Fry's is a dangerous place......
ever since I finished the Val, I have been looking for alternatives to the paper approach plate bag - the RV-8 is a super personal traveling machine, but let's face it, there is just no way to take an entire continent's worth of approach plates on every trip. I have a little "trip bag" that I have to load depending on where I am going, and if it is a long trip in multiple directions, I sometimes have to throw extra books in the back and swap them out - a real pain. Consequently, I have been actively looking for electronic solutions for a couple of years now, and have been keeping my eye on the "E-Ink" devices. I have gotten mixed reviews on the supportability of the early models (although everyone says the display s great!), and I just wasn't ready to sink the kind of money they wanted into an experiment.
Then yesterday, I stopped at Fry's to get some tax software and Wham! I walked by the latest Sony ready display - now priced at $299!! the last time I'd checked, they were twice that price, and the software was a bit skimpy. I did some quick-in-store research, went home and looked a bit more on line, and went back for one. Why now? Price, the ability to read PDF's,and the fact that you can get all the US approach plates on line in PDF format for free!
OK, so how does it look?
Thickness?
Compared to a NOS book?
OK, all I have done with it so far is play with it at home, and load a couple of Gig's worth of plates. Haven't had it in the cockpit yet, but here are a couple of observations:
1) the display is smaller than a standard approach plate, but is very crisp and readable. Yes, you'll need good reading glasses or visual acuity - but the data is all readable!
2) All the approach plates for 50 states fits in about 3.5 Gigs of storage space. this unit has an SD card slot that will take up to a 2 gig card. I have built two cards - one east, and one west - so I have the entire brain bag in one little package.
3) A large state worth of plates can be a little difficult to navigate - you don't get instant retrieval - but then again, if you are planning ahead, you shouldn't need it in an instant. My concept of operations is that I will leave th e"total US" on the SD cards, so I have everything with me all th time. then for each trip, I can build a unique file with the airports I intend to use - that will make access very quick. Initial tries at this are promising.
4) If you get stuck someplace due to weather - use it like it was intended - read a book! (I already loaded up the AIM and the Instrument Flying Handbook as "lite" reading.)
This is not perfect for PDF's - the scaling can get a little tiny - but it sure appears to me to be better than juggling a huge brain bag of books. Since I already subscribe to Air charts update service, I can download charts once a year to coincide with the annual "drop" and use the update sheets to know that I have the latest data. I'm not saying this is the be-all, end-all solution....just a cool step in the right direction!
Hopefully, I'll get a chance to play with this in the air in the next couple of days - but it's a stormy afternoon here in Houston.....
Paul
ever since I finished the Val, I have been looking for alternatives to the paper approach plate bag - the RV-8 is a super personal traveling machine, but let's face it, there is just no way to take an entire continent's worth of approach plates on every trip. I have a little "trip bag" that I have to load depending on where I am going, and if it is a long trip in multiple directions, I sometimes have to throw extra books in the back and swap them out - a real pain. Consequently, I have been actively looking for electronic solutions for a couple of years now, and have been keeping my eye on the "E-Ink" devices. I have gotten mixed reviews on the supportability of the early models (although everyone says the display s great!), and I just wasn't ready to sink the kind of money they wanted into an experiment.
Then yesterday, I stopped at Fry's to get some tax software and Wham! I walked by the latest Sony ready display - now priced at $299!! the last time I'd checked, they were twice that price, and the software was a bit skimpy. I did some quick-in-store research, went home and looked a bit more on line, and went back for one. Why now? Price, the ability to read PDF's,and the fact that you can get all the US approach plates on line in PDF format for free!
OK, so how does it look?
Thickness?
Compared to a NOS book?
OK, all I have done with it so far is play with it at home, and load a couple of Gig's worth of plates. Haven't had it in the cockpit yet, but here are a couple of observations:
1) the display is smaller than a standard approach plate, but is very crisp and readable. Yes, you'll need good reading glasses or visual acuity - but the data is all readable!
2) All the approach plates for 50 states fits in about 3.5 Gigs of storage space. this unit has an SD card slot that will take up to a 2 gig card. I have built two cards - one east, and one west - so I have the entire brain bag in one little package.
3) A large state worth of plates can be a little difficult to navigate - you don't get instant retrieval - but then again, if you are planning ahead, you shouldn't need it in an instant. My concept of operations is that I will leave th e"total US" on the SD cards, so I have everything with me all th time. then for each trip, I can build a unique file with the airports I intend to use - that will make access very quick. Initial tries at this are promising.
4) If you get stuck someplace due to weather - use it like it was intended - read a book! (I already loaded up the AIM and the Instrument Flying Handbook as "lite" reading.)
This is not perfect for PDF's - the scaling can get a little tiny - but it sure appears to me to be better than juggling a huge brain bag of books. Since I already subscribe to Air charts update service, I can download charts once a year to coincide with the annual "drop" and use the update sheets to know that I have the latest data. I'm not saying this is the be-all, end-all solution....just a cool step in the right direction!
Hopefully, I'll get a chance to play with this in the air in the next couple of days - but it's a stormy afternoon here in Houston.....
Paul
