Join me for my interview with Tom Harper of Avidyne Corporation as he tells us about their new MLX770 Receiver as well as some other Avidyne products. It’s an interesting look at the cutting edge of aviation technology, both existing and to come. I also contrast what’s available for general aviation against what we have at the airline level, so you can really see where general aviation’s going.
It makes for an interesting discussion about the future of flight as far as the technology end of it goes. Additionally, we discuss highway in the sky technology and Avidyne’s plans for that as well.
You can check out Avidyne’s website and get more information at www.Avidyne.Com. Below is additional information from Avidyne’s website about some of the various products we discussed in the interview.
Enjoy
-Capt’n Chris
MLX770 Two-Way Datalink Receiver
Avidyne’s new MLX770 delivers aviation-quality weather data via the Iridium Satellite Network for display on Avidyne’s Entegra and EX500/EX5000-series multi-function displays. The MLX770 opens up the world for affordable two-way airborne datalink communications. With the MLX770, you now have access to the radar mosaic for virtually all of Western Europe at launch and a large portion of the rest of the world by the end of 2008.
The MLX770 provides two-way text messaging from your airborne MFD via SMS text messaging to any ground-based SMS-capable mobile phones. Your family and friends can even send a text message to you in your airplane. With the MLX770, you also have the ability to send and receive text messages while flying, allowing you to communicate with someone on the ground via an e-mail connection or a mobile telephone.
TWX670 Tactical Weather Detection System
Introducing the TWX670 Tactical Weather Detection System - Lightning is the first physical property of a storm cell that can be detected, and unlike precipitation, lightning is the best determinant of dangerous thunderstorm activity. Avidyne’s new TWX670 is a second-generation lightning-based weather detection system that provides a simple and intuitive color-contoured display with instantaneous picture of surrounding weather.
After listening to Stephen Force’s “Sometimes Alternates Fly - My Ride with the USAF Thunderbirds” I’m convinced I have just finished listening to the single greatest effort and result in aviation podcasting, ever. Steve probably spent the better part of an extreme amount of time (fill in your guess as to how much, once you’ve finished listening _____ ) producing this episode. I highly recommend you listen to it.
Set aside some time, turn off your phone, perhaps go for a walk and lose yourself from whatever’s currently on your plate. It’s worth it.
From the the creator of One Six Right comes this short film about achieving one’s dream of flying with the Blue Angels. Filmmaker Brian J. Terwilliger shares with us his fulfillment of that dream, as only he can. It’s a remarkable look at the Blue Angels and I cannot recommend it enough. You can view the clip here, or take advantage of the high definition version(s) at the Terwilliger Productions Website.
Here’s a screen shot I just took of X-Plane’s new instrument panel on my iPhone. How cool is this.. And yes it’s fully functional! The entire 3.5 inch screen on the phone is occupied by this delicious replication of an instrument panel and your flight is perfectly controlled and accurately replicated on the display. How do you control the flight, you say? Simply by moving the phone. The iPhone’s accelerometer is always aware of the phone’s position in your hands. The technology is fast and accurate too and everything moves on the display just like on a real instrument panel.
And yes, you can use this little device to practice IFR now - Really.
I was sitting around this morning, staring at my iPhone and thinking how far ahead of the pack it was in just about every category compared to all the other smart phones I’ve had- Believe me when I say I’ve had many. What’s great is that the functionality of the iPhone just keeps increasing, since Apple started allowing software folks to write programs for it.
Then something occurred to me- Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app that streamed live ATC! What better then to sit at Starbucks or the airport and listen to the tower… on your iPhone, no less? So, I immediately found myself at Apple’s Application Store searching for just this very app… “It had to exist” I told myself. But unfortunately, it does not exist… at least not yet.
Never being one to give up easily though, Google seemed like the next logical place, so that’s where I went. I found that the folks over at LiveATC.Net had addressed this in some forum posts and have indicated that they might even be writing their own app. Reading further I found that there is a program folks are using which, although not solely devoted to streaming live ATC, definitely does the trick. It’s Nullriver’s Tuner Internet Radio and is $5.99 at the iTunes application store. The good news is that you don’t have to ‘jailbreak‘ your iPhone, while the bad news is that you’re going to have to fork over the six bucks, but it’s worth it, because not only are you going to be able to listen to live ATC, you’re also going to be open to literally hundreds if not thousands of live radio feeds from around the world to go with it. I should mention that there is a free application called FStream but being a firm believer in paying for what you get, well, you get the point. Anyhow, this post will be about using Tuner Internet Radio to listen to live ATC.
The first step is to go to the iTunes application store on either your iPhone/iPod Touch (yes it will work on either one) or you computer and purchase Tuner Internet Radio. A quick search should turn it up. Once you’ve got it loaded onto your iPhone/iPod Touch, do the following:
On the left side you’ll see a menu, select ‘LiveATC Audio Feeds’
Select the geographical location that has the particular airport you’d like to listen to
Choose between the available listening options, green means the stream is up, red means it’s down
Press the Tuner icon on your iPhone/iPod Touch to launch the application
Press Search in the lower right corner of the application
Press Open in the upper left corner of the application
Type the name of the frequency you selected at LiveATC.Net
Press Next at the lower right hand corner of the application
Type the address of the stream, in this case we’ll use Boston Tower: http://alt.liveatc.net/kbos_twr
Press Doneat the lower right hand corner of the application
The application will load a new window with the stream in it, Metar and all.
Press the open book (Bookmark) at the upper right hand corner of the application
Click Add to Bookmarks
Repeat for every frequency you like
Organize your bookmarks
A quick note about bandwidth: I have not verified this yet but reports are that the app will stream fine with an Edge connection, at the very least.
When the official live streaming ATC application from LiveATC.Net comes out I plan on purchasing that, as it will be solely dedicated to live ATC streams (and I’d like to support LiveATC.Net for even making this possible). Until then, this method is great. I’ve provided some accompanying pictures below.
Enjoy
Capt’n Chris
Links:
LiveATC.Net - Features LiveATC streams from all over the world
Join me for my interview with Tom Harper of Avidyne Corporation as he tells us about their new MLX770 Receiver as well as some other Avidyne products. It’s an interesting look at the cutting edge of aviation technology, both existing and to come. I also contrast what’s available for general aviation against what we have at the airline level, so you can really see where general aviation’s going.
MLX770 Two-Way Datalink Receiver
The MLX770 provides two-way text messaging from your airborne MFD via SMS text messaging to any ground-based SMS-capable mobile phones. Your family and friends can even send a text message to you in your airplane. With the MLX770, you also have the ability to send and receive text messages while flying, allowing you to communicate with someone on the ground via an e-mail connection or a mobile telephone.
TWX670 Tactical Weather Detection System
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Capt’ ;n Chris
