sfGnome

The best part about this photo is that you can ignore the ugly sod on the right and concentrate on the beautiful bride on the left... ...And a merry Christmas to all!

Just a few test flights for a faulty - now repaired - Altitude Encoder. Of course, I had to take it up to 7,500', didn't I? Never bothered to do that over the home field before. Nice view.

Robots are how Google et. al. know all about everything on the web. Their computers, commonly known as robots, 'crawl' around the web, following all the links on a page and all the links on those pages and all the links... etc.

Mostly PC, but only because I can't get the little pop-up preview window on the iPad.

I can't think of a better purpose for my flying than visiting my Daughter in Vic.

Thanks to you both.

Can I ressurect this thread to ask a related question? Our (*very* old) altitude encoder has curled up its toes and taken its last flight. The replacement choice from Australian suppliers when you're purchasing encoder only seems to be limited to the Ameri-King AK350 or the Microair EC2002. As our transponder is also Microair - and it's Aussie - , it seems to make sense to use it rather than the American unit. However, the Microair unit is not TSO'd. My understanding is that if a recreational aircraft is flying over 5,000ft, then it must have a transponder that has been calibrated within the last two years, but it is not necessary for the devices themselves to be TSO'd. Is that correct?

Fair point. I will admit that I was thinking of equipment rather than batteries, but you're right. Batteries are the exact opposite of what I said. They have a very low internal impedance, and rely on the supply to limit the current. Only guessing, but I'd be surprised if it drew more than the amp. However, even if it did draw more (say 1.5A to be excessive), then with the supply providing one amp, the internal batteries only have to supply the other half amp, and the iPad will still be running long after your bladder has exploded and you have to be on the ground anyway!

For voltage and current, think of it this way. The source supplies the voltage and the load draws the current. As long as the supply can supply as much current as the load needs, then everything is fine. You could have a supply that is capable of supplying 1000A and it would be quite safe to connect to your iPad, because it is the load (ie the iPad) that controls the amount of current drawn. On the other hand, if the supply can't supply enough current to keep the load happy, then the voltage will droop and all bets are off. So, if your genuine Apple wall charger that came with it is rated at 1A, then it means that the mini iPad must require less than that amount, and any cigarette lighter charger that can supply that much or more is fine (all other previously discussed issues being already accounted for, of course).

Dafyydd, please don't take what I said as implying that linear is the better way to go. Good switchmode supplies are the bee's knees. They'll cope with the small repetitive spikes that the Sport Pilot article was talking about (as long as they are not designed to be borderline at 14V like a real cheapie might be), and they are no more susceptible to to the kV spikes of startup and shutdown than a linear reg. The biggest problem with running a linear reg off a 6V battery is that linear regs require a certain level of step-down, and even the best ones will be borderline at 6V. As soon as the battery voltage starts to droop, so will the output and the iPad will start getting very iffy. Switchmode reg, on the other hand, will keep supplying as the input voltage droops (for a while at least).

That was really interesting reading. Thanks for pointing it out, Andy.

Just to add a little confusion (though hopefully not too much), I have to disagree with Andy's comments that the 12->5v converters are likely to be linear. The power dissipation (9W for a 1A converter working from 13.8V) is just too high for the cigarette lighter plug packs. They'll almost certainly be switchmode devices, running in the megahertz range. These high frequencies allow the inductor and caps to be very small, and they easily run at >90% efficiency so they're dissipating less than 500mW (and they're still as cheap as chips). Their safety basically comes down to the components used, and to put a rough rule of thumb on it, the more expensive, the better. Why? Two factors. The first is that the switching FET - one of the more expensive parts @~20-30 cents) is subject to all the spikes that exist on the main bus, and in any automotive or aircraft system, they can be very large indeed. If the FET fails, it typically fails short-circuit, not open. That then puts the full 12-15V of the bus onto the 5V input on the electronic equipment. Most of the time, it'll blow a fuse (either in the equipment or on the panel), but if you combine it with the large spikes that took out the FET, they could take out the battery too (with extreme prejudice). Given that these spikes tend to occur at engine start and shutdown, it's wise to switch off the power to the converter before starting or stopping the engine (just like you always do to protect the rest of the avionics, don't you!). The second factor (though it doesn't affect the battery safely) is RF conducted & radiated emissions. It's not hard to suppress the emissions from a power supply if you do it at design time, but if you're either slap-dash in your design or looking to shave every cent you can from the BOM cost, then it's easy to 'accidentally' leave off the components that make the unit meet the international specs. It is illegal to sell electrical equipment in Australia that doesn't meet the requirements, but if you're buying cheap (and especially if you're buying off the web), there's every chance it will radiate like crazy. There's no easy way to check this your self, but basically, if you use a converter and you start hearing noise in the intercom or radio, chuck it and go and get a better one. Life's too short to stuff around with making a $5 converter work in your system. Bottom line? If you're powering your $800 iPad, don't use a $2 converter.

