GPS devices for SkyDemon - Does the perfect device exist?
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GPS devices for SkyDemon - Does the perfect device exist?
Morning all.
I've got a cheap £60 satnav running MemoryMap with all three half million charts on, merged together to form one chart at the moment. Whilst this is great, the screen in my opinion is a little small and it won't run SkyDemon (I'd much prefer this to MM as when you've priced up the charts and software for MM it becomes expensive for what you get).
I think that hacking PNDs is an unreliable and improper way of getting GPS, whilst still costly. The battery life on these devices can be very poor as well.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be a device with a 7-inch screen, like the cheap PNDs found on ebay, but with a full operating system on such as Windows XP or even Windows 7. Here's the tricky bit. It would need a built-in GPS receiver, an in-car charger, car/aircraft mounting kit and sunlight-readable screen. An extended life battery and foldout QWERTY keyboard would also be a bonus. I have an HP Pavillion 12-inch tablet/laptop however no GPS, no bluetooth for GPS, no car charger, crap battery life and the screen isn't even readable in the depths of the night never mind 2500' above the ground on a sunny day. No way of mounting the thing either (The device is too big anyway).
The SkyDemon software is excellent. Really excellent. Though it does become frustrating when the only recommended devices are phones or PDAs, with tiny screens. I have searched far and wide for a device that meets my requirements, as I feel it would be the perfect tool for planning and flying all in one but I've had no luck. My question is, does anyone have any better ideas/know of a device that is the perfect partner for SkyDemon?
It seems that we have the perfect software, thanks to Tim Dawson, but we are now lacking the ideal device to make the most of it. Devices are unreliable, lacking in features and interfaces and overall just don't cut it like the big-gun Garmins. Surely a device with all the necessary features would come in at about £300-£400 (It doesn't need to be the latest core2duo 5 million mhz 400gb memory crap, just enough to run the SkyDemon package), would be easily updatable/upgradable for future software releases and would still cost far less than any Garmin? I dare say that if such a device was available you could also connect it to a 3G provider for in-flight TAF and METAR updates as well. Anyway, ideas?
Thanks.
I've got a cheap £60 satnav running MemoryMap with all three half million charts on, merged together to form one chart at the moment. Whilst this is great, the screen in my opinion is a little small and it won't run SkyDemon (I'd much prefer this to MM as when you've priced up the charts and software for MM it becomes expensive for what you get).
I think that hacking PNDs is an unreliable and improper way of getting GPS, whilst still costly. The battery life on these devices can be very poor as well.
In my opinion, the ideal solution would be a device with a 7-inch screen, like the cheap PNDs found on ebay, but with a full operating system on such as Windows XP or even Windows 7. Here's the tricky bit. It would need a built-in GPS receiver, an in-car charger, car/aircraft mounting kit and sunlight-readable screen. An extended life battery and foldout QWERTY keyboard would also be a bonus. I have an HP Pavillion 12-inch tablet/laptop however no GPS, no bluetooth for GPS, no car charger, crap battery life and the screen isn't even readable in the depths of the night never mind 2500' above the ground on a sunny day. No way of mounting the thing either (The device is too big anyway).
The SkyDemon software is excellent. Really excellent. Though it does become frustrating when the only recommended devices are phones or PDAs, with tiny screens. I have searched far and wide for a device that meets my requirements, as I feel it would be the perfect tool for planning and flying all in one but I've had no luck. My question is, does anyone have any better ideas/know of a device that is the perfect partner for SkyDemon?
It seems that we have the perfect software, thanks to Tim Dawson, but we are now lacking the ideal device to make the most of it. Devices are unreliable, lacking in features and interfaces and overall just don't cut it like the big-gun Garmins. Surely a device with all the necessary features would come in at about £300-£400 (It doesn't need to be the latest core2duo 5 million mhz 400gb memory crap, just enough to run the SkyDemon package), would be easily updatable/upgradable for future software releases and would still cost far less than any Garmin? I dare say that if such a device was available you could also connect it to a 3G provider for in-flight TAF and METAR updates as well. Anyway, ideas?
Thanks.
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I agree that the software is excellent, but that the lack of an ideal device is a frustration.
