Co-Pilot for iPhone

[tmmorris]

Anyone using this?

It looks good but I wonder how good the HSI is (iPhones with GPS only).

Presumably some of you are using it on Palms?

Tim

PS see CoPilot - Flight Planning for the iPhone (http://www.ljd-tech.com/copilot/)

[IO540]

I briefly played with Co-Pilot 2-3 years ago, on a PDA. It kind of worked; it was one of quite a number of USA-centric applications which do the usual stuff; wind calcs, W&B, and with a bit of luck they might contain some European waypoints so you can do a simple route plan. Since DAFIF closed to the public in 2006, most of the cheap/free American flight planning progs dropped support for Europe.

Eventually I gave up with PDAs but continued to keep a PDA program which does a nice graphical W&B, because I had to demonstrate a W&B calc for the FAA CPL checkride. Never used it since, as there is no practical way (using human cargo) to load the TB20 outside the envelope, without exceeding MTOW.

I am sure a nice little graphical W&B program, running on a modern phone, would be very good for the many pilots whose aircraft can be overloaded fore/aft.

It is not readily apparent from the website whether CoPilot does a graphical W&B.

[PompeyPaul]

I use PilotWiz on iPhone (Welcome to Pilot Wizz (http://web.me.com/sean.harding/Pilot_Wizz/Home.html)) and it's pretty good. You can store routes in it and retrieve them later, put in the wind and it generates your plog. Also does graphical W&B and will let you store envelopes for different aircraft.

It's free.

Only slight annoyance is that you can't put in 2 different wind values for legs of a route, so you get it to generate the route twice with different wind values. Also transcribing from the onscreen plog to written on knee plog is a pain (wish I could just print it out). Overall though, an excellent piece of software.

[IO540]

What you want is a phone based flight planning application which allows the route to be transferred to the panel mount GPS either with bluetooth or by sending it a text message

:) :) :)

[BEagle]

The system I've been busily developing for a military application allows a mission to be planned on a laptop. This includes a global nav database, statistical met database and performance databases for the aircraft and those with which it will be working. The system also prints an associated ICAO flightplan.

Once the mission plan has been drafted, the planner can adjust it and replan using actual met-of-the-day. Then it's downloaded to a normal USB stick. At the aircraft it's uploaded into the onboard system, which uses the same software as the laptop. It also displays the actual CG within the allowed CG envelope.

In flight there is a fuel graph which shows actual fuel against planned fuel, a moving map and various text displays. All update in real time and the plan can be edited and amended as required. Due to certification restrictions, the system is only allowed to receive aircraft system data from an ARINC bus; it could update the FMS but the customers didn't ask for that functionality - which would have required intensive and expensive testing.

There's no reason why such funcionality can't be extended to the GA world. Plan in the warmth of home, update the plan on the day of flight, feed it to a USB stick, upload it to your GPS.

[Fright Level]

no practical way (using human cargo) to load the TB20 outside the envelope, without exceeding MTOW

Unlike the TB21 which will go outside the fwd end of the balance graph well below MTOW with two large blokes in the front and nothing at all in the back seats/cubby hold.

Perhaps it's the additional weight of the engine that causes this?

[tmmorris]

It is not readily apparent from the website whether CoPilot does a graphical W&B.

It does - I couldn't find it on the website either but the sample screenshots in the App Store show it.

Tim

[dublinpilot]

There's no reason why such funcionality can't be extended to the GA world. Plan in the warmth of home, update the plan on the day of flight, feed it to a USB stick, upload it to your GPS.

That's pretty much was PocketFMS does, with the exception that the GPS is portable rather than built in.