iPad charging

[tmo]

49 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Question about all of those high-capacity battery packs (e.g. mophie):  Are they lithium based and, if so, have these designs moved passed the 'explode' at random feature?

Anything of a reasonable energy density and price is lithium based these days; that said, the battery packs were susceptible to overheating while charging, not discharging, and I would consider these issues handled by any reputable manufacturer. Physical damage is still a potential issue.

BTW, it wasn't really "explode" but "burn, baby, burn".

[skydvrboy]

I also get about 3.5 hours on my iPad mini.  Below is a link to the battery pack I use.  My wife loved it so much that she bought two more to keep around the house.

https://smile.amazon.com/Portable-Charger-Anker-PowerCore-20100mAh/dp/B00X5RV14Y/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-rsf-lq2a1_0?crid=2UTC6JNJ6NTPS&cv_ct_cx=anker+battery&dchild=1&keywords=anker+battery&pd_rd_i=B00X5RV14Y&pd_rd_r=8abb7cda-68bf-433c-972e-354eb3006b50&pd_rd_w=ehGz9&pd_rd_wg=V6Tac&pf_rd_p=52f9c563-bb87-44f4-9d9d-e1c03402d90f&pf_rd_r=3QGMRVXW5GSZME9N86EB&psc=1&qid=1609610662&sprefix=anker+batt%2Caps%2C1255&sr=1-1-d3e58e83-6458-471c-a87e-175495b96a10

We used it extensively to keep 3 phones and 2 iPads charged up while at Oshkosh and it performed beautifully.  It was paired with the solar charger linked below.  We would charge the battery during the day and then charge the devices from the battery at night.  I have also used the solar charger sitting on my glare shield while flying just to try it out, but I've never flown long enough to actually need to use it.

https://smile.amazon.com/Anker-Charger-PowerPort-iPhone-Galaxy/dp/B012YUJJM8/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2BJ95G66KPSVI&dchild=1&keywords=anker+solar+charger&qid=1609611067&sprefix=anker+solar+%2Caps%2C252&sr=8-3

P.S. Don't forget to use Amazon Smile and route your donations to Mooney Summit!

Edited January 2, 2021 by skydvrboy

[GeeBee]

5 hours ago, larrynimmo said:

A friend of mine retired recently from ups...he flew weekly European trips...he told me they were forbidden to use iPads...

Some airlines are not approved. You can't use an iPad on the flight deck unless it is in your operations specifications. Then there is a whole other issue of managing it, both by the company and the pilot. The update downloads have to come from the company and usually you are verboten from loading on any personal applications to the iPad. It is a closely managed process via Ops Specs and Flight Operations Manuals. Apple has a very nice enterprise manager that allows the company to control the iPads and what updates they receive.

I can also tell you the story of one airline that decided to go MS Surface over iPads. You see the iPad already has blanket FAA approval as a  hardware item. You just need Ops specs to put it into service. However, said airline wanted the Surface because it was cheaper per unit. They spent months testing and getting FAA approval for the Surface and setting up a management of the units which was difficult because the security of them did not meet FAA specs out of the box like iPad does. They were finally distributed. They had a hardware failure rate of about 20%. Other airlines that had iPads had a failure rate of about .03%. The airline after a year scrapped the Surfaces and went to iPads. The support lines went silent, well 80% drop in support calls, and out of 15,000 iPads they ordered, 3 went bad.

Simply put, it is not as easy to use iPads in airline ops because you have issues of security, management, pilot performance, training etc. You would think Jeppesen charting costs would go down, but Jeppesen has made sure they are not going to see a decline in revenue on electronic charts vs paper.

[MikeOH]

3 hours ago, tmo said:

BTW, it wasn't really "explode" but "burn, baby, burn".

Hence, why I put 'explode' in quotes; although, if it starts to 'burn baby, burn' while in your Mooney I suspect the distinction may be a bit moot

[MikeOH]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

You would think Jeppesen charting costs would go down, but Jeppesen has made sure they are not going to see a decline in revenue on electronic charts vs paper.

I'm sure Jepp's costs are down, but it seems no surprise that their prices are still up!