I run InFlight on a (now-discontinued) Fujitsu-Siemens PDA. This doesn't need hacking, and in-flight the setup works pretty well with the PDA mounted on a knee-board. However, a bigger screen would be a bonus. The major issue though is the user interface - having to use a pen of some sort to operate the device via the standard Windows Mobile interface isn't ideal (although not too bad on a kneeboard - I use my chinagraph pencil). In practice, this interface limitation means that you set up the route beforehand, and just use the device to tell you where you are. This in itself is of course very useful, but easier interaction while flying would bridge the gap with 'proper' GPS systems.
SkyDemon Plan can now be used inflight, so any sort of small notebook with a GPS dongle can be used - but again the standard Windows interface via menus, trackpad and keyboard leaves a lot to be desired.
By the way, there is a similar discussion ongoing on the other forum.
I run InFlight on a (now-discontinued) Fujitsu-Siemens PDA. This doesn't need hacking, and in-flight the setup works pretty well with the PDA mounted on a knee-board. However, a bigger screen would be a bonus. The major issue though is the user interface - having to use a pen of some sort to operate the device via the standard Windows Mobile interface isn't ideal (although not too bad on a kneeboard - I use my chinagraph pencil). In practice, this interface limitation means that you set up the route beforehand, and just use the device to tell you where you are. This in itself is of course very useful, but easier interaction while flying would bridge the gap with 'proper' GPS systems.
SkyDemon Plan can now be used inflight, so any sort of small notebook with a GPS dongle can be used - but again the standard Windows interface via menus, trackpad and keyboard leaves a lot to be desired.
By the way, there is a similar discussion ongoing on the other forum.
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You guys need to sample SkyDemon and MemoryMap charts on the latest Windows based full screen HTC HD handsets, i.e. HTC Touch HD 2. They provide a crystal clear high definition resolution. With a ciggy charger and a suction cup mount, you do not need anything else!
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Re HTC Touch, the display brightness and resolution of my PDA is fine. As I said, the main issue is with the Windows-based menus. Is this different on an HTC?
What would be better is a touch-screen interface more like a car TomTom - designed for use by fat fingers.
What would be better is a touch-screen interface more like a car TomTom - designed for use by fat fingers.
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I've spent way too much time playing with gadgets for aviation use, and have concluded that the only way to do this is
- use a nice lightweight laptop for all ground based tasks (plenty of choice there, from relative crap @ £200 to top grade slick corporate hardware @ £1500)
- use a tablet computer in the cockpit, if you want a GPS moving map or if you want to display IFR approach plates
Beyond this, the discussion gets quite wide ranging.
The main issue is that nobody has produced a convertible laptop/tablet (e.g. the nice Fujitsu P1510) with a sunlight-readable display. For marketing reasons, the special LCDs are offered only on £2k vertical-market tablets such as this, or on very heavy mil-spec tablets costing £3k plus e.g. this. Back in 2004/05 I tried using the xplore ix104 tablet but the size/weight was silly.
I don't use a PDA - screen is too small. It is OK for w&b calcs... not for a moving map.
But then I have a panel mounted GPS. Somebody who does not have this has a requirement for ground based flight planning, plus a decent moving map GPS for use airborne. There isn't a single device currently which does both well.
- use a nice lightweight laptop for all ground based tasks (plenty of choice there, from relative crap @ £200 to top grade slick corporate hardware @ £1500)
- use a tablet computer in the cockpit, if you want a GPS moving map or if you want to display IFR approach plates
Beyond this, the discussion gets quite wide ranging.
The main issue is that nobody has produced a convertible laptop/tablet (e.g. the nice Fujitsu P1510) with a sunlight-readable display. For marketing reasons, the special LCDs are offered only on £2k vertical-market tablets such as this, or on very heavy mil-spec tablets costing £3k plus e.g. this. Back in 2004/05 I tried using the xplore ix104 tablet but the size/weight was silly.
I don't use a PDA - screen is too small. It is OK for w&b calcs... not for a moving map.
But then I have a panel mounted GPS. Somebody who does not have this has a requirement for ground based flight planning, plus a decent moving map GPS for use airborne. There isn't a single device currently which does both well.
You may be interested to hear that SkyDemon are currently working on a GPS unit that will come loaded with the software. They are currently asking for people's opinions and requirements in a thread on the "other forum".
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In Oz digital map software package Airnav only option for Approved aviation digital charts with moving map features. Needs a windows program though so smartphone/ PDA not an option. I'm looking at Bluetooth GPS receiver paired with Motion Computing J3400 slate tablet pc. Price is high but will give me detailed Aussie maps rather than American basemap products. Worth a look if you want nice away to read screen.
