[N395V]

I received an e mail from the the guy in Australia, who bought my F1, today. He is thinking of replacing the BMA stuff with products from the websites listed below.
I have never even heard of them. Anybody seen or used one?

http://www.aviation.levil.com/Displays.htm

And for software and databases he is looking at this site.
http://www.approachsystems.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=3&zenid=96acc47d8ca584bd1facedc70ffedd15

Is this windows based stuff?

 

[Sid Lambert]

No doubt it's Windows based. It says so on their site and you can clearly see the "Start" button on their product images.

Never heard of them either. Interesting but not for me.

 

[DCat22]

Is this windows based stuff?

Looks like it:

L1000c
EFIS-1831 is equipped with a 10.4" touch-screen LCD. Natural resolution of 800x600 pixels with LED backlight of 1000 nits for sunlight operation and a manual dim for night flying. Its integrated computer has 6 USB ports, 4 COM ports, Windows XP platform, up to 16 GB memory and your option of Celeron-M or Pentium-M processor.

I don't know anything else about it though...

 

[mgomez]

Windows for an EFIS?

I barely trust Windows on my desktop...and then only because I can switch to a Mac as a backup when it dies. I can't imagine trusting my airplane and my life to a Windows-based EFIS.

 

[TSwezey]

I barely trust Windows on my desktop...and then only because I can switch to a Mac as a backup when it dies. I can't imagine trusting my airplane and my life to a Windows-based EFIS.

Can't be any worse than BMA. I have watched my screens tumble numerous times. Luckily even when the screen tumbles the autopilot does not.

 

[sbal0906]

Putting the stability of Windows aside, I'd still question the thinking behind their design. Just looking at the screenshots, I can see a Start menu, title bar and system buttons in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Microsoft designed them to be activated using a mouse and are not ideal, in my opinion, for touches. A person could accidently hit the 'X' and close the application entirely. And if they are not needed for this application, they could have easily designed them out. While flying in turbulence, I would hate to have to touch Start->Programs-><some application>.

At the very least, they could have based this on XP Embedded. As a developer, they'd have much more control over what the OS provides to the end user.

My 2 cents.

 

[Ironflight]

Interesting new one to put on the "watch List" Milt (that's not a negative thing...just a list I keep of all the start-up EFIS companies I keep, to see where they go....) - thanks for posting it! I wonder fi they build or buy their AHRS - to me, that is more important than display screens.

I don't have quite the phobia of Windows that many seem to have - I've seen every type of operating system crash at one time or another - and I've seen many run for months and months at a time without a hiccup...including Windows and it's variants. For an EFIS, I do prefer to have systems that have the operating system and setup controls embedded deeply enough that the pilot isn't tempted to mess with them in flight.

(I enjoy watching the GRT HX boot text - they appear to be some sort of LINUX thing, and when they get to the line"LINUX - Parsing the ELF", I always think that must hurt....)

Paul

 

[Mike S]

Wonder if this is from "RocketBoy"????

As I recall, he lives somewhere in that area, and has been using a home brewed system much like that.

 

[N395V]

This seems to be a new product from a company that makes desktop CNC machines. They do make their own adhrs based on the CNC technology.

Rocketboy built a computer into his plane and ran flitesoft/vista on I believe a windows 2000 platform.

 

[SteinAir]

I haven't seen them so I can't offer much of an objective opinion at all, but what I can say is that if I was moving from a BMA product I sure as heck wouldn't be looking at yet another product that isn't matured. That's like jumping out of the fire and into a frying pan in my opinion. Not saying it's a bad box or a good box, just saying that if I were switching from BMA I'd strongly suggest someone stick with one of the proven units from oneof the fine proven companies that we're all familiar with.

My 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein

 

[Radomir]

I saw them at Oshkosh... I'd summarize it as -- nothing impressive... I didn't see anything there that would warrant a second look.

Stein really put it well in his post.... if you're trying to move from BMA.. you really, really should focus on proven brands...

 

[rvmills]

Don't think its Rocketboy

I don't think that is Rocketboy Bobby's stuff. He was out in Reno for the races this year, and if he was developing a product line, he'd have been talkin' it up...especially if it was about to go online!

Bob's F1 Rocket panel is a beut, and it does have a large WIN XP monitor for the map and weather. He also has a D180, so all his eggs are not in one basket. On top of that, he's been a tron-guru since we were in college (when we used to see if we could wire sorority girls' curling irons backwards and other such animal house pranks...the pranks' names have been changed to protect the guilty!)

I dug up the thread where his panel is (Rocket/Show Us Your Panel), and here's a pic and a quote from Bob. You'll see he's blending proven technology (Dynon/TT/more) with carefully planned experimentation...with redundancy (smart guy...for a Theta Chi pledge!):

Finished at last!

Hi,

I motherboard is a mini-itx system run winxp with no extras. Twin 4GB flash drives, mirrored for redundancy. The map software is Control vision Anywhere Map Pro. It does many tricks, and the upgrades come so frequently I can hardly keep up with it.

The software now drives the EFIS and Trutrak A/P via NMEA data.

It's pretty cool rubber banding the flight plan route around wx and watching the autopilot follow the new course.

The System also gets data from a USB XM WX works dual ensemble reciever for all the nexrad stuff.

It's working well, boots to a map in less than 30 seconds, shuts down in 12 seconds, and hasn't crashed in along time.

There is an alternate data interface so I can plug in my little hand held garmin in the event the map computer crashes, but so far hasn't been needed.

Quite happy with it.

Bob

I'll shoot him a note to nudge him to reply to this thread.

Cheers,
Bob

 

[TSwezey]

I haven't seen them so I can't offer much of an objective opinion at all, but what I can say is that if I was moving from a BMA product I sure as heck wouldn't be looking at yet another product that isn't matured. That's like jumping out of the fire and into a frying pan in my opinion. Not saying it's a bad box or a good box, just saying that if I were switching from BMA I'd strongly suggest someone stick with one of the proven units from oneof the fine proven companies that we're all familiar with.

My 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein

I have wasted enough money on pie in the sky stuff! Going with the proven soon.

 

[cguarino]

I like it

I have a hombuilt XP machine and a 12.1" touch screen monitor in my -4. I built the computer and mounted it behind the display. I use it mainly for moving map and for an engine monitor (I had to write the software in VB6). I have all compatible onboard electronics connected to it. This includes my PMags, fuel flow, gps, xm wx, Dynon EFIS, and engine monitor. This allows me to do a lot. I have voice warnings, an AOA guage that pops up for landing, and I can record all the flight data I want. IMHO I think an onboard computer is a tremendous asset. If I hadn't already built one, I'd consider this one. BTW, I have a finger mouse for turbulence.