Where to place an iPad in an E with a Johnson Bar

[ELT]

Hi Guys,

I am almost ready to get an iPad 3G for charts and other uses.  Has anyone devised a good place and mounting in an E. I have read prior posts and positioning seems to be a big problem.  The panel on my E is full and I have a 496 attached to the center post.  Any input and pictures would be great.  The yokes are free except for a clock and mike/PC switches. Thanks for any input and comments on iPad 3G usefulness.

[Immelman]

I set mine in my lap, or clip it (via a protective folio cover for it) to my kneeboard. Here is a write-up I posted to the mooney mailing list on iPad use for charts:

---

Yesterday my wife and I returned from a two-week trip via Mooney air that meandered about the southwest, the Rockies, over to Oshkosh, exploring Wisconsin for a few days (due to the caravan cancellation and other OSH delays), and back home through Yellowstone. I bought an iPad a few months ago and decided to try it as my primary chart source, using SkyCharts Pro ($20USD/yr) for the trip. Backing it up were a stack of WAC charts and the database in my Lowrance 600c GPS. I'd flown around locally and on a couple of shorter cross-country trips in California with the iPad but this would be the first serious trip. The trip was to be primarily VFR (along the way I departed IFR once and shot two approaches, though some benign stratus -- VFR for me for the rest because I need to see and avoid convection).

Here are my impressions:
- I used a folio case made by Griffin to house and protect the device. While Flying, I have a conventional ASA kneeboard. I can clip the folio case to the kneeboard for securing the device. This worked fine in turbulence.

- The iPad fits just fine in a Mooney cockpit when strapped to my knee -- at least in landscape orientation (useful for east-west trips). For portrait (north-south routes for viewing approach plates) a potential hazard is the control yoke hitting it at its extremes (i.e. while boxing the controls before takeoff). This wasn't a huge problem but I chose to take it off my leg and stow it for a couple of the more challenging landings we did on the trip (i.e. gusty crosswinds) where abrupt and positive control inputs may be necessary

- Several people asked about Apple's 10,000' specification. A few things have been said about this previously here so I won't belabor this, but my impression is that this is either a testing or cooling-related specification as there is no internal moving hard disk drive. On this particular trip, the highest altitude I reached was 15,500' (briefly) with several hours at 13,500' and I experienced no problems what so ever.

- Sunlight can cause overheat shut-downs and glare. I've had the device shut down well below 10K if left in direct sunlight for too long. It isn't terribly readable in sunlight either. I figured these things out on local flights before Oshkosh and was prepared for them - with a t-shirt or some other cloth in my lap. If I flew a bubble-cockpit airplane or something else with greater sun exposure this would be more of an issue but honestly -- in 30 hours of flying over the course of this trip in all sorts of directions -- there were maybe 2-4 hours when the sunlight hit the device while flying my Mooney. I just pulled out the shirt, used it to shade the device, and had no problems what so ever

- Battery life: I'd read reports of 10-12 hours battery life previously. I now think these are a bit optimistic for flying use. For daytime flying I had to have the display brightness set to maximum to be readable. The longest days of flying we did (6 hours or so, maybe 6.5 hours of using the device starting with a 100% charge) left me with about 15% battery remaining. For 'the road' I bought a cigarette lighter charger from Fry's for $20 or so and that was useful for charging the device in rental cars -- but it could also be used to power the device in the airplane. I kept this accessible in the cockpit but didn't need it. Had I flown a longer day, I would have.

- Applications: Overall I'm quite happy with SkyCharts Pro. I tried Foreflight. Yes, its a total package solution - but the whiz-bang feature set is most useful on the ground with an internet connection. I am fine with using the web browser for checking weather and going to airnav/duat for airport information, notams, etc, so I let my foreflight trial expire the free period. I preferred SkyCharts Pro for chart viewing anyway -- tap next to an airport on the sectional a couple times and a list of PDF pages is displayed - so selecting the A/FD page, or a particular instrument approach from the NACO data is easier than paper. Far easier. With all that said -- SkyCharts Pro did crash on me twice in the above trip (no problem, just re-start it and go to where you were on the map previously) and when downloading chart updates I found that sometimes it gets tripped up and downloads things twice. When it comes time for the end of a chart-cycle, this means you'd better have a good internet connection if you've cached a load of charts (I cached VFR & IFR charts for the entire western US for this trip ahead of time)

- Robustness: This probably goes without saying but with the touch-screen as a primary input device you've got to be careful with it to get good longevity. The cockpit can occasionally be a hostile environment (i.e. drop a pencil, or reach to grab something you need right now and set it on your lap). As best as I can tell, I haven't scratched the iPad's screen yet, but its something to be conscious of if the device is used on your lap or tossed somewhere in a pinch.

Finally, perhaps the most exciting thing is the future of this device. I saw several demos at Oshkosh of new aviation applications involving the iPad. One of the more compelling is a HW/SW solution created by a couple of gentlemen who built and were selling an ADS-B (in) receiver with a bluetooth interface to external display devices (i.e. the iPad). Their box was for sale for ~$1AMU and they'd developed an iPad app to display the FAA weather info coming down over the link. I'm leaving the name out of this because this was also of personal interest to me as some of the things they were using internally are things I've worked on in my non-aviation career (i.e. day job). I had no idea about this until I struck up a conversation with them in their booth at OSH. While this is admittedly in its infancy, looking forward a couple of years I can see an ecosystem developing to have charts, traffic, and weather displayed in the cockpit on the iPad -- or whatever other tablet catches on.

In summation, my belief is that the iPad is a suitable charting device for the non-professional pilot. My sense is that I would not want to count on this thing day in and out (i.e. if I were a charter or airline pilot... of course their operational rules might prohibit such use in the first place). For pleasure flying, however, where a failure means you divert and buy a paper chart somewhere -- I think the iPad is a good honest solution and works well for GA.

[carusoam]

How do you power your I-Pad in your plane?

Battery (limited useful time) ?, 12v adapter?,  24v adapter?

One of these days, I am going to break down and purchase the I-Pad, but I am wondering how you all get power to it when it's battery croaks after a few days of camping (sun'n'fun or OSH style). 

In the past, I have brought a 12v battery (jump start type) system along for my phone, but would prefer to use a 24v cigarette lighter adapter.

-a-

[Immelman]

See above in my writeup about battery life. You can get a cigarette lighter charge adapter for $20 or so.

[KLRDMD]

Quote: carusoam

One of these days, I am going to break down and purchase the I-Pad, but I am wondering how you all get power to it when it's battery croaks after a few days of camping (sun'n'fun or OSH style). 

[KLRDMD]

Quote: Immelman

See above in my writeup about battery life. You can get a cigarette lighter charge adapter for $20 or so.

[carusoam]

Sorry guys,

When I went from C to R, there is one thing I miss, the 12V electrical system.

Are you guys aware if the I-Pad can handle a 24V electrical supply or of a way to bring 24 down to 12?

My Garmin GPS doesn't mind (I think anything from 5V to 24V works for the hand held GPS)

I am going to web search around the cigarrette lighter adapter to see what other options that company might have.

Thanks,

-a-

[KLRDMD]

Quote: carusoam

Are you guys aware if the I-Pad can handle a 24V electrical supply or of a way to bring 24 down to 12?

[piperpainter]

You don't have any sing lighters in the plane? odd!