I need to replace an ageing IPad mini for use by Skydemon and am somewhat bewildered by so many different models. Please anyone advise on which you would buy to give longest battery life and highest clarity.
Thanks
I think it largely depends on the layout of your cockpit. In most SEPs (and, indeed MEPs) the Mini is pretty much your only option. If you have space for a bigger one, then go for it!
If you are not fixed on Apple, Android tablets (e.g. Samsung) are in my experience a lot lower cost, as fast and less prone to shutdown due to overheating
I suggest reading all of this.
For SD only you can use an older android table, lower power, much less likely to overheat in sunlight.
In the UK, with the CAA’s mad no prisoners policy, you get basically 2 or 3 sub-minute mistakes before your license is gone (they call it “suspended”). So you are relying totally on that tablet; the other option being a preplanned flight, on autopilot, and executed per plan, with no deviations. It isn’t like VFR in say France (but they won’t tolerate “RA” busts) or IFR in CAS anywhere.
I have been flying with an ipad Air (4th gen) for 2 years, here are a few obesrvations:
- It works well and fast. Nice device which find many other uses apart from just navigating.
- Readability in the sun is average to poor. You need to crank up the brightness to maximum which creates a lot of heat…
- …and as a result I had two occurrences of the ipad overheating. Both were on the ground, though. The ipad is permanently in the sun in my aircraft. It is located behind an air vent, therefore it usually gets enough air flow in flight, but not on the ground. The worst case was while departing from Gap a couple weeks ago: after a long taxi and some waiting time at the holding point, the damn ipad crapped out just as we got our clearance to take off. As we had everything prepared on paper, we decided we could do without the ipad and took off. We were barely in the air when the ipad recovered and performed OK for the rest of the flight.
- I realized that accessing the wireless network while flying is rarely possible; therefore be sure to load all the charts before take off. You surely know this already, but I did not (shame on me for not reading the manual!) I had to divert during one flight and could not get the approach chart of the place I decided to land :D Fortunately I have a “Flieger Taschenkalender” readily available in the cockpit, it saved my bacon on that day.
- My biggest question mark at this point is the 10" size of the ipad. On the plus side, 10" is great to read approach charts and other documents. On the negative side, it is “almost” too big for my panel. It is mounted on a ram mount on the left. The only way I can attach the ipad without blocking the instruments is by tilting it to the right and down. This further impairs readability and usability.
Bottom line:
due to the size and overheating issues, I am debating replacing the ipad by a Garmin Aera 760. But it costs 3 times the price of an ipad, would require another subscription, does not connect to a wireless network without an wifi hotspot, not sure it records your flight time and GPS trace like Skydemon does… and there have been reported cases of overheating too.
The Garmin will record a track log and log book
When I said “SD only”… it depends. I have an old T705 (must be 12 years old) which is a great shape for cockpit use, absolutely never shuts down (I have tried deliberately) but is “slow”. It is not really usable for a minute or so after startup. Then it is OK. It runs EasyVFR just fine (an app similar to SD). It runs the Golze app, which is crucial to me. And it runs Chrome, Telegram, the usual stuff.
One here. And yes my Voda SIM worked great in it too, for 4G.
But I would not expect anyone to do this.
With any other tablet you need a fan cooled mount. That is fine if you can find space for a mount.
Peter wrote:
With any other tablet you need a fan cooled mount. That is fine if you can find space for a mount.
Apparently you do with some tablets, but I wouldn’t say that you generally do – not even with an iPad.
See the link I posted. 100% shutdown in the specified circumstances.
With any other tablet you need a fan cooled mount. That is fine if you can find space for a mount.
I bought and installed one over the winter for my IPad Mini. I haven’t had opportunity to test it on the ground in hot conditions yet but it’s circa 40 C in the western US deserts now so that opportunity may be coming – it was the same temp last year when I was twice in a row unable to keep the unit working continuously due to overtemp. Otherwise (i.e. since then, at lower OAT) I’ve like always had no problems given a bit of airflow.
