes to do an update and is simply a copy of the
latest software on top of the old stuff on the SD chip.

I have simply made copies of the 2mb chip and loaded their local area
maps for those that are not gadget geeks and they are up and running
instantly.

LK8000 is free and I believe you can load/attach auxilliary info for
airfields, although I have personally not tried that yet.

The existing airfield information includes coordinates, airspace
frequencies, runway numbers and occasionally comments so I dont find
the need to see an airport map since I dont fly in to anything more
complex that Class D airspace.

It would take some work however to gather the extra airport info and
load it up yourself if you wanted more details ....ie setup....

Perhaps we need a couple guru's to offer combos preloaded and
configured like the Oudie marketers are doing.

Ray- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If you have not seen LK8000 you should check it out if low cost with
lots of funtionality is your goal.

It even has stuff like FLARM etc showing targets in your vicinity on
the moving map.

Then there are the weather files that you can load in advance, along
with the airfields info that I will have to try out next.

My recent trip with it had about 12 waypoints over 400 miles and the
only finger (not stylus) input needed was to skip a waypoint or two
that I decided to bypass, and took only a couple seconds to do.

And this was in rough bouncy air in the Ownes Valley, CA. in the
afternoon in a motorglider moving at 90 kts.

I really appreciated the design not requiring precise finger pointing
ability on the touch screen as it would have been impossible to use a
stylus in the bumpy air.

I also like the iPhone type gestures for turning pages etc and the
touch screen zones (as opposed to points) that are used to make
selections.

The thermalling auto zoom is fantastic with the colored trails
indicating lift or sink to help you move into the strongest part of
the lift.

I only wish that the gps would take readings faster than 1 sec
intervals so it can be more precise and have less lag, but you get
used to it and
learn how to anticipate quickly since the seat of the pants gives you
instantaineous feedback.

I found that making adjustments about 45 degress early in the circle
seemed to be the proper method for my circling speed.


Ray