new app allows us to
banish the last bit of
paper from the
cockpit if we want.
And Jepp has created
new subscription
coverage areas that
are more compact
and less costly for
pilots who don’t fly
many long trips away
from home. Check
out the Jepp app on
the iPad store. I
think you will be
impressed.
Jeppesen’s Mobile FliteDeck for the iPad redraws the chart each time you zoom in or
out, providing easy to read en route charts.
Jepp stores its electronic chart data
as individual bits, often called vector-based. With this type of data storage a
new chart is “drawn” at every zoom
setting so the resolution of information
on the chart is the same at each scale.
To use the Mobile FliteDeck en route
chart you tap in the departure and
destination airports. That draws a
preliminary route line across the chart
so it’s easy to stay in the correct area as
you zoom and pan across the chart.
What the iPad adds, in addition to
excellent display resolution, is the
intuitive swiping and tapping touches
most of us have learned to use on all
sorts of smart personal electronics.
For the past few years Jepp has sent
paper en route charts to subscribers of its
electronic chart service, but for iPad
users the default will be electronic charts.
You can still get paper if you want, but the
A SYNTHETIC CENTERLINE
I have been flying
with synthetic vision
on the Garmin G600
flat glass primary
flight display (PFD)
in my airplane for
about a year and a
half. Synthetic vision
is a computer-cre-ated display of the
terrain ahead of you.
The data to create
the synthetic view of
the world is stored in
an electronic memory.
The WAAS-aided GPS navigators determine your position and course with superb
accuracy and tell the database you are here
and you are following this exact path over
the ground. The synthetic vision software
retrieves the terrain data for your position
and puts an image of the hills, valleys, bodies of water, and airports on the PFD so the
picture merges seamlessly with the display
of aircraft attitude and heading.
I have flown a number of low-visibility
instrument approaches since the synthetic
vision was installed, and it is very comfort-
ing to see the terrain around the airport,
and the runway itself, even though all you
can see out the windshield is the inside of a
cloud. Part of the synthetic vision is a flight
path marker that shows where the airplane
is actually going instead of where the air-
plane is pointed. The flight path marker is a
circle with little lines sticking out to mimic
the wings and vertical tail of an airplane. If
the flight path marker is on the synthetic
runway, that’s where the airplane is going.
Conversely, if the marker is on terrain or an
obstruction in the synthetic view, you’re
going to hit it.
J. Mac McClellan, EAA 747337, has been a pilot for more
than 40 years, holds an ATP certificate, and owns a Beechcraft Baron.