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Navigon 8410
I am using a Navigon 8410 which with very simple hacking will run SD perfectly.
Its advantages are:
D
Its advantages are:
- Sunlight readable
- 5" screen .. large enough in my view, esp if you use Tim's device.xml file to control DPI.
- V lightweight and portable
- Charges via USB cigarette lighter
- Lots of cradle/holders for very easy "snap in" fixing
- Good GPS fix (8 sats usually once initial 1/2hr fix is done)
- Available for circa £250
- V good car navigation as well
D
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I'm running Skydemon on a Dell XT2 tablet pc with Windows 7.
This device has touch screen and a daylight readable display. Have been running it for a few month and a very happy with the result.
Eventhough it is a tablet I most often use it opened as a pc on the passenger seat. I usually fly cross contry alone on business.
This device has touch screen and a daylight readable display. Have been running it for a few month and a very happy with the result.
Eventhough it is a tablet I most often use it opened as a pc on the passenger seat. I usually fly cross contry alone on business.
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Chinese GPS Units will work
Having watched and provided a little input to the development of Tim Dawson's Sky Demon on this forum, I purchased the "In Flight" software when it came out. It is very good indeed and continues to get better as Tim supports the package with excellent regular updates.
I started to look into a GPS touchscreen device to run the software and as a start, and for experimentation purposes I bought a 5" Chinese touchscreen navigator from Ebay for £46 plus a few quid for delivery. The unit arrived and was preloaded with IGO8, a road navigation program which is actually not bad, but to get the Sky Demon onto it, took me a while due to the minute manual being all in Chinese! However, the unit was using the WIN CE operating system which is compatible with Sky Demon and what I did was this:-
I copied the existing IGO8 software from the provided SD card onto another card, basically backing it up. Then I transferred the Sky Demon software onto this backup in place of the IGO8 files and ran it.
It didn't work Why? Because the GPS had been set up to "look for" IGO8. So I simply renamed the Sky Demon folder "IGO8" and made sure that I did the same for the Sky Demon executable file (.exe) and ran it. Sure enough it fired up a treat
The last thing to do is make sure you have a GPS signal working. If not, go into the options menu on Sky Demon Flight and change the “Com port” to a different number. I found it worked when using Com port 1. The Baud Rate seemed to make little difference so I set it to the highest available.
I then used the Sky Demon Plan (evaluation copy) to flight plan and then transferred this to the GPS unit by using "Windows Mobile Device Centre" which is a free download from the Microsoft website.
A tip here is that whilst you have the unit connected to your internet connected Laptop or PC, you can directly load Tafs and Metars and Notams to your GPS device and then refer to this later at the flying club or in the air.
I have carried out a number of airborne tests in my Piper Arrow III, using the provided suction mount (actually stuck to the second altimeter in front of the right seat) and angled towards the pilot and plugged in to the cigar socket on the panel.
I found that it works very well indeed, but the screen could do with being a bit brighter in the high light level of the cockpit.
Although it is a 5" device, it is still a bit small for a full moving map device, so goodness knows what the smaller PDA and Phone devices are like
I found that using the touchscreen stylus was sometimes a bit difficult if there was any turbulence, but if the unit is set up correctly before flight it should look after itself as the aircraft icon resets itself as it comes near the edge of the screen.
What now? Well I plan to buy a new Chinese 7" GPS unit with a much higher resolution from Ebay (about 100 quid + delivery) and load its WIN CE operating system in the same way as I have described above. I expect this to be about the optimum for the cockpit of the Piper Arrow and I will report my findings when I have bought and tested it.
I asked Tim Dawson on the Sky Demon forum about modifying his software to work on Apple devices like IPod and IPad, but he is not keen on this as it involves a huge amount of work and royalty payments to Apple. But one interesting development is that Sky Demon will be selling their own GPS devices loaded with their software soon. If this is on a unit that is bright and relatively high def, it will, in my opinion, be the best GPS non integrated (i.e. removeable) device available for purchase for light aviation and this will be, I'm informed by Tim, for less money than any of the other comparable units.
Best of luck
BTF
I started to look into a GPS touchscreen device to run the software and as a start, and for experimentation purposes I bought a 5" Chinese touchscreen navigator from Ebay for £46 plus a few quid for delivery. The unit arrived and was preloaded with IGO8, a road navigation program which is actually not bad, but to get the Sky Demon onto it, took me a while due to the minute manual being all in Chinese! However, the unit was using the WIN CE operating system which is compatible with Sky Demon and what I did was this:-
I copied the existing IGO8 software from the provided SD card onto another card, basically backing it up. Then I transferred the Sky Demon software onto this backup in place of the IGO8 files and ran it.