What I can't grasp is the stunning loyalty pro pilots have for Jepp; yeah, I'm sure I'll get lectured on how much better they are than the government charts.  But, once the airline has implemented iPads you'd think the savings by just downloading the government charts for free would be too tempting of a cost savings.  Or, do the pilots have to pay for the Jepp subscriptions, so the airline has no motivation?

[tmo]

Not a pro pilot, not even a Jepp user, but I understand that the primary benefit of Jepp charts is their consistency around the world. Imagine if approach charts for each state looked different, sometimes significantly so. Welcome to Europe. Fun fact - Germany only publishes IFR airport charts for free, the VFR ones you have to purchase.

That said, there are other providers that cater to airlines, I think Lufthansa owns one, but they don't cater to the individual private pilot.

[tmo]

21 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

if it starts to 'burn baby, burn' while in your Mooney I suspect the distinction may be a bit moot

The potential advantage of Cessna's windows that open a bit wider.

FWIW, many people carry special lithium battery fire containment bags like those on board airliners. When these things start to burn, they burn awfully hot.

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, MikeOH said:

I'm sure Jepp's costs are down, but it seems no surprise that their prices are still up!

What I can't grasp is the stunning loyalty pro pilots have for Jepp; yeah, I'm sure I'll get lectured on how much better they are than the government charts.  But, once the airline has implemented iPads you'd think the savings by just downloading the government charts for free would be too tempting of a cost savings.  Or, do the pilots have to pay for the Jepp subscriptions, so the airline has no motivation?

Not possible. Many airlines have specific operations specifications for airports that are tailored into the Jepp charts, by Jepp for that airline. In addition, airlines do not carry charts for every airport, but only those in its ops specs and Jeppesen tailors the coverage for the customer airline to reflect those specifications. If the airline were to use government charts they would have to open up a library for that purpose. Cheaper to outsource it. Finally, within the Jepp coverage there are airline specific pages which contain operationally pertinent information such as operation of de-ice pads, gate charts and operational frequencies, as well as engine out climb procedures which Jeppesen creates and distributes for the customer airline. In short, too much proprietary stuff goes in to an air carrier's Jepp subscription to use government charts. 

As to preference, I do think Jepp does a better job. Terrain is shown better, briefing strip is better, charting is more intuitive. and taxi chart is superb. That said, the financial incentive is enough to leave me with government charts right now.

 

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

As to preference, I do think Jepp does a better job. Terrain is shown better, briefing strip is better, charting is more intuitive. and taxi chart is superb. That said, the financial incentive is enough to leave me with government charts right now.

Having used Jepps for many years and now using government charts I absolutely agree. If I were flying IFR weekly, I would purchase a Jepp subscription. 
 

 

[Will.iam]

I can shed some light on this as our airline actually uses Jepps pro and Foreflight as a backup in case Jepps crashes or stops working for some reason. Although our Jepps app does filter out all airports less than 6000ft, our foreflight has all airports in the USA.  Fun little known fact, Jepps only guarantees that they copied the chart correctly from the government source where as the NOAA charts are actually terps for obstacle terrain by our Government.   this is not a big issue for flying the states because they are one in the same, but overseas was a different matter. Sometimes you would find obstacles on NOAA charts that were not published on Jepps but it's not Jepps fault, the chart they got from local government did not show the obstacle. if there was an airport we were to fly into (central Africa comes to mind) and there was no NOAA chart available we were restricted to VFR until we could get a terps team out there and make a NOAA chart for that airport.  I like the presentation of Jepps better but always felt a little bit safer using NOAA. 

The other plus for Jepp was their charts were vector based instead of foreflight's scanned in raster based which means you can zoom in on Jepp chart and the image remains clear as the processor recalculates the zoom view where as Foreflight just gets all pixelated.

[Will.iam]

Also our procedure for a runaway ipad that's burning down the house or samsung phones which were highly prone to go nuclear is to put it into a ziplock bag of Iced water. eventually we had a company policy to ban all samsung model 8 phones I think it was from boarding the airplane.

