Useful Safety Apps?

[0TreeLemur]

What apps do folks use to promote safety?   I'm specifically asking about iPad apps such as altitude reminders and alerts.  Not functions built into permanent equipment.

The EFB makers seem to have drawn the line at including such functionality in their products.  Yes, we get 3-mile final and 500 ft callout on approaches.  But more is possible.  My aircraft has only a one-axis autopilot.  For instance, if assigned a new altitude I'd like to enter it in and have it displayed with a delta.   That's what WAAS enables. 

What software tools have you discovered that you feel enhance safety enough to use them regularly?  I find that controllers have knack for giving complex instructions just as I'm approaching a new assigned altitude.   A flashy alert on my iPad would go a long way towards helping me avoid busting an altitude in that instance.  Just sayin'.  Is there an app for that?

Edited December 18, 2020 by 0TreeLemur
clarity of the question

[jlunseth]

I have an Icarus SAM GPSS. Not an app, it is installed on the panel. If I set destination altitude, which I always do, it is in my checklist, and I set and altitude to climb to, I get an alert at 1,000 AGL and an alert if I am deviating from assigned altitude.

[kortopates]

My G500 will start beeping if I deviate from assigned altitude I keep the altitude bug on.

[0TreeLemur]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

My G500 will start beeping if I deviate from assigned altitude I keep the altitude bug on.

Sadly and perhaps oddly, I still prefer a six pack.

[Hank]

4 hours ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Sadly and perhaps oddly, I still prefer a six pack.

Me, too. I save glass for cold beer, because it's better in bottles.

[carusoam]

I think the most useful app I have....

Is the one written by an MSer... (a different Patrick)

That converts data from the POH to an excel spreadsheet that can be run on my cellphone...

I enter the DA... it chugs out a proper T/O length calculation... better than my finger riding on a graph...

I know two MSers if they had that much power in their pocket... their planes would still be here...

One survived the T/O stall, the other unfortunately did not... (the lesson of Patrick....)

 

Add this to things a new Mooney company could have in their tool bag... to improve the overall life experience of Mooney owners...

I would invite @Jonny to this thread...   Speed, Efficiency, Safety... updated with modern tools... (apps)

Call it the Mooney App...

All that useful info available at the touch of a few buttons...  while at home, while in the plane... everywhere.

Best regards,

-a-

[BlueDun]

How about a relink or direction to the app or related apps? Thanks!

 

Edited December 20, 2020 by BlueDun

[carusoam]

@patrickf has written two T/O distance calculators for the Ovation.  O1 and O3....

Altitude Alert is written by a pilot (Ray Chase) and the early iPhone version may still be free.

MMOPA has the FRAT app. 

 

-a-

[BlueDun]

Here is help with links to save others from hunting them down. MMOPA is the PA46 owner’s group. The FRAT tool is a Flight Risk Assessment Tool. Useful but keep in mind that PA46 are FIKI and pressurized. The developer now has a general all-purpose FRAT tool in the Apple App Store. You may find one better than the other for your purposes.

PA46 FRAT
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mmopa-frat/id1206155543

General FRAT Tool
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/risk-assessment-tool/id1277156030

AltitudeAlert version 3 came out last year
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/altitudealert/id1458647184

M20R Performance Charts by @patrickf  You will need to download and use Open as App to make use of it as app and not in Excel.
Open as App
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/open-as-app/id1084483622

M20R Performance Charts
https://oaa.app.link/Wbv8GfTJ6Q

[carusoam]

Great details BD!

Thanks for pulling that together, and sharing it...

Best regards,

-a-

[AerostarDriver]

Not so much an APP but a proper, digital CO alerter and pulse Ox I would consider pretty high up regardless of what airplane your in.

(3) Mooney Crash Dan Bass CO Poisoning - InTheHangar Ep 77 - YouTube

Clearly not smart enough to embed it but the TL;DW, Flying at night with an exhaust leak will kill you provided you are not extremely lucky.

Edited December 20, 2020 by AerostarDriver

[Hank]

2 hours ago, AerostarDriver said:

Not so much an APP but a proper, digital CO alerter and pulse Ox I would consider pretty high up regardless of what airplane your in.

(3) Mooney Crash Dan Bass CO Poisoning - InTheHangar Ep 77 - YouTube

Clearly not smart enough to embed it but the TL;DW, Flying at night with an exhaust leak will kill you provided you are not extremely lucky.

Flying during the day with an exhaust leak will also kill you, barring the same great fortune . . . .

