Pilot Products

AOPA Flight Explorer Personal Edition

AOPA's new Certified Service, flight tracking from Flight Explorer, tells you a lot more than just when your pilot friends will arrive in a personal aircraft (they must be on an IFR flight plan or use flight-following services). It can also tell you when to expect peak IFR traffic at your next destination. Just as you now check highway traffic reports on television or radio before leaving for work, you can now check traffic before departing the home airport.

Flight Explorer ranks among the most full-featured and easiest to use of all the tracking programs available. It has been in use at AOPA for several years, capturing traffic information for several articles in Pilot (see " The Nascar Air Force," February 1999 Pilot).

Of greatest interest to GA pilots is the ability to see exactly the air traffic load for your destination airport. You will see the positions of aircraft — updated every 10 seconds — and a graph showing peak arrivals and departures for the next four hours. Don't like to fly holding patterns? Hate to waste time and fuel? Go when the traffic graph says arrivals and departures will be at their fewest. By shifting your departure or arrival time by 30 minutes, you may avoid the worst of any delays. The graphs are based on actual flight plans on file and are available for all IFR airports at the click of a mouse.

You will be able to watch aircraft at one or as many airports as you like and search for aircraft by registration number, type, destination, or departure point. Are you searching for a Cessna 172 leaving from Dayton yet you don't know the registration number? Flight Explorer will find it.

Here's how. The software you download via AOPA Online enables you to link to a Flight Explorer server in Alexandria, Virginia, and to search for the aircraft and airport information you need.

Start the software, enter your password, and a map of the United States will appear showing locations of all aircraft in the air at that time. Historically, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 aircraft in the air over the United States and Canada during the day, including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Let's say you are looking for that friend who departed from Dayton an hour ago. You'll never find him or her in a mass of 5,000 airplanes, so you choose "Quick Filter" from a pull-down menu and enter "DAY" for Dayton in the Origin menu. (If you had known the registration number, you would have entered it — but this time you don't know.) You then select "Add to Existing Filters," and poof! Thousands of airplanes disappear except for the dozen or so that departed your friend's airport on the outskirts of Dayton.

You then move your computer's cursor over one of the airplanes that appears to be headed in your general direction. Without even clicking, up pops an information box that tells you the aircraft you have chosen is a Cessna 172, the same model as your friend's, and that it is at 7,000 feet doing 124 knots groundspeed and headed for your airport identifier. That's got to be the right one. The box also tells you that it will arrive at 4:42 p.m. Additionally, you now know the registration number.

Obviously, entering the registration number is the fastest way to find the aircraft. There is even a feature that automatically centers the map on the aircraft.

What's the likelihood of your friend getting delayed by air traffic control? You move the cursor over your home airport, right-click the mouse button, select "Airport Traffic Graph," and see that at the time of the expected arrival, IFR traffic is predicted to be light. The friend should have no delays. The actual traffic is also shown as icon airplanes heading toward your airport and appears to back up the predictions based on flight plans for departing and arriving aircraft stored in the FAA's computer. You could also right-click "Properties" to pull up information about the airport. Flight Explorer Personal Edition integrates AOPA's Airport Directory into its database.

A search on aircraft headed to a destination brings up the N numbers of every aircraft coming into that airport. FBO operators will find the information priceless.

There are a host of tricks the program can perform to make your tracking easier. You can attach tags with flight information to an icon as it flies across the screen and assign colors to aircraft of interest to make them easier to find. An aircraft trail (last five positions) will show any change in direction. Instrument students will appreciate overlay features that define air traffic control sectors, center boundaries, and airways. Other data includes airports, fixes, navaids, radar sites, time zones, and special-use airspace. Free software upgrades are available over the Internet. An e-mail function allows users to ask questions of Flight Explorer technicians in Virginia.

That, in a quick overview, is what you'll get for $8.95 a month for 10 hours of use (normally $10 a month, but discounted to AOPA members). And remember that a small portion of the Flight Explorer subscription is returned to AOPA to further causes for general aviation. The AOPA edition of Flight Explorer includes most of the functions available in the Flight Explorer professional version that is sold to corporations for $250 a month. To see a demonstration using simulated data, visit AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org) after October 15. Once you choose to subscribe via credit card, Flight Explorer starts the flow of live data. You can install the program on as many PCs as you like, using one user ID and password, as long as only one user logs on at a time. — Alton K. Marsh

The Flyer's Recreation Guide — Northwest

Some people think Reed I. White just flies around and has a good time, but there's real work to what he does. OK, maybe he does buzz around in his souped-up Cessna 172 for 100 or so flying hours a year, spending 50 nights at some of the most beautiful and entertaining flying destinations found anywhere. But his well-produced guide to 56 hotspots in the Northwest shows the hard work he puts into his product.

White searched Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, and came up with some interesting spots. After landing at Owyhee Reservoir State Airport in Idaho, for example, you may be visited by the fictitious rabbit-skin-clad Owyhee Nymph. (Or is she real?) Visitors seeking camping, hiking, and biking have faithfully recorded details of their encounters in a log kept in one of the cabins.

