From: grima@iphase.com (Gary Rima)
Subject: Re: Choosing PTTs and flight computers
Summary: Flightmaster recommendation
Organization: Interphase Corporation, Dallas Texas
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:13:17 GMT

In article <1993Jan19.043359.15021@peck.com> geoff@peck.com (Geoff Peck) writes:
>In article <C12rD5.G0z@gain.com> ddavis@gain.com (David P. Davis) writes:
>
>> Real Money - flight computers:  Anyone have a Flightmaster hand held nav.
>> computer?  What are they like and are they worth the money compared to
>> the price of hand held GPS units.  Ive seen advertisements for both the
>> Trimble Flightmate and the Garmin 55AVD and both looked nice as full featured
>> in-flight nav. computers, but I would appreciate some comments from owners
>> or wanna-be owners.
>
>The Flightmaster is designed for a different purpose from the handheld
>GPS units.  It will store your checklists, compute (not terribly
>optimal) flight plans, and do all the calculations an E6B will do and
>then some.  The user interface is rather cryptic, due to the teency
>little display, but the unit does have a database of airports, airways,
>and navaids packed into its small memory.  Again, my recommendation:
>save your money.  Use DUATS to do your flight planning when you get
>your weather briefing.  One problem with the Flightmaster is that it will
>tend to make you too much of an "inside" pilot -- looking inside the
>cockpit when you should be concentrating your attention outside!
>
I must disagree regarding the Flightmaster.  I've owned one for close to three
years now and think its one of the most valuable aviation accessories I own.
I don't know what you mean about "not terribly optimal" flight plans.  I use it
to compute most all of my flight plans and very rarely make manual changes to
the routing it computes - in my experience it provides pretty optimal routing
within the parameters you give it to play with; airways routing, VOR routing,
or RNAV direct.  SInce it knows all your airplane performance parameters (fuel
burn, speed, etc.) plus winds for multiple points along the route, its great for
"what-if" scenarios too tedious to do manually (will I do better at 8000, 10000
or 12000 - elapsed time and fuel burn.)

Yes, the user interface can be rather cryptic due to the 2 line x 20 character
display, but it is _very intuitive_ and user friendly (an opinion shared by
reviewers in multiple reviews I've read.)  DUAT works fine for flight planning
in advance, but what happens when you get the inevitable re-routes to your
carefully filed flight plan while enroute??  Flightmaster allows you to quickly
enter the revised routing (using "PP" for present position) and recomputes the 
remainder of the flight plan almost instantly.  The recomputed plan will include
all new VOR frequencies to use, as well as revised ETA's and fuel burns.  If the
numbers you originally load about your airplane performance are accurate, the
unit is amazingly accurate.  I regularly come within 5 minutes and 1-2 gallons
of the estimates it provides on multi-hour cross country flights.

Finally, since it provides automatic reroute computing, all enroute frequencies,
To-From bearings and suggested wind correction angles for each leg I really feel
it gives me _more_ time to spend with my eyes outside (or on the guages) than if
I were using other methods to track the flight.  IMHO, it really eases single-
pilot IFR workload and therefore makes me a safer pilot.

(No, I really don't have any interest in the company, although I do know the
gentleman who invented the Flightmaster and have flown in his beautiful C-T310R
a couple of times.)

-Gary-

-- 
Gary L. Rima						Interphase Corp.
PP-ASEL-IA						(214) 919-9226
Centurion N7358E					garyr@iphase.com
N0GR							CompuServe 76050,231
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