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Dear fellow pilot,
Welcome to summer -- at least
finally here in Seattle! Of course that means more flying everywhere! Here's a quick summary of things we think you might like to know. More details below.
- Using the Garmin GTX 345 ADS-B system with FlyQ EFB
- Augmented Reality on your iPhone with new FlyQ InSight
- iOS 10.3.2. Good to go!
- Fly in the Pacific Northwest? Check out our new partnership with FATPNW.
- How to interpret (that is, ignore) the dates on the side of approach plates
- ChartData Manager Tips and Tricks
- Keep up with our Blog for news, new data reminders, updates, specials, etc.
I'm Steve Podradchik, the CEO here. I write the newsletter so email me personally if there is something you'd like me to cover next month. And use the "Follow" feature on our Blog to keep up with daily news, product info, and more.
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Using FlyQ EFB + Garmin GTX 345
We get a lot of questions about using FlyQ EFB with the Garmin GTX 345 ADS-B system. Short answer: FlyQ EFB works great with the Garmin 345, albeit a bit indirectly. Longer answer below.
First, it's important to understand that an ADS-B Out system does not need to talk to the iPad as Out does not send weather and traffic; only ADS-B In does that and the two do not need to be linked in any way. Also, the FAA's 2020 mandate requires just ADS-B Out; the FAA does not require any ADS-B In system so you're free to use any portable ADS-B In receiver you like or even no ADS-B In at all.
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ADS-B Out is basically just a transponder on steroids that sends your tailnumber and position to the ground station -- your current transponder doesn't talk to your iPad now, does it? The goodies for you, weather and traffic, are both provided by the ADS-B In system. Hence, adding a $150 portable ADS-B In system like a Stratux (or Dual, iLevil, or whatever you already have) to a Garmin GTX 345 installation will work great to provide weather and traffic to FlyQ. In fact, adding any ADS-B Out - Garmin or otherwise - makes all ADS-B In system work beautifully because the presence of an Out tells the ground station to broadcast all traffic relevant to you. The fact that the data is received by a Stratux or some other ADS-B In rather than the In provided by the Garmin is not relevant. In other words, from an effective point of view, FlyQ EFB works well with a Garmin GTX 345 so long as you also have some other inexpensive ADS-B In receiver.
That said, we'd love to directly connect to the Garmin as we do for about 20 other systems. Unfortunately Garmin doesn't currently allow this. We are talking to them but a note from you would grease the skids, as it were. If you'd like them to add direct support for FlyQ EFB, email your request to adsb@garmin.com. Please CC support@seattleavionics.com on your email so we can keep track of the requests for our next discussion with them. And please be nice as the Garmin people are smart and well-meaning; they just need to get a sense of how much people love FlyQ EFB.
By the way, the same logic applies to the Stratus ESG and ESGi. That is, just add your current portable ADS-B In system or a Stratux to the ESG setup and it will work fine with FlyQ EFB.
Another option for direct FlyQ EFB support is to use an installed ADS-B solutions from L-3 Lynx, FreeFlight, or Navworx. Complete list is available here:
https://www.seattleavionics.com/SupportedADSB.htm
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Augmented Reality! New FlyQ InSight
Amazing view during a recent flight! This is from a test flight of our forthcoming new app -
FlyQ InSight (previously the
Secret App!) InSight is the first practical augmented reality app for aviation. Just add an iPhone or iPad and see airports more clearly than ever before!
Core functionality checked out perfectly. Final tweaks being made now before being released to external beta testers!
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iOS 10.3.2: Good to go ... mostly
Apple recently introduced a new version of iOS -- version 10.3.2. We're clearing it for FlyQ EFB use although we have had reports of problems with some Bluetooth GPS units (the Dual XPS 150 in particular) talking reliably to the iPad itself. We cannot confirm these issues as the GPS seems to work fine in our testing but you may want to exercise caution if you're using such an external GPS.
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Flights Above The Pacific Northwest (FATPNW)
We're based in the Seattle area so maybe a little biased, but we think that if you fly in the Pacific Northwest you deserve the best. That's why we teamed up with FATPNW (
Flights Above The Pacific Northwest) to offer exclusive deals to
FATPNW Premium members. For FlyQ EFB and most of our ChartData subscriptions, you can
save 20-25%!
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ChartData Manager Tips & Tricks
1.
Automatic download. If you don't want to watch it download data every month, don't! The ChartData Manager, by default. can run in the background and start when Widows starts (check the
Start the Data Manager when Windows starts setting in
Options). When new data becomes available, it automatically downloads it your PC. Simply be sure your PC is left running (not sleeping) around the time that we release new data -- which generally means the Thursday or Friday the week
before a new data cycle becomes active. See the
FAA schedule for the exact dates. Better still, leave the USB stick or SD card in your PC and the ChartData Manager even copies the new data to your card or stick and tells you when it's ready. No clicks, no waiting!
2.
Multiple cards/sticks at the same time. The ChartData Manager can copy data to more than one stick or card at the same time; no need to copy to one card, swap cards, copy again, etc. Just put all the sticks or cards into your PC at the same time and click
Update Now.
3.
Email us a screenshot and log file you have a problem. There is a text link that starts
"Questions?..." at the bottom of the ChartData Manager. Click it if you have a problem and say
Yes when it asks to send us a log file in the email. The log file helps our techs see exactly what is going on. At the same time, please send us a screenshot of what you're seeing on the ChartData Manager screen as that often instantly explains the issue. To send a screenshot, fire-up the ChartData Manager, press the
Print Screen (or
PrtScn) button on your keyboard to copy the screen image to the clipboard, then paste the image into an email to
support@seattleavionics.com. If you're using a web-based email system (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) that doesn't let you paste directly into the email, paste the image into some kind of document (like a Word file) and attach that.
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Approach Plate Dates
If you're checking your approach plates for valid dates by looking at the sides of the plate, you're being misled. The FAA prints two dates on the side of each plate. Although they look like expiration dates, they aren't; they simply represent the print cycle of when that plate was last printed by the FAA. That is, even if a plate hasn't changed in two years, every 28 days, it will have a new set of dates on the side. FlyQ and the ChartData Manager ignores these dates and uses a database that the FAA publishes to download only the plates that really have changed or been added. Thus, even when all your plates are current, you may see 'old' dates on the side. You have to keep in mind that, unlike IFR enroute charts or Sectionals, there is no planned expiration date for a plate -- the FAA just updates it when necessary. Thus, it's not possible for them to print an expire date on the plate since they have no idea when it might expire.
Plates do have revision info on them in the lower left corner, however. This revision info remains constant even when the date on the side changes (unless the plate really was changed, of course) but it's hard to decode as it sometimes involves what's called a Julian date. Moreover, unless you know for sure what the "current" revision info is, it doesn't help you much as there is nothing to compare it to. We all just have to rely on the FAA accurately marking plates when changed. The good news is that we've been doing this for 12 years and we've
never seen them make a mistake about this.
Finally, in the ChartData Manager app and in FlyQ EFB, there is a switch to download all plates, even the ones that have not changed. We really, really, really strongly suggest not doing this as it will dramatically increase download time.
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