If the airport lies in dangerous terrain, White includes either a warning or omits the airport from the guide. At Johnson Creek Airport in Idaho, for example, rising terrain makes departures to the south ill-advised. White informs you that one unfortunate pilot ended up landing in a creek when he couldn't outclimb the terrain.

Included are detailed descriptions of entertainment near airports. The entry for McMinnville, Oregon, has a four-page description of the Captain Michael King Smith Evergreen Aviation Museum where the Hughes Flying Boat is on display. Users can review updates through White's Web site.

The book costs $17.95 and is available through Amazon.com, Sporty's Pilot Shop (telephone 800/543-8633), and from White's company, Alta Research. It has 416 pages, including 350 photos and maps, and is small enough to fit into any flight bag. (A guide for the Southwest is also available.) For more information, contact Alta Research, 131 Northwest 4th Street, Number 290, Corvallis, Oregon 97330-4702; telephone 541/929-5738; or visit the Web site ( www.alta-research.com). — AKM

Patch cord

Before there were panel-mounted intercoms there were mostly portable intercoms. Most had the capability to plug into a portable tape recorder. Many of today's panel-mounted intercoms seem to have lost that ability, but Traynor and Associates of Massillon, Ohio, makes a patch cord that returns the personal tape recorder to the cockpit.

For $24.95, you can have a cord that splits the earphone jack into a second jack and a plug that fits most handheld tape recorders. Student pilot and company President David C. Traynor, who runs a police academy near Canton, Ohio, bought the rights to the patch cord from J.P. Stanwood and Associates.

Why, you might ask, would you want to record a flight? For one thing, the cord also fits most video cameras, so a passenger can record comments and radio chatter as background sound for the scenes of tiny houses and cars below. More importantly, instructors can use the recording equipment to review student flights, and students can hear explanations provided by the instructor during the lesson.

Still another reason became apparent during a test flight of the cord by Pilot. An instructor on the ground using a handheld radio was heard asking pilots to make way for his student who was in the pattern on his first solo. Other pilots were heard offering to break off practice approaches so the student would make his lap of the pattern as worry free as possible. "We're all in this together," one said as he broke off an approach. Once on the ground, the student received congratulations from the instructor — then other pilots joined in. It was a nice moment to have on tape. For more information, contact Traynor and Associates, 7800 Cranford Street Northwest, Massillon, Ohio 44646; telephone 800/872-9667 or 330/837-9295; or visit the Web site ( www.aircraftpatchcord.com). — AKM

Briefly Noted

Many pilots struggle with keeping an NACO procedures booklet open while flying an instrument approach. To help you hold the charts, Sporty's Pilot Shop is offering the Vu-Plate kneeboard. The durable plastic sleeve clamps open the booklet and provides a clear surface on which the pilot can write notes with a grease pencil. The kneeboard attaches to the pilot's leg with a Velcro strap. Extra Velcro is included for creating pencil holders on the board. The Vu-Plate kneeboard retails for $21.95. For more information, contact Sporty's Pilot Shop, Clermont County Airport, Batavia, Ohio 45103-9747; telephone 800/543-8633 or 513/735-9000; fax 513/735-9200; or visit the Web site ( www.sportys.com). — JKB

LEDtronics, located in energy-starved California, makes its living off light-emitting diodes (LED), light sources that consume far less electricity than conventional incandescent light bulbs while lasting 20 times as long. While the company makes its largest profite by replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs in billboards and other commercial signs, it also makes flashlights for hikers, hunters, and pilots.

Just released is a new Mini-FlashLED pocket flashlight: The LED lamp is good for 10 years and the batteries are good for four to 10 days of continuous use, depending on the color of lamp chosen. White, blue, red, and yellow lamps are available. The five-inch, pocket-size light weighs 2.1 ounces and is powered by either three N cell batteries or two AA alkaline batteries. The shorter N cell batteries, while more expensive, provide the most light and fit in the same space as two AA batteries.

The light projects about 10 feet and is filtered through a cabochon lens, which focuses the light to a point. The light turns on and off by a twist-activated switch or by a pulse switch that provides a burst of light when pressed (thus, the "flash" portion of the name).

The Mini-FlashLED costs $26.50. For more information, contact LEDtronics, 23105 Kashiwa Court, Torrance, California 90505; telephone 800/579-4875 or 310/534-1505; fax 310/534-1424; or visit the Web site ( www.ledtronics.com). — AKM

Unless otherwise stated, products listed herein have not been evaluated by AOPA Pilot editors. AOPA assumes no responsibility for products or services listed or for claims or actions by manufacturers or vendors. However, members unable to get satisfaction regarding products listed should advise AOPA. To submit products for evaluation, contact: New Products Editor, AOPA Pilot , 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701; telephone 301/695-2350. Links to all Web sites referenced in this issue can be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links.shtml).