Golf Hotel Whiskey: for pilots and aviation enthusiasts
Tietco kindly sent me a MyClip Thigh iPad and iPad 2 kneeboard. It’s a neat little strap that goes round your thigh and clips onto your iPad so you can use it as a kneeboard. It’s very comfortable and easy to use. The strap itself is also very compact so you can fold it away into your flying bag when you don’t need it. Order online for $39.95. Let’s face it, this is going to be the cheapest iPad accessory you’re going to buy and probably the most useful.
When I was a PPL student, calculating a weight and balance (W&B) schedule for a flight took about 20 minutes using a form, the POH and a fair amount of mathematics. It wasn’t difficult but it was fiddly and time-consuming.
Every year there are accidents where pilots wilfully or accidentally overload or unbalance their aircraft with tragic results so W&B definitely matters.
I’m slowly moving all my aviation workflows to my iPhone and iPad. I use SkyDemon (VFR flight planning), LogTen Pro (log book), AeroPlates (approach plates and Pooleys) and RocketRoute (IFR flight planning and flight plan submission).
Now I have added Aviation W&B Calculator to handle W&B calculations.
It’s very simple to set up. Just download the plane template for your aircraft and the empty weight from the POH and confirm the arms for the different stations from the POH and you’re good to go. For the Cirrus I fly, it shows take off and landing envelopes so I can calculate fuel required and fuel burn. It replaces and Excel spreadsheet and makes it easy to do W&B for every flight. I only wish it could do passenger weights in kilograms and fuel loads in litres but apart from that it’s perfect.
Pat Flannigan, New York based airline pilot and blogger behind AviationChatter.com, has created Hold Here, a mobile app for instrument pilots now available in the iTunes App Store.
Hold Here takes the guess work out of holding patterns with an intuitive holding pattern entry calculator. It gives pilots a clear top-down view of the correct holding pattern entry to be flown which is suited for flight as well as classroom use.
The app also includes a bugout time calculator which provides pilots with a clear answer to the question “how long can I hold?” Having a solid bugout time in mind is crucial to pilots in a holding pattern who are burning precious fuel while making no progress on their flight. Exceeding the bugout time can be the difference between making it to the alternate airport and an in flight emergency. Hold Here makes that calculation easy.
Hold Here works on all Apple Devices, including iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad and is available in the App Store for $1.99. For more information or to get the app, visit the iTunes App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hold-here/id447714566?ls=1&mt=8
The US Coast Guard had a problem. In the mid-nineties, smugglers in the Caribbean started using ‘go-fasts.’ These speed boats were bringing in two tons of drugs at a time and making 40 or 50 knots. Only one in ten were being stopped. The Coast Guard knew they need something faster. Much faster. So they deployed eight MH-68A “Stingray” helicopters at Jacksonville, Florida. [Read more…] about Agusta 109 Power Elite