Just to wrap this up for future reference, on the weekend I spat on the suction cap before attaching it, and when we tried to release it, it was really hard to remove. Looks like that's the secret.

Colour me interested! The report from our mate who drove down (though I think he may have regretted agreeing to be the pax during an aeros demo) only whetted my appetite more. North is handy, but by no means mandatory; it was just unfortunate that the conditions on the day messed things. The sad part was that if bad weather was forecast, I would have driven down, but "light winds and CAVOK" sounded tailor-made.

As those of you not in Sydney and surrounds may have heard, we've had a few of a bushfire issues lately. Yesterday, we had intended to fly from Warnervale - north of Sydney - to Jaspers Brush - in the south - for the EMT course that the kind folk were running there. Unfortunately, prior to the entry to the western VFR lane at Brooklyn bridge, we hit a solid wall of smoke trapped in an inversion layer at about 1,500'. Yes, we were clear of it, but there was zero ground reference for navigation and zero opportunity to pick a landing spot should things go quiet. We shot over to the coast, but the smoke went far out to sea. Figuring that it would dissipate as the morning progressed, we went back to base for a coffee before having a second go. Second time was even thicker. At the coast, we tried to descend on the basis that from 500', we'd have adequate visibility, but apart from choking as we went into the smoke layer, we also started to loose any horizon. Didn't hang around there, admitted defeat, and went home. This morning, I was up at the Brooklyn bridge again, but this time on a slightly more earth-bound conveyance, and this is what it looked like. For those of you who don't know the area, this is about half way across the bridge, and there is a dirty great big mountain at the far end of it... I hope the Emergency Maneuvers training went well, because the only emergency maneuver we go to practice was the 'Turn and Run'. Ah well, live to fight another day.

Nup. Seems ok, and it stuck for days home here (in the kitchen - wife has taken to it). I'll give it another shot on the weekend, but give it a bit of a lick-before-stick this time.

Now there's a plane that's in high use...

Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I just bought a crook unit. I currently use a knee pad, but I find that I have to get my head down to read anything, and I prefer to have at least some peripheral vision outside. Hence the desire to mount the pad higher. Alas, it isn't a mini. I wondered if the additional weight of the normal iPad was the problem with the suction, but it seems that at least RAM have the problem solved.

Nope, she starts fine. Just run a little rough if the revs are dropped back to that mid range - lower than cruise and higher than glide, so I only tend to notice it when on base & final. There's definitely been no modifications, but I'll check for loose hoses next time I'm out there.

Ah, Thruster. That's why they were floating free. I've often wondered how you'd go getting out of an upturned, enclosed cabin under water - especially a low wing.

Oh, absolutely. Believe me, there's nothing negative in sorting out the reason behind an apparent failure, and thus working out a way around it to save problems for future users. Passing on your experiences is a really valuable contribution.

Yep, just tried a single location briefing (on YSSY - like I'm ever going to fly there ) and it did as you said - only showed the warning and nothing else. My guess is that it was written with the structure of the Area Forecast in mind (remembering that it used to collect the data directly so that was fair enough) and that it is not recognising the Location Briefing format. Now, to be fair to both Ians, the text does say "Click here for NAIPS and get an Area Briefing", but I'll admit that I never noticed that before either. Perhaps either the main page could add an "Area Briefing Only" warning in big friendly letters, or better still if the output contains no data then it could add a note "Sorry, I couldn't find any data to translate in the format I expected. Did you use the Area Forecast?".

Has anyone had any experience with the effectiveness of suction-type iPad mounting brackets? I tried one a few weeks ago that seemed (on the ground) to hold nice and tight, but 10 minutes into the flight it dropped off and into the lap of my passenger. I noticed that the CASA regulation on EFBs requires that impermanent mounts must be stowed for take off and landing and for flight below 1000ft (and now I know why), but still, 10 minutes seems to be pretty much on the useless end of the spectrum. Do any of them actually work?

There's two sides to this type of story, and I've seen (and suffered through) both in my working life. I've worked for companies where the leadership was technology-centred, and when they left and the MBA's took over, the companies foundered. On the other hand, I've also worked for companies where the leadership was so technology-centred that the companies were on the verge of failing when the MBA's came in and rescued them from oblivion. As in everything else in life, you need a bit of everything and not too much of anything!

Maj, Can you please expand on what you mean by "correctly connected"? Was it a case of someone putting the tubes in the wrong place (which would have caused problems right from that service onwards), or is it some form of adjustment (meaning that it could randomly start occurring if something moved)? I ask because our Rotax has started exhibiting symptoms exactly as you describe in the last couple of months, but it hadn't concerned me because the only other one that I've flown did exactly the same thing all the time.