It didn't work Why? Because the GPS had been set up to "look for" IGO8. So I simply renamed the Sky Demon folder "IGO8" and made sure that I did the same for the Sky Demon executable file (.exe) and ran it. Sure enough it fired up a treat
The last thing to do is make sure you have a GPS signal working. If not, go into the options menu on Sky Demon Flight and change the “Com port” to a different number. I found it worked when using Com port 1. The Baud Rate seemed to make little difference so I set it to the highest available.
I then used the Sky Demon Plan (evaluation copy) to flight plan and then transferred this to the GPS unit by using "Windows Mobile Device Centre" which is a free download from the Microsoft website.
A tip here is that whilst you have the unit connected to your internet connected Laptop or PC, you can directly load Tafs and Metars and Notams to your GPS device and then refer to this later at the flying club or in the air.
I have carried out a number of airborne tests in my Piper Arrow III, using the provided suction mount (actually stuck to the second altimeter in front of the right seat) and angled towards the pilot and plugged in to the cigar socket on the panel.
I found that it works very well indeed, but the screen could do with being a bit brighter in the high light level of the cockpit.
Although it is a 5" device, it is still a bit small for a full moving map device, so goodness knows what the smaller PDA and Phone devices are like
I found that using the touchscreen stylus was sometimes a bit difficult if there was any turbulence, but if the unit is set up correctly before flight it should look after itself as the aircraft icon resets itself as it comes near the edge of the screen.
What now? Well I plan to buy a new Chinese 7" GPS unit with a much higher resolution from Ebay (about 100 quid + delivery) and load its WIN CE operating system in the same way as I have described above. I expect this to be about the optimum for the cockpit of the Piper Arrow and I will report my findings when I have bought and tested it.
I asked Tim Dawson on the Sky Demon forum about modifying his software to work on Apple devices like IPod and IPad, but he is not keen on this as it involves a huge amount of work and royalty payments to Apple. But one interesting development is that Sky Demon will be selling their own GPS devices loaded with their software soon. If this is on a unit that is bright and relatively high def, it will, in my opinion, be the best GPS non integrated (i.e. removeable) device available for purchase for light aviation and this will be, I'm informed by Tim, for less money than any of the other comparable units.
Best of luck
BTF
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skydemon
I have used the Viliv x70. This is a full fuctioning pc tablet with built in 3g and GPS recievers. The screen is 7" and is sun readable. It works very well indeed and I find the ablity to view Notams, Metars and Taffs whilst planning and in flight puts this device with skydemon software way ahead of my 496. Another feature which I have found to be a revelation is being able to veiw airspace ahead and above in profile whilst in flight.
The only downside is price. This is not a cheap import sold on ebay and will cost a minimum of £600. Also it is a tad large compared to other gps devices so thought has to be given to mounting. I use a powerful suction device from ram mounts.
The only downside is price. This is not a cheap import sold on ebay and will cost a minimum of £600. Also it is a tad large compared to other gps devices so thought has to be given to mounting. I use a powerful suction device from ram mounts.
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I have used the Viliv x70. This is a full fuctioning pc tablet with built in 3g and GPS recievers. The screen is 7" and is sun readable.
I sent it back as it was almost useless in sunlight - like most LCDs.
Maybe yours had some sort of contrast enhancing filter? I tried mine with an without one.
The format has great potential though. Just the right size, etc.
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Is this the 'basic' Aware and, if so, can you give me any idea how to do it?
For instructions on how to get it to work on 'Aware' see here.
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Hi folks I have tried the 7" chinese gps which worked fine with MMap although there was a slight problem with the map not filling the wide screen!! Still not good in sunlight (we do get some in Scotland). I have just received the 5" clone of the Aware gps today and it has a much brighter back light. I have just installed the MMap software with very little problem after renaming the files Igo8 and changing the GPS com port to com1 using CEReg edit. Will try it today if weather permits and report back.
John.
John.
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Yes it is the 'basic' Aware. There are clone units availabale on eBay for about £30ish that also work such as this one which I have bought
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Is the battery life any better than the Aware?
am I gonna need some sort of booster?