How many people use a smartphone for "everything"?

[IO540]

To do with preflight tasks, I mean.

I normally use a small laptop, which of course does a lot more than any "phone" could.

But I bought my girlfriend a (factory unlocked, SIM free) Iphone 4; £450 from the Apple online shop.

I spent several days with it, working out how it works so I could explain it to her, as well as set up email accounts etc. She has a PhD but little patience for IT stuff which basically doesn't work (which applies to most IT stuff).

It has several hear-tearing-out "features" (I posted in the Computer forum about those) but clearly it has enough capability to do everything that is needed in preflight task terms. With a lot of fiddling when using some websites, but it can do it, and for straight VFR flight, where your weather briefing comprises mostly of picking up tafs/metars, it is pretty straightforward.

I can't see any way to run AFPEx (short of a solution using a Citrix remote desktop) so one would have to use EuroFPL or Homebriefing for FP filing.

Also the only way to do IFR airways routings would be the RocketRoute website.

The same comments would apply to any "smartphone" but the Iphone seems to be quicker on browsing than most, and the 4 model has a very good screen (excellent if you have reading glasses handy ;) ).

Incidentally I installed the £20 Memory Map app on it. This works fine with the old QCT charts; the 1:50k and 1:25k and the CAA ones all work fine, and transfer to the phone via a WIFI map transfer feature. The app is a bit clunky but does the job of running QCT maps. Just avoid trying to set up an account with the MM map shop; that really screws it up. Thus far, I have not had to hexedit any maps (a well known hack to get around the historical MM insistence on the map year matching the app year, on O/S maps). You also get dynamically downloaded UK streetmaps in the price (very very slow to download, and I cannot work out the size/time limits on this feature). It seems to work OK while moving although you have to leave the GSM/3G part switched on to retain the GPS function. MM doesn't reply to any support emails.

On balance I am sticking with my winXP laptop (which does absolutely everything) because I always carry at least a small backpack when travelling, but I can see a possible convergence here to just one gadget, and after all everybody has to be carrying a phone anyway.

[Redbird72]

I have the 3GS and use it for (VFR) calculations and weather, but not mapping.

As a renter still, I don't do huge trips, so the majority of my planning is done with the help of my home PC, though I do use the phone to assist if everything changes when I reach the club...:rolleyes:

[barne_as]

I have a netbook running Navbox Pro and Memory map. It has Wifi, and bluetooth built in so I can pull up weather etc at airports (so long as I can find a wifi link!)

I only do VFR flights so I find this adequate. I have a Blackberry but havent really got on with it for replacing my netbook

[S-Works]

I am still voting for the iPad. Proving to be an invaluable netbook replacement. Functionality of the iPhone but with better readability.

[Rod1]

WinXP Netbook.

Rod1

[stickandrudderman]

I just got an iphone 4 and, being a bit of a luddite, I'm absolutely delighted with it mainly because I don't have to umderstand everything in IO540's post to use it. So far I've only downloaded a couple of apps, orbifly, pilotwiz and NOTAMS.
Actually, as I write I find I'm making a fool of myself because I haven't worked out how to get the NOTAMS function to work......
Still, I'm very pleased with it and if someone wants to show me how to get the best out of it I think I'd like it even more.
A year or so ago I tried a Blackberry but sent it back after four days because I couldn't work out how to use it.

[S-Works]

stick, remind me about that glass cockpit we were talking about!!!!
:p

[24Carrot]

WinXP netbook, though PC at home 'cos the screen is bigger.

[Slopey]

Due to the advent of the irritatingly Java based AFPEx stuff, I'm stuck with a netbook (a Vaio P) but at least it runs Navbox.

Otherwise, I'd have decamped 100% to the iPad. I could almost get away with it using logmein back to another machine, but 3G network coverage and WiFi is just too patchy.

[Stephen Furner]

Advent netbook with XP OS running NavBox Pro and a 3 Data dongle for mobile broadband access when there is no suitable Wi-Fi. I also have a 12v DC to 240v converter so I can power from the car if the battery runs out.

