NAVIGATION APPS FOR IPAD

You noticed the topic of this column is for IPAD’s. If you want to fly with one of these apps you are going to have to own an IPad. The stuff that is out there for Android is really bad. 

There are basically around 5 companies in the business with only 2 dominating and 1 that really owns the business. I am writing off Jeppensen and FlyQ, with not that much positive to say about Garmin. Garmin has done an excellent job with panel mounts and portable GPS systems. They came to the IPad market late with their app and while improved, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Their AHARS only shows in a full page and you loose the moving map. This to me is unacceptable.

That brings us to the 2 leaders ForeFlight (FF) and WingXPro (WX). 

WX offers a lot of features and is the best bang for the buck if you are a VFR pilot or IFR pilot. WX offers you everything you will need IFR included for $75 a year. The only thing you would pay extra for is geo referenced IFR approach plates. WX gives you the availability of split screen views in any situation. You could have an approach plate in one screen and a chart on the other. The problem is that if you go full screen with the approach plate you loose all pertinent information on the chart. This means you loose distance to next waypoint and heading. I do not like this approach to IFR flying.

The problem with WX is I cannot rely on it. Two out of the three past trips I have taken the weather has not worked. WX does not seem to monitor the app to see if it is working. I have had numerous other quality problem with WX and therefore cannot recommend it.

FF is the other major app for IPad navigation. If you are a VFR only pilot you do not have a lot of information that is pertinent to flight. The most important thing is that you do not have terrain awareness with the VFR program. I do not think this is in the best interest of safety. You are forced to buy the $150 program to get terrain awareness, safe taxi, height above ground and other features along with geo referenced approach plates. I do like how you can overlay the approach plate on top of the chart so you maintain all pertinent information flying an approach. FF allows you to set the transparency on the plate so it does not block out the chart. FF does have one split screen with the Stratus 2 ADS-B IN unit which is an AHARS, and flying a legacy airplane like mine is an excellent feature. WX also has the same setup with a second generation ADS-B IN unit.
FF has coded weather. Nobody today with a computer or IPad needs coded weather. This needs to be updated to plain english weather briefings.

I have a real gripe with all the apps in that what ADS-B IN unit works with one app will not work with another. If you have the Garmin app you need a Garmin ADS-B. If you have WX there are several ADS-B’s to choose from none of which work with Garmin or FF. FF only works with Stratus ADS-B units. You must be very careful which app you buy and which ADS-B unit as this is a great expense. If you decide you do not like WX and want to switch to FF you will have to buy a new ADS-B unit.

I have a friend that teaches classes approved by the FAA training people on Garmin, FF and WX apps. In the class there are usually 30 with FF, 1 or 2 with Gamin or WX. Take that as you may.

After flying with WX and FF the only app I can recommend is FF, not because of the features but because FF is much more reliable!!! It works and I can depend on it.

One other recommendation I can give is do not perform an update on an app for a coupe of days after it comes out. That way if there is a bug you will usually hear of it before downloading. FF had their first bad update that I recall last month and immediately notified their customer not to download it. It was too late for some.

In closing NEVER update an app if you are going on a trip. Wait until you get home. This way there should not be any problems.

I am recommending FF because of their quality control.

AOPA NEEDS A WIN

AOPA has had some tough battles over the years and until recently had a pretty good record. I know my Congressman and one Senator, but I have no clout when it comes to General Aviation issues. That is why AOPA is so important to me and GA. AOPA used to have around 419,000 members but that number is way down today due to attrition of pilots dying off, losing medicals and fed up with what has happened with AOPA in the past. The estimate of AOPA membership today is around 300,000. Phil Boyer took AOPA to great strides when he was President.  It only takes a short time to destroy someones hard work, and that is what happened when Craig Fuller became President. He alienated the membership. Now Mark Baker is in office and is trying to do everything the right way and doing a good job at it. When I am no longer able to fly I will remain a member of AOPA for all the good they do for GA.

Unfortunately AOPA’s track record has not been the best on issues lately. AOPA has lost several battles on airspace redo, with GA being squeezed out on Class Bravo Airspace. It is so bad in Phoenix that we have a ceiling in the class B that has been lowered to a shelf that is lower than the mountains adjacent to it. 6 people lost their lives because of this.

AOPA just spent, with others, hundreds of thousands of dollars for a vote to keep Santa Monica, CA (SMO) open. AOPA did everything right, but unfortunately only approximately 20% of the population even bothered to vote. AOPA’s referendum was defeated. We are fortunate that the FAA and DOT has final say so on this.

AOPA has 2 major issues on the table. 

The first being elimination of the 3rd class medical. I have always thought that the 3rd class medical is a joke. AOPA petitioned the FAA to change the 3rd class medical to allow VFR flight with one passenger in an airplane of 180HP or less. The FAA blew AOPA off and shelved this. AOPA then went to Congress to change the 3rd class medical rules. Congress came up with a much better offer to fly below 14,000 feet, VFR only, in any piston airplane. It sounded like Congress was ready to move on this. Then came the midterm elections and now the holiday break and nothing went forward. AOPA will have to start over again after the first of the year. Government never moves fast, and I do not know if I will see a result in my lifetime.

