Bluetooth keyboard
IMO, this is a killer feature. I want one now.
Was looking at a 1946 Luscombe for sale earlier – maybe I’ll install one in that if I buy it ;-)
Any bluetooth keyboard?
That would also open up flight plan injection from any device capable of the emulation, which would avoid the nonsense of stuff like having to pay the sub for Garmin Pilot just to inject FPs into a GTN box.
That would be a first for GA!
Another US report says the standby monitor function is being enabled in firmware but existing IFD540 boxes have to go back to Avidyne to make it actually work!
I wonder what else this is going to apply to?
Does anybody have info on the bluetooth keyboard? Rumours suggest that Avidyne is working with the big names in aviation apps but that will just mean extra cost to keep that current (IF it needs to be current in order to work – a potentially farcical situation because you could buy US coverage for the app, just to get it to run, and use it in Europe? Most of the big US names don’t work usefully for Europe) and then whether the app will have a copy/paste window into which a route from the autorouter can be copied/pasted. Jepp Flitestar has that feature
but I would be amazed if Avidyne did that because Jepp aren’t pushing Flitestar anymore. Jepp seem to want to go Ipad-total, presumably to control botlegging because there is no practical way to print to PDF from an Ipad. Also Flitestar is a clumsy app.
there is no practical way to print to PDF from an Ipad
Slightly off-topic, but its actually pretty easy. There are airprint emulators that can be run on your desktop and write to PDF. I print from JeppFD to the airprint sim, then select all the resulting PDFs and hit print. I have a preset print setup that puts them 2-up and double sided on a sheet of A4.
Having said that, I rarely print them out – I run Jepp on the iPad, backed up by skydemon with the AIP plates on the same iPad and a nexus 7. I always check the plates for the destination and likely alternate are available before takeoff.
I went to Jepp seminar last year and asked this in relation to JeppFD and JeppTC.
They explained you could print what is on the screen i.e. a single terminal chart. So if you wanted to create a PDF containing all the terminal charts for an airport which had say 50 pages, you would have to repeat that manual operation 50 times.
Then, of course, there are ways “downstream” to combine those 50 single-page PDFs into one big PDF, on a PC running any of a number of tools, like the full edition of Adobe Acrobat. Or maybe even on the Ipad itself. I recall Apple kicked all apps that do Airprint emulation to a PDF out of their app shop but they can’t stop somebody having an Airprint virtual printer emulator running as a network device.
What I was getting at is that if you are Jepp and you want to make it hard for people to share out the stuff, you make it as hard as possible to print a whole airport, or even a number of airports, to a PDF.
I asked Jepp why they make it impossible to print a whole airport to a PDF since that would provide a useful backup to the device failing. They replied it was their policy.
Incidentally I am not even sure if JeppTC can do the above. JeppFD probably yes, but I vaguely recall that JeppTC could do only a screenshot to a PNG, the usual way.
That’s a fair point.
IMO printing 50 pages is never necessary. Printing any at all is v rare for me (I keep a laminated copy of the Biggin and Southend approaches in the aeroplane, that’s about it).
The way I work this is that for “diversion airports” or Class G airports where sids/stars are a slightly questionable concept, like Southend, Biggin etc I print off just the approaches (ILS usually), not the sids/stars. But for the fully intended destination, I do want the whole lot. And in the context I described, somebody would definitely want to print the whole lot and that’s what Jepp want to make hard.
Also, the new lower Jepp pricing is for a single license only so the only way to make the “last resort backup” (have the plates on say a phone) is by printing to PDFs.
I suspect this is something we will continue to disagree on 
Back to the topic….
Only a specific BT keyboard that Avidyne provides will work with the 540. I agree it is a killer feature. I believe there is a full FMS keyboard also in the cockpit of an A380 :)
The draft manual for the new update gives some clues about what apps may be connected by looking at features wifi can enable:
The IFD is capable of supporting WiFi operations. Current supported functionality includes connectivity with 3 rd party applications running on WiFi capable devices including:
* Flight plan data streaming from IFD to 3rd party application;
* Approach and transition data streaming from IFD to 3rd party application to allow automatic approach chart selection and display on the 3rd party application;
* Traffic data streaming from IFD to 3rd party application for display on the 3rd party application;
* Weather data streaming from IFD to 3rd party application for display on the 3rd party application;
* Flight plan route data transmitted by the 3rd party application to the IFD for inclusion in the IFD540 stored routes and active flight plan. ( Future Functionality).
It seems initially its mainly sending data such as flight plans from the IFD540 to certain apps. I image its the same ones that work with Aspen’s connected panel, ie ForeFlight. If it included JeppFD that would of course be great. I doubt SkyDemon is included as their European IFD540 customer base must be tiny still and the SkyDemon app doesn’t currently connect to any other product afaik.
Indeed to get standby com audio to your audio panel’s MON function you need a hardware mod and the new software in addition to a wire that wouldn’t be there if you upgraded from a 530W.