I find this set-up very handy for flight planning on the move. For me a good portable printer to get hard copy of the flight planning documentation would be more useful than the smaller form factor of a smart phone.

[IO540]

There aren't a lot of portable printers around. I have a Canon IP90; superseded by an IP100 or something like that but essentially the same thing.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Personally, whilst I'm a great fan of my Nokia E63 (Blackberry clone) for many other applications - particularly met and NOTAMs, I am a particular fan of paper in the cockpit - although I keep playing: I'm going to have a go at checklists on my Sony Reader sooner or later, and there's a remarkable amount can be done on a Garmin.

On the other hand, I've just come back from two flight test conferences in the USA - at one the University of Tenessee showed that they were successfully displaying and recording flight test data streamed directly from an instrumented King Air, and in another Lockheed Martin showed cockpit video from the rear seat of an F-16 twin sticker which was recorded on the observers iPhone after the HUD video failed. The potential there is definitely enormous!

G

[Flyin'Dutch']

Ipad Ipad Ipad

[Mickey Kaye]

I use and old Acer win XP laptop. As soon as it gives up the ghost I get one of those Netbooks. Theyseem small enough and quick enough and the battery life is excellent.

I tie this in with a 50 quid Chinese sat nav and Skydemon has displaced memory map these days.

Works great but then I never really fly off the creases in the map.

[Flyin'Dutch']

Works great but then I never really fly off the creases in the map.

No creases in an electronic map!

[IO540]

Ipad Ipad IpadDo you mean

- you use it for 3 different tasks
- you use it 3 times a day
- you use it 3 times before each flight
- you have three of them, in case the others get stolen / crash / etc

?

:)

I am a particular fan of paper in the cockpit - although I keep playing: I'm going to have a go at checklists on my Sony Reader sooner or later, and there's a remarkable amount can be done on a Garmin.

I started this thread re preflight stuff, not airborne stuff, but I too prefer paper in the cockpit. It cannot fail, which obviously cannot be said for any electronic device, so any electronic device needs to be backed up, which takes one back to carrying two of something... which is one big reason why I won't use the Ipad, because it is good for one thing only when airborne: displaying approach plates (a document reader basically) and what will one back it up with? Another Ipad? The Kindle DX (or a similar ebook reader)?

It is easy to show awesome functionality of some piece of electronics, but one is for ever stuck to using it as the backup for some other system, which in the GA context is probably going to be paper printouts for the planned/filed route.

[Flyin'Dutch']

All of the above!

Sadly I only have the Wifi versions at the moment but want to get a 3G shortly.

Its keyboard is not as good as a full size one but for data input absolutely fine.

Readability of the screen is fine and can get enhanced. The reliability and battery life is second to none.

They are the way forward and certainly if you fly in the States and therefore can use apps like Foreflight to their full potential indicate that anything else is just a poor second best (at best!)

[kevmusic]

IO540 wrote:
I too prefer paper in the cockpit. It cannot fail, which obviously cannot be said for any electronic device

:eek: Now, if I hadn't already been sitting down when I read that.........:D

[IO540]

One area in which the Iphone is severely lacking is support for printing. Apart from limited support within 3rd party apps, there basically is none at all, and what there is is really crap quality; even PDFs print with fuzzy text.

So if one uses it for serious planning (rather than just checking the weather/notams are OK), one will be departing with just the device, hoping that it keeps working for long enough.

[vanHorck]

OS 4.2 will include wireless printing and is due out in November, for the Iphone as well as the iPad

I believe none of the current printing was meant to be, the OS 4.2 version will be the first officially approved Apple printing and will be wireless

[Shunter]

Printing can be done, very well in fact. Official support is coming in firmware v4.2 due sometime shortly.

For those interested, a demo of AFPEx via Citrix XenApp (and yes, comedy commentary courtesy of afternoon in pub). It's stinking fast even over 3G (VPN to the office) and annihilates the various remote desktop solutions such as LogMeIn as far as performance goes.

Ps0wI0LbSKU

[Jan Olieslagers]

Not owning any kind of smartphone, I do not use any for anything - and I don't feel there's anything I'm wanting or missing. Except for some budget to go flying, of course.
But then I live in a decent country where every aerodrome has a PC with internet access available for local AND visiting pilots.

