- Joined
- Mar 18, 2017
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After my recent upgrade cycle, I set about refining the panel for fairly serious instrument flying. I‘d initially mounted my iPad mini on an AirGizmos dock just right of the radio stack, and figured this would finally free up the yoke. Nice thought, but the mini ended up having heat issues (no longer in an X-Naut during the Arizona summer), was not quite bright enough at distance, and wasn’t quite big enough to display plates and charts on the right side of the panel. Additionally, I didn’t want to have to pan my head a lot to consult geo-referenced approach plates. As such, ipad went back on the yoke.
Id originally wanted to put an Aera 796 on the right side, but avoided it due to cost (Doubly so for the 760). I revisited this idea after realizing I was flipping screens on the iPad a lot to look at plates, enroute charts, and traffic. I also discovered what people with GTN650s already know - the graphical display is nearly useless, and I ended up spending more time on the flight plan and default nav screens. A 750 would provide more real estate, but was $pendy and would require another re-stack of my avionics.
I ended up going ahead with the 796, wired for serial flight plan transfer from the 650 (I’d already dropped a line for a future 406 ELT, and tapped off that) and to a hard-wired GDL39 behind the panel for traffic and weather. Yes. Yes, yes, and yes.
The 796 is working -well- in this capacity. It’s extra handy to have taxi diagrams up separately while taxiing, to have dedicated (and de-cluttered) traffic and weather pages with their own soft keys, and to have a moving map with superimposed flight plan constantly running on the panel.
At at total investment of around $1100, I’d recommend this to pilots who want more dedicated screen real-estate on the panel, but aren't able to bump up to a large format EFIS or gig screen navigator.
Id originally wanted to put an Aera 796 on the right side, but avoided it due to cost (Doubly so for the 760). I revisited this idea after realizing I was flipping screens on the iPad a lot to look at plates, enroute charts, and traffic. I also discovered what people with GTN650s already know - the graphical display is nearly useless, and I ended up spending more time on the flight plan and default nav screens. A 750 would provide more real estate, but was $pendy and would require another re-stack of my avionics.
I ended up going ahead with the 796, wired for serial flight plan transfer from the 650 (I’d already dropped a line for a future 406 ELT, and tapped off that) and to a hard-wired GDL39 behind the panel for traffic and weather. Yes. Yes, yes, and yes.
The 796 is working -well- in this capacity. It’s extra handy to have taxi diagrams up separately while taxiing, to have dedicated (and de-cluttered) traffic and weather pages with their own soft keys, and to have a moving map with superimposed flight plan constantly running on the panel.
At at total investment of around $1100, I’d recommend this to pilots who want more dedicated screen real-estate on the panel, but aren't able to bump up to a large format EFIS or gig screen navigator.