The second issue is ADS-B OUT. AOPA appeared before a Congressional committee 2 weeks ago and stated that there are approximately 180,000 airplanes in the fleet. Of these approximately 88,000 are worth $40,000 or less. The minimum cost I have seen to install ADS-B OUT in an airplane that does not have an IFR WAAS GPS and Mode S transponder is $7,500 parts and labor. Do the math and owners of these planes can not afford to purchase ADS-B OUT at current prices. AOPA is asking for portable units to be qualified to handle ADS-B OUT at a much lower cost to the airplane owner. This seems like a no brainer except the FAA has never approved a portable unit for anything in the cockpit.

AOPA is all we have folks. If these two issues do not succeed I am afraid we will loose even more members. I hate to say this but there will be a lot of parked GA airplanes that will not be flying any longer which leads to empty airports. Maybe this is what the FAA wants.

If you are a member of AOPA please renew, and if you are not....please join now.

DO NOT BUY WINGXPRO

Whatever you do , if you are looking for an aviation app, do not buy WingXPro. WingX does one thing good, they allow almost all ADS-B units to work with the program. After that everything is downhill.

WingXPro does not have the reliability one needs when flying. Their quality control is near nonexistent. The previous flight I took the weather was not working. Sent them an email, and it was working 2 days later...not when I needed it.

WingX came out with another update this week. They installed a numerical VSI on the top of the map page. I do not know what these people were thinking. Vertical speed with GPS is determined by ones location not the altimeter. If you are flying in level flight the VSI will give you a notice of how many feet up or down you are going...even though you are level! Unfortunately WingX has not provided a way to turn this nuisance off.

They also did not check their program before updating it. There are 2 weather blocks on the Map page. Underneath them is a notice that says “loading...” This is fine if you are connected to the internet but useless in flight. I do no know if this burns more battery on the IPad constantly searching when there is no internet connection. It worked fine with ADS-B In until this update. It would also be nice to turn off the 2 weather blocks in flight as they are useless, not being able to update weather in flight.

WingXPro has some wonderful features, but it is not reliable enough to bet your life on. I have one more year to go on my subscription and can not wait to switch to ForeFlight. ForeFlight has only had one glitch that I know of, and it was corrected in one day.

BUYER BEWARE!!!!!!!!

I CAN NO LONGER FLY PASSENGERS

When I started flying I had $5 million insurance smooth. That is back when $5 million dollars was a lot of money, and the courts were not a lottery system. My insurance decreased over the years down to $2 million smooth, $1 million smooth, to where it is today at $1 million with only $100,000 per seat. 

The court system has changed dramatically over the years. I have always said if you are a plaintiff have a jury trial, if you are a defendant and guilty have a jury trial and if you are a defendant and innocent request that the judge makes the decision. Juries are very easily swayed by a good attorney and computer graphics. 

Recently in Phoenix there was a case involving 2 TV stations whose helicopters lost situational awareness and crashed into each other with multiple deaths. The insurance companies refused to settle with the heirs, and this case went to trial. The attorneys for the plaintiffs were granted their request to introduce a computer generated recreation of the crash. I was able to review this, and from all the facts of the event, I did not feel it was an accurate recreation of the way things happened. I knew right away the defense was in trouble. If this was presented to the jury the amount of jury award would have been unfathomable . The insurance companies settled before this recreation could be presented into evidence.

This brings me to the reason I can no longer fly passengers. My wife and I have worked hard to build an estate for retirement. If I had an accident and was sued by my passenger or their heirs, my estate would be financially depleted. $1 million with $100,000 per passenger would not cover much in a lawsuit. 

Over the years I have enjoyed giving people their first ride in a GA airplane. They always loved flying into Sedona for breakfast with the thrilling views and great airport. I can not do this anymore in good financial conscience.

When I flew for Angel Flight the passenger signed a waiver. Waivers are not worth much any longer and can be easily pierced. It is my understanding that the EAA takes out an insurance policy to protect its pilots for their Young Eagles events. This is a good thing as there was a mid air about a month ago where both pilot and child were killed. The charity I have worked so hard for raising money, came out with a detailed waiver for the pilots to sign 2 nights before the event. In good conscience I could not sign this waiver and refused to fly. This was a big disappointment for me, but I could not put my estate at risk.

I miss flying friends and now only fly with my wife. The world has changed, and I have had to adapt. I am not very happy about it, but I have to be practical.

AOPA LOOSES SANTA MONICA VOTE DOES IT REALLY MATTER

Santa Monica and Venice Beach California are magnificent places to visit. You do not need a rental car, taking a cab from the airport to your hotel and walk everywhere.

Santa Monica Airport (SMO) has been a thorn in the side of people who live there, City Council, Airport Commission, FAA, AOPA and NBAA. Just a short history in that SMO quit taking grants from the FAA in 2000 and claim they can close the airport in 2015. Some say this should be 2022. The vote itself had little use as Federal Law supersedes City Law, and in my opinion this issue will be settled in Federal Court.