[Whopity]

Whats a Smartphone? I have a telephone, you buy a sim card on Ebay for £3 with £10 credit on it. Its never run out. Only ever used it to make occasional phone calls.

[Jan Olieslagers]

Can't be sure, but as I gather it is a big size mobile phone with added functionality such as internet browsing, e-mail, and possibly a GPS receiver. Perhaps some luxury models have a rubber distributor tucked away in some remote corner, too...

[stickandrudderman]

stick, remind me about that glass cockpit we were talking about!!!!
http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Ah well, that's the acid test isn't it? These things are supposed to be intuitive so ignorants like me can still use them! That's why I've chosen the flymap because of the touch screen and therefore instant usability without having to have some prior knowledge of some protocol or other.
The latest word I keep hearing is "Android". I thought these were characters in 1970s Sci-Fi movies.

[AndyGB]

I use SkyDemon, planning usually at home on the PC and then transferring the route to my HTC HD2 phone for use in the cockpit. Although the functionality to plan is available on the phone it's obviously easier to do that on a big screen.

I can get the notams/weather etc either on the PC at home, or if it's a route I planned some time ago use the phones internet connection to download them at the airfield. They still get displayed on the map on the phone in the same way they do on the PC.

If it's just a local bimble with no particular route planned then I'll check notams with SkyDemon when I am at the airfield, but then use Memory Map and the CAA charts just so I can confirm location once airborne.

[Slopey]

For those interested, a demo of AFPEx via Citrix XenApp (and yes, comedy commentary courtesy of afternoon in pub). It's stinking fast even over 3G (VPN to the office) and annihilates the various remote desktop solutions such as LogMeIn as far as performance goes.

Unfortunately, unless you're already using it at the office, XenApp is not exactly cheap! Whereas LogMeIn (which is perfectly fast over 3G) is £15 for the iPad app and you're set.

However, on a recent trip down the East coast of England, over to France, L2K down to Jersey and back up the West coast, 3G coverage was non-existent. Although Old Buckenham and Gloucester (or at least the pub across the road) had WiFi.

[Shunter]

One certainly can't argue from a price perspective (and of course having the required skills and environment to affect such a solution), it's just an example of what's technically possible.

[IO540]

I can certainly confirm that wifi and 3G coverage is nonexistent in many places where one really needs it, in the flight planning context.

I have just spent a week in a 5 star hotel where the wifi was barely usable (one had to sit near the door) and there was no 3G in the whole country (Jordan) that was accessible via roaming. Fortunately I was not flying there. Europe is only a bit better.

Any internet functionality must work over GPRS-only otherwise even a UK-only pilot will tear his hair out pretty soon. In the UK, and everywhere else in Europe, there is no 3G in 99% of the countryside. WIFI is mostly secured, unless one is willing to walk around residential areas where there are still plenty of unsecured access points. It is also very short range; you have to park yourself right outside the person's house ;) But you won't be doing flight planning there...

Citrix is an expensive server license even if the client is free, and it also requires a lot of expertise to set up. I run pc/anywhere (a similar functional product) and the port forwarding and VPN etc config for that is beyond me. But (in this context) a remote desktop product delivers nothing over running the same app locally. OK, it allows you to run PC apps on Apple products which would not otherwise run them, but that is basically just Jepp Flitestar/Flitemap and AFPEx, on an Ipad (neither would be usable on an Iphone). And a £300 laptop will run both of those, and everything else, perfectly, and it won't need any connectivity for the Jepp stuff... and AFPEx is not necessary because there are alternatives, e.g. EuroFPL and this works on a smartphone.

I am not sure what a remote desktop product would bring to any smartphone, because their screens are far too small to be usable with most traditional apps. I suppose one could just about run AFPEx on an Iphone in that way but what's the point?

What I was really getting at with my original post was carrying just one device. Obviously if you carry a pile of stuff, like an Ipad plus a phone, then other things are possible. To carry an Ipad around you need a backpack, in which case why not just carry a small laptop? But being able to do the whole lot with just a phone is an attractive option.