[GeeBee]

11 minutes ago, Will.iam said:

I can shed some light on this as our airline actually uses Jepps pro and Foreflight as a backup in case Jepps crashes or stops working for some reason. Although our Jepps app does filter out all airports less than 6000ft, our foreflight has all airports in the USA.  Fun little known fact, Jepps only guarantees that they copied the chart correctly from the government source where as the NOAA charts are actually terps for obstacle terrain by our Government.   this is not a big issue for flying the states because they are one in the same, but overseas was a different matter. Sometimes you would find obstacles on NOAA charts that were not published on Jepps but it's not Jepps fault, the chart they got from local government did not show the obstacle. if there was an airport we were to fly into (central Africa comes to mind) and there was no NOAA chart available we were restricted to VFR until we could get a terps team out there and make a NOAA chart for that airport.  I like the presentation of Jepps better but always felt a little bit safer using NOAA. 

The other plus for Jepp was their charts were vector based instead of foreflight's scanned in raster based which means you can zoom in on Jepp chart and the image remains clear as the processor recalculates the zoom view where as Foreflight just gets all pixelated.

Actually Jepp does not copy the chart, nor does the NOAA. The source document is the FAA 8260 or the foreign equivalent. Here is an example for the KSFO ILS 28L.

https://www.faa.gov/aero_docs/acifp/2015121527331001001-SFO/CA_KSFO_ILS OR LOC RWY 28LSAC2_A25A_F.PDF

There is also no guarantee in many foreign countries that the obstacle location is correct because the often have not updated the location to the WGS 84 datum. Which is why I don't fly anything other than published routes in third world countries.

[mhamilton31]

On 1/1/2021 at 7:21 PM, gsxrpilot said:

2.5A charging is the minimum for an iPad. But make sure your electrical system is pushing at least 2.5A to the port. You also need 15 to 18 watts on that charging port. Secondarily, turn down the brightness 50% on the iPad and it will charge a lot better. I often turn the brightness down when I'm in cruise on a multi-hour flight. It's nice but not required during the middle cruise portion of the flight. Then when I'm starting my descent, I'll turn up the brightness on the now charged up iPad.

I have an Ipad Pro 10.5 and this is how i operate. No issues here...
 

[Will.iam]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

Actually Jepp does not copy the chart, nor does the NOAA. The source document is the FAA 8260 or the foreign equivalent. Here is an example for the KSFO ILS 28L.

https://www.faa.gov/aero_docs/acifp/2015121527331001001-SFO/CA_KSFO_ILS OR LOC RWY 28LSAC2_A25A_F.PDF

There is also no guarantee in many foreign countries that the obstacle location is correct because the often have not updated the location to the WGS 84 datum. Which is why I don't fly anything other than published routes in third world countries.

Yea Copy the chart was wrong symantics on my part copying the foreign equivalent FAA 8260 is what I meant.  That foreign equivalent is the part I'm talking about, I. E. Jepps does not go out and terps anything.  NOAA still gets a US government terps team out to do the airport analysis of obstacles to produce the FAA 8260 equivalent at the overseas airport where as Jepps relies on the foreign governments data.  Hince I should have said Jepps relies on the governments data which in the states is the same as NOAA uses but overseas, NOAA still uses terps data from our Government not a foreign government and that is why you will see occasionally obstacles that are different location or missing entirely due to foreign governments not updating their airports as often. 

Also why I trust NOAA charts over jepps especially overseas.  Someone went out and terps the field and verified their was not some tower or building in the airspace that was not documented.

[GeeBee]

You are correct now. We found in the 90's when GPS started being biased into the FMS, that there was a lot wrong with a lot of charts in foreign locations. Places like Guatemala, Honduras, and a good part of Africa never resurveyed but simply pencil whipped their lat/long data as WGS 84 compliant. It started with flying VOR approaches with a raw data monitor. It turned out that the USA paid these countries for resurvey, but they simply pocketed the money.

[Browncbr1]

In order to actually charge an iPad through the cigarette plug without creating a bunch of rf noise is to spend a little more and get quality ventev stuff.  I never had luck with the cheap Chinese junk.  

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ventev-Dashport-Car-Charger-R2240-Universal-Dual-Port-USB-Rapid-Charge/324284158795?epid=21015161433&hash=item4b80d7934b:g:DzIAAOSwhbdfUlMP

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ventev-3ft-Lightning-Cable-for-Apple-Devices-in-Black/182622238046?epid=1279267018&hash=item2a8522355e:g:0LsAAOSwMvtZQp3k

 

THe good news is that they are less less expensive than they used to be.  I think that’s because Apple changed the lightning cable again.  

Edited January 4, 2021 by Browncbr1