It doesn’t matter if the unit is running, it only matters if it is in the hot sun, particularly without cooling air flow, which I arranged without major issue: my Ram mount positions an iPad Mini directly in front of a windshield air vent in the prop blast and it gives no trouble, ever, even on the ground…. despite being under a bubble canopy. That is unless (speaking from experience) I inadvertently leave it on the passenger seat when going to lunch. That would often require some fussing about to cool it down before takeoff.
My normal practice is therefore to both remove the iPad from its mount and leave it in the shade when I get out of the plane. The last place I would put it is on the glare shield, either in flight or stationary.
None of this is rocket science, just common sense and being as smart as your tools.
Direct sun light?
Overcast sky. Cockpit temp maybe +30C.
you seem to be the only one having issues.
I doubt it; as always, few criticise their principal fashion accessory, especially on forums 
It doesn’t matter if the unit is running, it only matters if it is in the hot sun
Internal power dissipation makes the issue much worse; most people I know have reported this. What surprised me is that a switched-off unit would become unusable so easily. It was perhaps +40C. It was quite a cold day outside; I get into the plane and find the Ipad dead. It shows how marginal it is.
Clearly they need to be kept shaded.
Nowhere in the TB20 to mount it, unfortunately. Well, not if you have a RHS passenger
All tablets at a given price point contain similar hardware and have similar dissipation, and have a similar susceptibility to shutdowns. The OS doesn’t matter. Win8 (I used to fly with a Lenovo tablet) is the same. They all shut down around +45C, measured somewhere internally. The only way I have found is a “low power” tablet, but they all run android, which can’t run Foreflight. If one could do a dedicated mount then one could fan-cool the unit, and such mounts do exist, but not usable in the TB20.
Getting into the plane after leaving the iPad exposed to direct sunlight (while shut down) is the most common route to experiencing overheating in my experience, as I described. When shut down for a short period, e.g. lunch, and assuming I don’t want to carry it with me, I leave mine in the footwell or elsewhere in the shade.
Obviously internal heating increases the total heat load, but in my experience flying in a climate similar to Southern Europe or Northern Africa, it makes no practical difference: what makes the unit overheat if it’s going to do so is sunlight combined with lack of cooling air flow. It doesn’t seem to matter if the unit is running. With either or both of those two factors under control, I have no problems. I also use an external GPS receiver, with internal GPS available as a seamless backup, not sure if that makes a substantial difference.
An IPad Mini plus Foreflight and Stratus ADS-B is the only navigation/traffic display tool I want or need, although in truth I do keep my phone handy, also running Foreflight and connected to ADS-B traffic, as a backup. I used it once for a few minutes when the iPad had some kind of software glitch and had to be rebooted. I also have a VOR receiver but use it only occasionally, to check if it’s still working. If it wasn’t for the ugly hole in the panel that would result, I’d have removed it by now to save weight and reduce panel complexity.
Limited brightness of the screen and glare is harder to resolve with an iPad than overheating. In some situations I have to pivot the unit on its mount to make the screen visible.
When using a tablet on the yoke mount (android or Ipad), I direct the air flow on it and never had an issue – other than keeping the battery charged.
May be if not in the bright sun, there are still some IR sun rays that keep the pad warm.
Peter wrote:
If one could do a dedicated mount then one could fan-cool the unit, and such mounts do exist, but not usable in the TB20.
I’ve unfortunately never had the pleasure flying in a TB20, and I presume the following setup would not work, but just in case, have you seen this one? I have the non-cooling case on order, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I find their mount to be more compact than the RAM ones, and hope it will be easier to mount in obscure corners of the cockpit.
The “TB20 issue” is that there is nowhere to locate a tablet “floating in space” such that a) you can see it unobstructed and b) it doesn’t obstruct anything else.
The cockpit is more spacious than most GA cockpits, but I don’t accept the device obstructing anything behind it. Most pilots do seem to accept that, and I’ve seen countless dreadful installations, not to mention ones where the “tablet” actually hits something before the control linkage stops are reached
Yoke mounting an Iphone (if IOS is mandatory for some app like FF) would work, but that uses up one FF device subscription, you still need the tablet so it solves nothing, and IMHO the screen would be useless due to clutter. It just about works on the Ipad Mini. I might one day replace the Aera 660 with a used Iphone; the 660 is actually used only for Safetaxi.
So the tablet has to lie on the kneeboard, and then its back is covered.
Anyway, this is a heads-up on how to lose an Ipad by allowing it to get too warm even when not running.
I presume the dimensions/geometry wouldn’t allow the following (where the iPad mini is flush against the door ‘post’, and not impeding the use of the yoke, door handle, fuses or window):
Or possibly the following:
Yes; you could, but it significantly obstructs the view on a LH circuit, unless you fly B52 circuits
This would work, and the distance is similar to the instrument panel so not much re-focusing, but it gets in the way of passenger legs.