Edit:

Printing can be done, very well in factI am "all ears". Where is the Print button? The only place where I have ever seen a Print feature is in a 3rd party app called Altamail, working only to a network-attached printer over wifi, and even then the result is total crap and unsuitable even for printing off a PDF approach plate. Will the new firmware wipe out all the config, or can it be applied without using Itunes to do a backup/restore?

[Slopey]

One of the biggest barriers to just doing it on the phone for me is the AFPEx system being Java based, given we have to file on AFPEx even when going for a 40 minute bimble around the Aberdeen zone :mad: Although I can do it with logmein on the iPad which works ok to a certain extent.

(And Aberdeen didn't activate our outbound flight plan even after we'd used the damn thing to file it - but that's a different story)

Contrast that with filing a flight plan in France via Olivia - pure web forms, filed our plan from Cherbourg to Jersey in the cafe on the iPad in Safari, refreshed the web page a few mininutes later and it's all accepted.

Simple, easy, and completely device agnostic. :D

I run pc/anywhere (a similar functional product) and the port forwarding and VPN etc config for that is beyond me.

Logmein doesn't require any VPN/port forwarding to be set up per se. On every machine I've tried so far, behind a variety of firewalls, it works without additional configuration (as it uses port 80 and 443 which are always open for web traffic anyway) - might be worth a look?

[Slopey]

Will the new firmware wipe out all the config, or can it be applied without using Itunes to do a backup/restore?

You'll have to backup the iPad via iTunes before installing the update, but iTunes will do that anyway as part of the process. You shouldn't loose any settings/config as part of the upgrade process.

[mm_flynn]

I do quite a lot of flying with just the iPhone - just slip it in the pocket and Go!

However, the iPad fits in the flight bag with almost no extra space and is so much nicer to use. Also, I buy my holiday reading as ebooks (along with dragging my required work reading along as PDF/Word files :( ) so one thin iPad is a lot better than a ton of paper.

I have a desktop link to the Nats site for narrow route briefings, a Google calendar for the plane, a couple of weather apps and use Rocketroute or EuroFPL for filing (Rocketroute until very recently was IFR only but now supports VFR filing as well).

As an aside, I have also load a PDF version of my maintenance manual and parts listing onto the Ipad to help locate spares on the road.

At the moment, this means I need to do my flight planning before hand on a computer. I do the route generation, initial Notam brief, a Plog using forecast winds and a trip chart - print these as PDFs (which I load into the iPad) and paper copies. This works as long as the return is within a couple of days. If longer, I do a zero wind plog. On the day, I just check weather and go to the Nats site for an update briefing (which just gives you new notams since your previous request).

I do still have an old tablet computer that holds an out of date copy of JeppView (never use it anymore) and a current copy of FlightPlanPro.

And I even have a stack of reasonably recent AIDU diversion plates - which I once had to use on an IR check ride when someone's gear collapsed at the field we were flying from and I needed to 'divert' to give my examiner a ride to his next assignment!

[VeriLocation]

ok, just registered for RocketRoute and successfully used on my iPhone 4. So now I can submit flightplans remotely and on the move. I use xcweather and meteox to validate previous nights taf's / notams and route produced on SkyDemon. Also use the AeroWeather iPhone App to get real time airfield / destination wx just before takeoff. Only thing I need now is to figure out how to use the iPhone to submit the GAR....any ideas?

[IO540]

I found some stuff on the internet, where somebody wanted to complete a variable-field PDF on an Iphone, and email it. IIRC, no solution was thought possible.

However it is not too hard to knock up a website form which is a GAR, which you complete online, and which has a SEND button that emails+faxes it to all 3 services (using email, and email2fax). Obviously you would to keep such a facility private :)

There is probably another way... short of a remote desktop solution which would obviously work but is a bizzare way to do this.

The GAR exists in both PDF and Word (.doc) forms.

[VeriLocation]

I'll send some feedback to the Rocket guys as it has the concept of storing user data which is ideal for completing a GAR i.e. passport details, address, contacts, maybe they could tag onto the FlightPlan system. I'd pay for it just because it makes life easier and also answers IO540's question of "could I use one device"...

