Accessories

Several years ago at Oshkosh, we saw a unit called the Angel that was designed to add Bluetooth connectivity to a headset, complete with a full telephone keypad and music inputs. The product looked promising, but we never got one to test before the company vanished into the great aviation business abyss. The Angel was licensed and improved upon by the well-respected Headsets, Inc., of Amarillo, Texas, (who also acquired and now sells the DRE line of headsets). The reborn device is called the Lynx. It’s available as a $449 device to add Bluetooth and other features to your current headset, or for $599 you can get it mated up to the DRE 6001 ANR headset as a complete unit. Considering the DRE 6001 is normally $476 on its own, that has the makings of a pretty good deal.

Last month we dug into moving-map apps for the Android platform, but sometimes you just want a quick check of local weather on your phone to see if it’s worth a trip to the airport—or if it’s time to push the “no-go” button on your plans and go have a beer. We think the bare minimum for this would be METARs and TAFs—ideally presented graphically on a map with text details available—local NEXRAD and PIREPs. Armed with this ideal, we forayed into the Android Market and came up empty handed. That’s not saying there’s nothing out there. Here are our front-runners, so you don’t have to gamble your five dollars on which one does what.

Last month we dug into moving-map apps for the Android platform, but sometimes you just want a quick check of local weather on your phone to see if it’s worth a trip to the airport—or if it’s time to push the “no-go” button on your plans and go have a beer. We think the bare minimum for this would be METARs and TAFs—ideally presented graphically on a map with text details available—local NEXRAD and PIREPs. Armed with this ideal, we forayed into the Android Market and came up empty handed. That’s not saying there’s nothing out there. Here are our front-runners, so you don’t have to gamble your five dollars on which one does what.

An icon in the experimental market, Dynon Avionics has built a reputation for offering cutting-equipment that’s easy to install and widely compatible. Dynon’s value-based pricing is practically a smack in the face of the certificated world, where twice the price gets you half the capability. Skyview represents a fully integrated cockpit suite whose nearest equal is something at the G1000 level. Retrofits are fair game in nearly any LSA and experimental, and it’s a top seller for new LSA purchases.

In spring, I had a new Garmin GTN750 installed in my 1983 Mooney 201 and was amazed by the unit’s performance. The only thing missing was fuel management capability and as a result, I had the fuel flow option added to the existing EDM-700 and wired into the GTN. Since this was my first exposure to fuel flow monitoring, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of reliability and accuracy. And what I experienced in the field blew me away. I was expecting a reporting accuracy rate of perhaps 96 percent, but was pleasantly surprised to find the accuracy greater than 99 percent. At each fill-up, I compare the fuel loaded onboard with what the unit stated as actually having been used and the numbers are always within a few ounces.

I read your synopsis on our data in the cockpit; how discouraging. (See Aviation Consumer, December 2011.) May I ask a question and make a comment? First, I think I vaguely remember reading some time ago that a portion of the aviation fuel tax had been set aside and saved up to fund the NextGen system, and that these funds were diverted to other uses not even within aviation. Am I correct or mistaken on this, or did something similar to this happen?

Hangar floors exist at two ends of the same spectrum: the sublime dream of shiny gray epoxy under a bright fluorescent glare or the dingy reality of unloved, ashless-dispersant-stained concrete. Turning the latter into the former can be done, albeit at great expense and effort. But there might be something in between, thanks to a new product called ReKrete, a waterless cleaner designed to eliminate oil staining from concrete floors. At $30 for a 10-pound tub, it’s a lot cheaper than $250 worth of epoxy. But does it work?

While almost every sci-fi epic has us navigating our way around the galaxy by voice command, the reality of controlling computers by voice has been a bit less impressive. It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s that there are inevitably errors. When your iPhone turns “Call Bonnie Smith Home” into “Calling Ronnie Schmidt Home” before you stamp the “end call” button, that’s not such a big deal. Having your GPS misunderstand where you want to go would be something else entirely.

Touchscreen may be the top buzzword in avionics, but synthetic vision (SV) is right behind. Many pilots don’t know why they want synthetic vision, or even fully understand exactly what it is, yet the gee-whiz factor alone has made SV systems the most sought after upgrade we’ve seen in a while. Whether synthetic vision is worth the non-trivial expense depends on your mission and your ability to absorb a lot of overlapping data on small screen.

For many years battery chargers were simple beasts; a heavy transformer to drop the line voltage and a rectifier to change AC to DC made up the bulk of components. Some added a relay to turn on the charger when the voltage fell. Also, some chargers served as battery boosters with a temporary hit of 50 amps or so to nudge a discharged battery into a start. These chargers did a lousy job in terms of battery life and fully charging the battery to its potential (pun intended). Both the RV and boating industries were probably the big drivers in the development of sophisticated, computer-chip-controlled, multi-stage chargers, especially for deep cycle batteries.

Leave it to German engineers to create solutions that add a layer of complexity. Case in point are new digital-process ANR headsets from audiophile manufacturers Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic, the S1 and the HS-800, respectively. Whether the bottom-line experience for the wearer is better or just different than top-notch analog headsets like the Bose A20 or Lightspeed Zulu is arguable. But in both cases the digital experience is impressive. They also comes bundled with a wealth of features that earn it elbowroom in the top tier.

The iPad has taken such a hold of GA that we could easily turn into Apple Pilot Monthly if we weren’t careful. The iPad’s entré was really as a document reader (charts, approach plates, etc.) and preflight briefing tool. But it’s expanded into more of a cockpit resource equal to or surpassing portable avionics. That trend pushes the limits of what we think about an iPad doing, but also relies on expanded hardware beyond the iPad itself. Here’s a look at what’s new on the hardware side. We’ll take a look at what’s new on the app side in a separate article.