Two new, vastly different flight bags
Sporty’s Pilot Shop and Flight Outfitters are bringing two new flight bags to the game, and they perfectly illustrate the immense number of choices now available to pilots.
The Flight Gear CFI Bag is the latest in Sporty’s extensive line of bags and backpacks. It’s also a total winner. Bags have grown increasingly more complex, weighted down like a bad piece of software with features you don’t need or want. The CFI bag is stripped down to exactly what a weekend warrior needs. There is a central pocket big enough for a headset, side slots perfect for an iPad and just a few charts, and end pockets for water, a handheld radio, or sunglasses. It’s light, the material is predictably durable, and it feels good in the hand. But maybe you’re not satisfied?
This is where Flight Outfitters’ new Flight Level comes in. This is a flight bag and suitcase all in one. As the name suggests, it’s for professional pilots or hardcore travelers with a need for more gear. There’s room for a full stack of charts, or an iPad and a few days of clothes. An optional matching Pro Pack serves as a place for delicate items, or insulates your lunch. Flight Outfitters is relatively new to the game, but its bags are well made and nicely designed. We love the professional look and hidden pockets.—Ian J. Twombly
Sporty’s Flight Gear CFI Bag
Price: $39.95
Where: www.sportys.com
Flight Outfitters’ Flight Level
Price: $129.95; $12.95 for the Pro Pack
Where: www.flightoutfitters.com
Flight Notes
Hipster approved
Beard-loving, Wayfarer-donning pilots of the world, rejoice! Flight Notes are your perfect cockpit accessory. Aviation is dominated by tablets, but for those who insist on doing things the old way, try these new notebooks. Borrowed from the hipster-approved Moleskines, Flight Notes are small, 48-page notebooks of graph paper, bookended by quick reference material. Imagine what’s printed on kneeboards and you get the idea. They’re inexpensive, take to a fountain pen, and go perfectly with your iPhone and $5 cup of coffee.—IJT
Price: $11.95 for three
Contact: ASA, Sporty’s, and other online retailers
Avionics
The mighty Mini-GA
A portable PFD with syn vis
By Dave Hirschman
GPS-derived synthetic vision has become the province of ever-larger and more grandiose screens—until now. GRT Avionics has taken a different tack from other firms with its Mini-GA, a 4.3-inch, portable unit that brings syn vis to the tight confines of a standard 3.25-inch instrument hole. And it does so brilliantly and elegantly.
Unlike GRT’s own big-screen products, which are strictly limited to Light Sport and Experimental aircraft, the Mini-GA can be clipped into the panel of any airframe, as long as no required instrument is subtracted.
The Mini-GA’s sunlight-readable display shows terrain, roads, lakes, and airports with clearly numbered runways, and it offers highway-in-the-sky guidance. Since it’s not connected to the aircraft pitot-static system, it shows GPS altitude, track, and groundspeed (not barometric altitude, heading, and airspeed).
The unit is identical in concept to Dynon’s D2, the first Experimental electronic flight instrument system to be marketed as a portable standby instrument on Standard-category aircraft. GRT’s Mini-GA takes that idea a large step further by adding syn vis (and a moving map).
The Mini-GA clips into a well-designed, billeted aluminum mount. Attach the external GPS antenna and the power and ground wires, and it’s ready to go. Initialization takes about 30 seconds, and the unit can find itself if a power interruption requires restarting it in flight.
The Mini-GA is mostly a primary flight display, but it also can change at the touch of a button to a moving map. Screens can be customized by the user. I found the PFD screen a bit too cluttered, so I went to the setup page and got rid of the things I found extraneous (such as the hash marks showing bank angles of 10, 20, 30, 45, and 60 degrees) and vertical speed indications.
I made day and night flights with the Mini-GA in visual and instrument conditions and found it extremely useful. On approach, simply placing the velocity vector on the threshold of the landing runway gave a comforting visual depiction during the last few miles of each flight. Also, the groundspeed and ground track readouts were surprisingly helpful. During one approach, the groundspeed readout showed an unanticipated tailwind on final, and matching the airplane’s ground track to the desired course eliminated the sloppiness of having to guess at wind drift.
So what’s not to like about the Mini-GA? First, its form factor is a bit too wide to fit into some tightly bunched six-pack instrument clusters. I tried to use it in a hole usually occupied by a directional gyro, but it didn’t quite fit and I ended up placing it elsewhere on the panel. Also, selecting waypoints on the moving map page was a bit confounding at first. Finally, for pilots who want to take the Mini-GA along with them in multiple airplanes, a plug-in adapter could be a useful option.
It’s increasingly common for ADS-B receivers to be equipped with an attitude heading reference system that can display syn vis on tablet computers. But the robustness and readability of the purpose-built Mini-GA (and the fact that it doesn’t rely on a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection) make it far more desirable as a standby instrument than any tablet, despite its size.
The Mini-GA will greatly lower pilot stress levels in case of a vacuum failure or other partial-panel scenarios. In Experimental and Light Sport panels, it’s easy to imagine two Minis serving as PFD and multifunction display.
Big screens for syn vis are terrific and they’re mesmerizing to watch. But the GRT’s Mini-GA brings most of that magic to a small screen, and that’s quite a feat.
Price: $1,695
Contact: www.grtavionics.com
Email [email protected]
Ian J. Twombly
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