[patrickf]

8 hours ago, BlueDun said:

Here is help with links to save others from hunting them down. MMOPA is the PA46 owner’s group. The FRAT tool is a Flight Risk Assessment Tool. Useful but keep in mind that PA46 are FIKI and pressurized. The developer now has a general all-purpose FRAT tool in the Apple App Store. You may find one better than the other for your purposes.

PA46 FRAT
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mmopa-frat/id1206155543

General FRAT Tool
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/risk-assessment-tool/id1277156030

AltitudeAlert version 3 came out last year
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/altitudealert/id1458647184

M20R Performance Charts by @patrickf  You will need to download and use Open as App to make use of it as app and not in Excel.
Open as App
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/open-as-app/id1084483622

M20R Performance Charts
https://oaa.app.link/Wbv8GfTJ6Q

Thanks for the shout out @BlueDun @carusoam. Just realised it's been 2 years since I did the App - time flies! New New years resolution - pull out the 80% complete ones for the other models I've done and get it out. Have a great Christmas everyone.

[Schllc]

On 12/18/2020 at 5:28 PM, 0TreeLemur said:

Sadly and perhaps oddly, I still prefer a six pack.

I would think it’s mostly a function of familiarity and proficiency.

if I had been sitting behind a six back for 20 years and a glass panel for a month or two, and was forced into an emergency or even high workload situation, I would probably be a lot more comfortable with a six pack.

I trained for my ppl with a six pack, no AP and no gps, in about 10 different planes and five different makes/models.  
A few weeks before my ppl checkride with a scant 48 hours, I bought my first Mooney, a g1000 ovation. 
95% of my hours today are with a g1000, (about 85% of those in mooneys)
I am definitely more comfortable with glass, and while I feel it provides more situational awareness, with less effort, I cannot say it is “better”, merely better for me. 
to each their own.  I’ve read a lot of folks bashing the g1000, but have yet to meet one with 50+ hours behind one that has anything bad to say. 
it really is a marvelous piece of equipment, even with its warts. 
 

[jlunseth]

I have a ton of alerts from more than one source. As I already noted, I have an Icarus SAM which gives several types of alerts, and I also get runway alerts on my iPad from Foreflight. I have found that half or more of the alerts are of the bureaucratic mindset variety. Somebody somewhere rolled across a runway, so now everyone needs to get a runway alert every time they approach a runway. You start to get so many alerts they are not just nuisance, and not useful, they actually detract from safety. Today we have moving maps of airports, what idiot is not going to know when they are approaching a runway.

The one that is necessary to flight safety is "STALL, STALL".

One's that are useful are some kind of gear alert that you can kill when you have done your GUMPS check, so it won't come back and nag you again. Also, an altitude deviation alert is helpful. Most of the time if there is an alert it happens at cruise and there is not alot of other stuff going on, so it does not interfere.  This alert you also need to be able to kill and not have it nag again, or it will become an interference with safety. For example, if you have set it at pattern altitude, say 2,000, for an approach to an airport, and then you start your landing sequence, you need to be able to kill the alert so it is not constantly telling you that you need to be at 2,000 while you are trying to land. It needs to be an easy kill, like one button push.

"Traffic," which usually comes from your ADSB system (such as an iPad with a Stratus) is somewhat useful, but it can become a distraction in a heavily trafficked environment, like a reliever airport under a Bravo. This is another one you need to be able to kill easily.

Alerts that are not useful and interfere with safety are such things as "arriving waypoint." Invariably, if you are arriving at an airport, this alert will start talking to you at the very moment you are receiving instructions from ATC or Tower. They likely both use arrival at the same altitude AGL. I don't find the alert itself useful enough to put up with the interference it creates.

Pick your alerts carefully, and be sure you can get rid of the things once you have set it up on your iPad. If you start getting too many alerts and/or they are interfering with radio communications you will develop the skill of tuning alerts out, and that is a skill you do not need or want.

[0TreeLemur]

I'd love to have an app running in the background on my iPad that would serve as an audible, or less preferably- visual, altitude alert.   This app could have multiple options either to warn when a pre-set altitude is approaching or when a deviation exceeds some threshold.  I hope to upgrade my audio panel to interface with bluetooth audio annunciations.  Does any EFB allow/do this? 

[carusoam]

Somebody wrote an Alt alert app....  around here somewhere...

-a-

[Raptor05121]

On 12/20/2020 at 7:30 PM, patrickf said:

Thanks for the shout out @BlueDun @carusoam. Just realised it's been 2 years since I did the App - time flies! New New years resolution - pull out the 80% complete ones for the other models I've done and get it out. Have a great Christmas everyone.