The City states they have the right to close the airport and develop it as it so wishes. The FAA states that the property has to remain an airport in perpetuity. I have read that NBAA and AOPA spent approximately $800,000 in the campaign for Proposition D. I personally feel that this was a total waste of money as Federal law will prevail one way or the other. Bill Dunn, VP of AOPA, put in hundreds if not thousand of hours traveling to SMO trying to educate the general public in the benefits of SMO to the City and their economy. I am personally sorry to see the negative results for all the effort he put into making Prop D a success.

There is another caveat that I have not heard a lot of discussion on. The City is trying to do everything in it’s power to make the airport unusable. SMO is the only airport that I have flown to that requires a landing fee for my Bonanza. It was $6 two years ago and now it is $18 to land there. I have never heard of an airport that charges based aircraft a landing fee. At SMO all based airplanes have to pay a fee. In addition if a flight school does a touch and go, they have to pay a fee for every time the wheels touch the pavement. 

Now SMO is reducing the amount of fuel that can be pumped every day. I could fly in with my Bonanza, and would not be able to depart if there was not any fuel available. There are many jets based at SMO that could be in the same situation.

SMO is doing every thing in their legal rights to discourage use of the airport. They have also sued the FAA losing twice with attorney fees in the $3 million range.  I personally think that the City will make things so miserable for the flying public they will have to go elsewhere and the airport will disappear. This will be a shame!

ADS-B ANOTHER FAA DISASTER

The FAA has mandated that every airplane flying in the US in controlled airspace as of January 1, 2020 must be equipped with ADS-B Out. ADS-B is based on ground station technology which is 20 years old. The FAA has always complained that ground based VOR’s were too expensive to maintain. In their infinite wisdom the FAA has based the future on ground stations again. There are some 600 of these ground stations installed but the FAA blew the coverage and has now decided they have to install another 200 more ground stations to get complete coverage. The program could have been aborted many years ago and proceeded with satellite coverage. The FAA could have bought out XM and had the coverage they needed for a minuscule cost of what they have spent on ground stations. I have no idea how much it will cost to maintain this ground based system.

AOPA has stated that there are approximately 180,000 airplanes in the fleet. 88,000 of these are worth around $30,000. The least expensive cost solution today to have ABS-B Out installed is approximately $7,500. This is over 20% of the value of 88,000 airplanes.

There is no perceived value to GA of ADS-B Out other than being able to see traffic on an IPad type device if your plane is equipped with ADS-B In. In addition you are still required to have a transponder so airline traffic can see you on TCAS. AOPA and EAA are trying to get the FAA to back off their 2020 mandate. The FAA is not backing down. The only solution is to have AOPA and EAA go to Congress to have the mandate deleted until a more cost effective solution can be reached, or there will be a lot of planes grounded.

The FAA cannot reach a solution on 3rd class medicals and drone airspace. In my regard this organization is so inefficient that they are unable to accomplish anything successfully and cost effective.

If the FAA goal is to abolish GA then they are doing an excellent job. Some 4000 airports will become abandoned, and the economy will deeply damaged.

ADS-B OUT: A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY FOR ALL

There is one, and only one, advantage of having ADS-B OUT. It lets you see your traffic on board with a glass screen cockpit such as the Garmin 1000 or on an IPad.

The main purpose of ADS-B OUT is to let airliners fly more direct to airports thus saving fuel. The problem with this philosophy is that in the US airliners use mostly the same 35 airports. They all want to arrive and depart at the same time, which will lead to delays and holding patterns where arrivals will be backed up.

All airplanes will still be required to have a transponder on board. This is so the airliners, and business jets, will be able to see their traffic on TCAS. This defeats the purpose of ADS-B OUT traffic on your screen.

Another problem with the whole ADS-B system is it was devised on technology that is over 20 years old. ADS-B will be using ground stations instead of satellites. The FAA complains that it costs too much to maintain VOR’s and ILS’s because they are ground based. In my opinion it will cost as much or more to maintain the ADS-B ground stations.

ADS-B OUT will be required by 2020 in all controlled airspace. It is my understanding that as of today ATC is not able to see ADS-B OUT airplanes and still uses radar. As of today fewer that 5% of airplanes are equipped with ADS-B OUT. Today the minimum cost of ADS-B OUT to someone that does not have an IFR GPS in their plane is $4,000 for the equipment and approximately $3,000 for installation. This is a huge expense to the older GA fleet that amounts to approximately 15% of the value of one’s airplane with absolutely no benefits other than to see traffic. Embry Riddle University was a test for ADS-B OUT, and all their airplanes are ADS-B equipped. Being that Embry Riddle flies in the Phoenix area I am able to see traffic. ADS-B traffic is awakened by any plane flying in a 15 mile radius to where I am. It does not work if there is not an ADS-B OUT plane in my vicinity. 

If the FAA truly believed in safety they would turn on all the ADS-B OUT stations 24/7 to provide traffic for all....but then this is the FAA we are talking about, and they stated this is not going to happen. We recently lost 2 flight school airplanes in a mid air north of Phoenix. If they were able to receive traffic then this might not of happened. As it was we lost 4 people due to this not being turned on.

In closing, there is only one benefit of having ADS-B Out and that is traffic. The cost does not justify the requirement.