[Microfright]

I use Gpsed on a wm phone although it runs on all other major smartphone os's.

It records my track and periodically sends it to the Gpsed web site which displays it on a map. On starting a track it also sends a link to to face book and a blog I've set up. It allows my wife to track me should if I have an engine failure etc and other syndicate members to track me when waiting to use the aircraft.

[codemonkey]

I have a place on my Iphone dedicated to aviation links and apps

Apps:
Aero Weather
myE6B
Notams
FlightComUK
Air Nav
Memory Map + CAA Charts
Wind-Aid

Links:
Met office briefing forms
AIS Aerodrome Info

If this lot was available on another smartphone then I'd happily swap because in many other respects the iphone is underwhelming, it's the range of aviation apps that tie me in!

[IO540]

ISTM that much of your list is just websites, Memory Map runs on Windows Mobile (and runs a lot better; the £20 Iphone version is utterly crap), and there are countless E6B apps (FlightCalc being one of many).

The Iphone does make a slick web browser; perhaps the slickest (of that screen size) I have played with, despite the miniscule default font in Safari. This is relevant because (for me, doing radio nav) all the preflight stuff is done via websites, not with any software one can run on any compact device. OTOH if you were flying dead-rec then you might be using a wind calculator but those exist for every platform there is.

[MFC_Fly]

AndyGB (post #26)...

SNAP :ok:

SkyDemon and MemoryMap on HTC Touch HD - superb combination.

[travisholland]

EuroFPL is adding passenger manifest support, and with that, easy generation of GAR forms, gen-decs, even e-apis support for entry to the states are all a mobile web browser away. Looks like a week or two out. Discussions with the UK aviation customs folks revealed that they are very rapidly nearing a new, single point, electronic system that will replace the GAR. (Who really knows what county their destination aerodrome is anyway???). Travis

[IO540]

Yes, the county-dependent fax notification stuff is a nightmare. I think it applies to Police / Special Branch notifications (applicable only to flights between GB and the CTA (Ireland N or S, IOM, Channel Islands). Half the published fax numbers don't work, and if you send the fax to a neighbouring force's fax #, you get a phone call from a stroppy jobsworth Plod who is not at all interested in knowing why the right fax # did not work (e.g. no paper in the machine).

It is about time they all joined up and set up a single point for filing the GAR.

EuroFPL is an excellent product already (especially with the ability to delay a flight plan by sending an SMS message) and this will be really ace.

[dublinpilot]

if you send the fax to a neighbouring force's fax #, you get a phone call from a stroppy jobsworth Plod who is not at all interested in knowing why the right fax # did not work (e.g. no paper in the machine).


If you're lucky!

A few years ago, I did just that by accident (sent it to the wrong police force). It was trip that I'd planed for some time, so the GAR was submitted way in advance (2 weeks). I sent it to South Wales police force instead of North Wales PF.

I didn't get a stropy jobsworth Plod calling me. Instead I got met by two very stropy North Wales Police Force plod's wondering why I never sent a GAR to them.

I didn't realise my error until a number of weeks later when I got home and checked my records.

[dubcat]

iOS 4.2 should run on the ipad too by the way. There are much easier methods to remote desktop than citrix on iphone and iPad. I often make customer visits without my laptop now and I just take my iPad with me. I use it mostly for presenting and so i just connect it to the projector and off i go. However, there are time when i need to run a web based app that won't run on my ipad and for this i just remote desktop in to my pc which i leave running at home and run the app on that. The ipad has a big enough screen to do this - not sure about iPhone 4 though. One of my colleagues recently did a week long trip to the US to our corporate HQ and was brave enough to leave his pc at home, taking only his iPad. I don't think i trust it enough for that yet :)

Still, relying on remote desktop is a bit risky. There are so many things that can go wrong (network connection failure at either end, modem failure at home, pc failure at home).

[flyingscotsman99]

<<they are very rapidly nearing a new, single point, electronic system that will replace the GAR.>>. 4 months later; did this ever happen or is it still about to happen?