Are you working on a template for the C models? Any way to make a blank slate for other aircraft? (twins, etc)

[0TreeLemur]

On 1/6/2021 at 9:30 PM, Schllc said:

I would think it’s mostly a function of familiarity and proficiency.

Yep- agree that familiarity has a lot to do with it.  My proficiency doesn't affect my preference.  Sometimes on cross-countries I'll activate the multi-function instrument display on foreflight and try it.   I find it more difficult to fly as precisely as I can with steam gauges, which might not be saying much given that I'm not a professional, and it is a GPS-derived set of indications on the iPad.

For the same reason that I prefer an analog watch over digital, the rate of change of dials/indications on steam gauges convey information.  Getting that same information off a glass panel for me requires staring at one point on the display and concentration to detect pixel-based changes.   If the VSI is showing an acceleration, that is detectable rapidly on a steam gauge.  A swinging VSI or DG jumps out, at least to me.  Videos of military HUDs that I've seen include rate vectors and such that give indications of rates of change of readings.  I don't think the Garmin type glass display has these.

Not that I'm a jet driver, just a wannabe

My preferences, not a human factors expert.

-f-

[patrickf]

8 hours ago, Raptor05121 said:

Are you working on a template for the C models? Any way to make a blank slate for other aircraft? (twins, etc)

Alex,

I hadn't yet. I went for the newer ones on the basis it involved less work given what I'd done for the R and the J on the basis that there were a lot of them out there. 

That said no reason why I can't add the C. I've just had a look at a couple of the POHs in the downloads section and they tend to use tables. Ideally I'd base it off whatever is the latest M20C POH. I understand a fresh one might have been issued in 1977 but haven't seen a copy.

To the second question - Unfortunately as I "go back to the primary source" - the POH - the process is a bit involved so while the ones I've done serve as a template of sorts there is still a fair bit of work to tailor to each - depending on how much the POH varies from the ones I've done.

regards, and happy new year to all

[carusoam]

26 minutes ago, patrickf said:

Alex,

I hadn't yet. I went for the newer ones on the basis it involved less work given what I'd done for the R and the J on the basis that there were a lot of them out there. 

That said no reason why I can't add the C. I've just had a look at a couple of the POHs in the downloads section and they tend to use tables. Ideally I'd base it off whatever is the latest M20C POH. I understand a fresh one might have been issued in 1977 but haven't seen a copy.

To the second question - Unfortunately as I "go back to the primary source" - the POH - the process is a bit involved so while the ones I've done serve as a template of sorts there is still a fair bit of work to tailor to each - depending on how much the POH varies from the ones I've done.

regards, and happy new year to all

Hey Patrick!

Nice to see you staying involved with this...   thank you.

 

From the 77 M20C POH...  I bought this with the recommendation of Mr. Bill Wheat... for my 1965 M20C...

The conversation was 20 years ago... 

Best regards,

-a-

 

[patrickf]

4 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Hey Patrick!

Nice to see you staying involved with this...   thank you.

 

From the 77 M20C POH...  I bought this with the recommendation of Mr. Bill Wheat... for my 1965 M20C...

The conversation was 20 years ago... 

Best regards,

-a-

 

Looks like a good copy. Any chance you can send a PDF ?

 

[0TreeLemur]

11 hours ago, patrickf said:

Looks like a good copy. Any chance you can send a PDF ?

 

Sent in pdf format via PM.

[irishpilot]

On 12/19/2020 at 1:32 AM, carusoam said:

I think the most useful app I have....

Is the one written by an MSer... (a different Patrick)

That converts data from the POH to an excel spreadsheet that can be run on my cellphone...

I enter the DA... it chugs out a proper T/O length calculation... better than my finger riding on a graph...

I know two MSers if they had that much power in their pocket... their planes would still be here...

One survived the T/O stall, the other unfortunately did not... (the lesson of Patrick....)

 

Add this to things a new Mooney company could have in their tool bag... to improve the overall life experience of Mooney owners...

I would invite @Jonny to this thread...   Speed, Efficiency, Safety... updated with modern tools... (apps)

Call it the Mooney App...

All that useful info available at the touch of a few buttons...  while at home, while in the plane... everywhere.

Best regards,

-a-

Agree. Anything that would wifi or bluetooth connect and lower pre-takeoff checklists would be awesome.  

[thomas1142]

On 1/8/2021 at 10:05 PM, carusoam said:

done for the R and the J

@patrickfSo there is a copy of the app for a J model? If so can I get the link.

thanks