APP Design for 540/440

Great Idea

From my post in 2013:

Edited by brou0040 - 09 Jan 2016 at 6:53pm

Yes glad to be back in the US after  about 40 days in Central and South America to be specific 28 in Colombia and the rest in Panama and Guatemala. As far as what would be nice in the app would be if we had an app that would take the adsb weather and traffic off the iPad and display it on the 540 and vice versa. Well the more 540's that are installed the bigger chance of more apps. 

With all respect to those who are thinking "outside the box". an app designed for the IFDs has little interest for me except as a mechanism to create a flight plan off-line and then load it to the system, and the inverse. 

I am much more interested in using the features already present in an application like ForeFlight, where maps, databases and weather reporting are already in place, along with the ability to create flight plans and (important to me and my colleagues in SAR) create and chart search patterns. 

To me, leveraging an application already in place, accepted and well-configured, is key to success, even it initially confined to links to send and receive flight plans.  In the case of ForeFlight, it conveys capabilities not readily available in the IFDs, especially on the ground,  Transfer of ADS-B reception data would be a plus as well.

Now this has been a fun thread to watch develop.      I see two areas in this thread worth addressing by Avidyne right now :

1.  Take advantage of the existing capability of the flight code running as a training/simulation aid and convert that into some type of interactive app with the certified, panel-mounted IFDs.

2.  Leverage existing flight planning and mission aid apps and create interactive comm between them and the certified, panel-mounted IFDs.

I will say there is a lot going on, development-wise in this area.  Avidyne thinks that both ideas are great ideas and that both dreams will be directly addressed in the very near future.   That's all I'll communicate at this moment but your patience up to this point should be nicely rewarded.

That being said, we are very happy, and want to encourage, any more ideas on 3rd party (or Avidyne) apps.    We're on the verge of some really neat new capabilities in your airplanes so let's keep pushing in that area.


Edited by AviJake - 10 Jan 2016 at 10:20am

AviJake I hope you will also work with non-US app developers in support of your overseas user base. Foreflight doesn't provide charts for Europe so its not usable over here. Most European IFR pilots use SkyDemon instead.

Edited by jhbehrens - 10 Jan 2016 at 11:54am

jhbehrens wrote: AviJake I hope you will also work with non-US app developers in support of your overseas user base. Foreflight doesn't provide charts for Europe so its not usable over here. Most European IFR pilots use SkyDemon instead. There is also an affordable non-certified satellite weather solution that is becoming widely used by IFR pilots created by Sebastian Golze (http://www.ing-golze.de/). If your intended use cases include taking weather from a 3rd party device and showing it on the IFD that would a great integration to pursue.

Good question.   My first reaction is that one of the features in Release 10.2 is "Demo Mode".   Anyone (end user or install shops and everyone in between) can put the IFD into demo mode which should facilitate a bunch of power-on training.  I get that means you have to be in the airplane with power on or take the box out and have it powered up "on the bench" so that might be limiting to a bunch of folks.   

But, we should be able to update the free download training app to also provide this capability.

The way you use Demo mode is to get the box into Maintenance Mode, then check a box for "Demo Mode".   Then the box boots into Demo mode and you interact with it as if it were full flight mode.  You enter an origin and a flight plan the box "flies" that flight plan including any altitude constraints.

Here's a snippet from the 10.2 Pilot Guide that I'm currently writing for that area (it doesn't include the pix that the actual PG has and the snippet formatting sucks):

Demo Mode

The IFD can be put into demo mode at any time while on the ground for familiarization purposes.  Entry into demo mode is accessed via the  tab in Maintenance Mode.  Once that selection has been made and confirmed in Maintenance Mode, the IFD will boot to the following screen at each power up.

Demo Mode Splash Screen

<picture of splash screen here>

 

Pressing the bezel “ENTR” button will proceed into demo mode while pressing “CLR” will exit demo mode and proceed into normal flight mode.

While in demo mode, the IFD will “fly” the active flight plan in the FMS including any altitude constraints that may be part of the flight plan. The starting point of demo mode is whatever location is entered in the flight plan origin and changing the origin location while in demo mode will jump the location to the origin coordinates.

If you don’t enter a FPL or once the FPL is done the plane will continue flying straight forever. If a box is just sitting on a shelve running a demo it will most likely be in this state. It is less of an issue now since the missed approaches are automatically triggered and contain a hold. So at the end you’ll be holding forever

 

 

 

 

Once in demo mode, both the Map and Chart will display a “Not For Navigation” watermark.

To return to flight mode, use the “Stop Demo Mode” LSK on the SYS tab of the AUX page.

******************************************************

So, it might be worth waiting for you folks to see this Demo mode in action and then refine the app idea suggested by David.

safari wrote: we had an app that would take the adsb weather and traffic off the iPad and display it on the 540 and vice versa. Well the more 540's that are installed the bigger chance of more apps.

Yes I would like this as well as the hearing the audio in my headset.  i.e. when foreflight gives a traffic alert, instead of using Bluetooth, the audio can get into the ICS system from the 540 via Wi-Fi.  I also want to upload the flight plan, that I filed with foreflight, loaded directly into the 540.

tony wrote: instead of using Bluetooth, the audio can get into the ICS system from the 540 via Wi-Fi.

I'm thinking about the connections available between the IFD and the ICS (audio panel).  Are you saying that the IFD would pass through any iPad audio as an Alert signal?  Because the other choices are Comm audio or Nav audio (or Comm Standby).

I'm not sure this is better than just going straight from the iPad to the ICS via Bluetooth.

David Bunin

What if one of your passengers is playing Candy Crush?  Would you want that passed-through as alert-level audio?

The audio panels that have bluetooth, have it as entertainment-level audio.

DavidBunin wrote: What if one of your passengers is playing Candy Crush?  Would you want that passed-through as alert-level audio?

I would act as the pilot in command and tell them to turn it off.

ddgates wrote: Great pickup, David. Would require that all PAX's devices have BT and/or Wifi TURNED OFF. DMG

The PMA450 can pair with several devices, and you don't easily select which pairings are active.

Do you have a Foreflight version which connects via WiFi? If so, what does it do?

Um ... Foreflight Connect!  Thats all I want for Christmas (or 4th of July!)

Yes I would like this as well as the hearing the audio in my headset.  i.e. when foreflight gives a traffic alert


When I redid my panel, I had a jack mounted on the left side of the panel behind where my left iPad is mounted.  It connects to the ADF input of my PMA450 audio panel.  I get all of the Foreflight audio notifications through the headsets.

The PMA450 is able to connect to multiple bluetooth devices simultaneously.  It's a great tool to receive clearances at remote airports that have no remote frequency.  It's not a bad idea to turn your phone to airplane mode once you have your clearance as I have had the crap scarred out of me on short final when the phone started ringing through the headphones.  It doesn't sound anything like what my phone ringtone is so it took me a minute to figure out what it was.