The reviews posted on Flyer forum seem to be very complimentary, although the main negative seems to be the short battery life, even with the additional battery, but I believe that is something being worked on.

a gorilla or chimp power supply will sort the issues of battery life.

A Power Gorilla costs as much as the GPS unit itself!

A 12v 7ah Sealed lead acid battery will cost less than £20 and last for eons between charges...

Has anyone any experience of using memory map and a gps unit? Seems according to this for the £150 cost of the basic airbox you can have the full nav capability with memory map?

didnt know about this, very interesting and cheap as chips.

'Full Nav Capability' is somewhat limited on Memory Map, because the map is just an image. It knowing nothing of the airspace boundaries, or aiports etc, and relies on you to warn yourself, or plan yourself.

PocketFMS on the other hand can offer a solution for not much more that provides far more functionality than either unit (more functionality in fact than most systems out there).

For the £55 unit mentioned in the article, add a €150 subscription (appx £120) gives a total price of £170.

For this you have a fully fledged GPS system with full airspace warnings, full flight planning, weather systems (including rainfall radar), and world wide coverage.

This includes both the mobile version, and the full pc flight planning system.

For the sake of clarity, I should point out that I'm a Beta Tester for PocketFMS. I've no financial involvement...just a happy user that enjoys testing the software before it's released to the public ;)

dp

Firstly, I am not a computer expert and I currently use a Pilot 3 device for navigation. Adequate but certainly not brilliant with such a small screen in black and white.

Am I correct in thinking that you buy the £55 device and then load the FMS data straight on to it? How easy is that?

On the face of it this sounds fantastic value. Any drawbacks?

Hi Miroku,

I can't say that I've any experience with the particular device mentioned in that article. However the MyGuide 3100 is known to work with PocketFMS.

Looking at the instructions on that website, it would appear that PFMS is set up to work on it 'out of the box' so you wouldn't need to bother with any of those instructions. Just install PocketFMS on your PC, put your memory card into your computer and click the appropriate button in PocketFMS on your PC. This will set up your card, which you can then put into the MyGuide, and bob's your uncle! It should work as easy as that.

As I said I have no experience with that particular device, so no guarantees, but I'd be very surprised if it didn't work that easy.

If you already have a car SatNav, you might not even need to purchase such a device! Many car satnav's can ready work with PocketFMS (or other such systems such as Memory Map and Sky Demon), provided they operate on the Windows CE operating systm. (Garmin and TomTom devices do not unfortunately). There is a 30 day free trial on the pocketFMS website to allow people try out the system.
Home of the PocketFMS Foundation.

There are a couple of potential catches yes.
Firstly the price quoted is a subscription. It is paid yearly, not a once off payment.
In return you get all airspace, objects, airport info etc updated constantly. You can update it whenever you like during the year, which means that you're always up to date. (Unlike the systems based on paper chart, which are only updated when the chart is updated.)

You also get all programs updates during the year, which add new features. There tends to be 3 to 4 major updates during each year, adding significant new features to the system.

Weather and radar data is also included in the subscription, along with map updates, and worlwide data.

However one your subscription runs out, you need to resubscribe to continue using it.

There is an alternative where you can purchase the software outright, but it's a bit more expensive than I quoted above. Included in this purchase, you get six months updates, and after the six months you need to purchase any further updates.

Other potential gocha's are screen brightness. I have no idea about the device quoted but to me it's all about screen brightness. The brighter ones are so much better, as they are easier to read in sunlight. The good ones are really good, and the bad ones are a pain ;)

I use a Mio C320 which was about similar price to the one quoted, but has an excellent screen, so it's not all about price! Unfortunately it's not available new anymore.

There is a very active forum on the PocketFMS website where any questions you might have would no doubt be quickly answered ;)

dp