Kindle 3 for aviation use [LONG]

[omk]

Thought I'd write up some lessons-learned from using the Kindle 3 for aviation approach plates and weather briefing.


Approach plates
The Kindle 3's pearl e-ink is simply outstanding in all lighting conditions, so this is a good fit. After much experimentation, I settled on the "compact" plates from pdfplates.com. Everyone else assumes you are using a DX for approach plates, but I hate the huge form factor and a landscape-oriented K3 is actually very serviceable. Yes, you have to click up/down to flip between the briefing strip/plan view and the profile/minimums, but the dedicated paging buttons and refresh rate make it easy and this actually tends to logically follow areas of focus, so its quite workable. Most approaches will spill over to a third page, which is annoying, but in practice this typically only contains infrequently used info, such as third set of mimimums for remote altimeter setting, etc. You can view full plates in portrait mode (if you insist, use pdfplate's "sony" format for least amount of whitespace), but they are too small for cockpit use that way (and I still have good eyes).

As most Kindle NACO compilations, pdfplates adds a page index to the beginning of the PDF as a workaround for lack of TOC support. You "GoTo beginning", note the number, then "Goto" page number. This sounds cumbersome but is actually very quick and natural way (it takes me an average 15 seconds to pull up a plate this way, vs 30+ for paper lookup). Since all this represents a lot of number entry, a row of number stickers above the QWERTY row is a helpful visual aid. (To enter a number on a Kindle, you press the "Alt" key followed by a letter, Q = 1, W = 2, etc). If anyone knows how to make the Alt sticky, let me know !!

Bookmarking: I like to gather a "brief" for an instrument flight, that is departure IDP, emergency/return proc, destination, and alternates. You can do this by pulling up the approaches of interest and bookmarking them by pressing Alt-B. The bookmark list can then be pulled from "Menu/View Notes&Marks". Unfortunately, the bookmarks do not show any part of the text (Somehow chartbundle's PDFs do, but they are unusable on the K3 for layout reasons), just page numbers. Fortunately the notes appear in the order bookmarked, and going back and forth is easy with the "Back" button.


Weather:
For under $200, the K3-3G actually makes a pretty decent, compact weather terminal, which sometimes even works in the air at mid altitudes. The key to aviation use is minimalism, that is the smallest, B&W friendly, directly-linked graphics and text that will do, defaulting to a local area to minimize data entry. The attached Briefing.txt html file is a link compilation to number of ADDS weather products; copy to your Kindle's documents folder for direct link access from the Home screen (no need to fuss with browser bookmarks). The labels are very short for compactness, so a brief description of the links and how to customize them is in order. (The idea was to follow a typical go/no-go decision tree, i.e. is it VFR, if not how low is the IFR, if doable what are the winds, temps, icing, and pireps at my usual altitude. Beyond that, check TFRs, forecasts, plan through DUATs and file.):

Line 1:
Sat - weather depiction overlaid on GOES-W satellite (change to vis_goesE.jpg if you are on the other coast).
M/M+/TF - local metars, metars with 3hr trends, and tafs. Edit station id list to your area. The beauty of this is that its 1-2KB response, i.e. decent chance of getting a query through in the air.
Rdr - DUATS radar. This is the most usable radar image I could find, because of the embedded (and quick) panning. Defaults to Norcal, pan to your area using the image borders, then note the URL if you want to edit default. Loop also kinda works, its got typical eink refresh problems, but the direction is discernible.
TFR/T - official FAA TFR image only (faster) zoomed and centered on NorCal / text listing for CA.
W/T/I/P - ADDS wind,temps,ice (CIP), and PIREPs at 6K. Refer to the table for other milibar values if you want to change altitude. PIREPs default to 160sm around SAC, edit link to custom center/distance. (Its also possible to generate custom graphical PIREPs in the URL, but the ADDS backend is very slow when it does this. I tend to glance here, then go to the Regional PIREP graphics on line 4 if I need to further visualize).
FA/B - good ole' area forecast and winds aloft (SFO area, paste link in browser and go up a level to find your area's file, then edit). This is actually still best at-a-glance weather for IFR flight, imho, since FA has freezing levels/tops and FB contains other temps aloft.
.| - link to 192.168.1.1 (I use a Verizon mifi sometimes which displays signal strength on this page)

Line 2:
DUATS - CSC DUATS autologin! Change <username> <password> to yours and it will jump to the front page. After that, DUATS is actually very Kindle-friendly, and its text flight planner is still the most flexible (no one else allows combination of user waypoints and auto-route, AFAIK)
NM - NavMonster, the least-keystroke (but unofficial) route briefing. TFR drill-down broken due to Kindles retarded multiple window handling. Emailed NM to please open in place, otherwise it would be perfect.
Notam - official FAA NOTAM site, decent Kindle accessibility and allows quick location NOTAM lookup. Defaults to my route, edit URL for yours.
RAIM - direct link to FAA's non-precision baro-aided RAIM outage image. If you care about enroute, that's available there, too.
IR - infrared satellite
though GOES/wx composite seems to switch to this, too at night?). From ADDS.
10-day - weather channels 10 day outlook, the most forward looking resource I know of. Change trailing ZIP code to your area.
AirNav - direct airport query link
VMap - VFRMap.com for online VFR/IFR charts. Panning a little jerky with the e-ink refresh, but useful for area lookups. VFRMap seems faster than SkyVector at the moment and has direct AF/D popups (but no METARs)

Line 3:
PIREP* - NW icing, # sky, ~ turbulence. Change link to SW, NC, etc. for your region.
AIR* - icing, # sky, ~ turbulence, and ^ freezing G-AIRMETs
SIGMET - composite sigmet graphic (all hazards)
CB-Otlk - convective outlook
RCM - Radar-coded message with echo tops

Forecast tables:
First table contains current weather depiction/prog, flight conditions, and Precipitation. Second table are ADDS-derived winds aloft, temps, and icing products (CIP/FIP) at various altitudes and forecast periods. (unlike surface winds and temps, the "SFC" CIP/FIP are the cumulative "max" images, i.e. 1000' - FL310)


Checklists:
I thought the Kindle maybe a useful checklist device but found I never used it that way in the airplane. Still, you can do this with some basic HTML. Attached are sample simplified PA-23 normal and emergency checklists (formatted for landscape mode, though I since found out there is some special tag to force page breaks, too).

Optional hacks useful to aviation:
The following assume you generally know what you are doing with respect to hacks. The usual "you may brick your device/void warranty/summon evil spirits" warning applies, so don't do it.

- jailbreak and install usb network BEFORE 3.1 update
- change default screen timeout to 60 minutes by installing SSTimeOut (0.2 tested)
- change the default "wikipedia" search to a METAR/TAF lookup by changing the sarch URL in /opt/amazon/ebook/prefs/search_prefs:

SearchWikipediaURL = http://aviationweather.gov/adds/metars/index.php?station_ids={searchTerm}&std_trans=standard&chk_metars=on&chk_tafs=on

- install screensaver hack and make your screensaver image something you often look up (or an emergency checklist page, etc)
- create a cron job to copy screenshots to a folder accessible from the image viewer and delete any screenshots older than 2 days. (This is useful because it allows saving web-derived info for offline use in the air, such as DUATS navlog, chart snapshot, or complex TFR text). Append the following line to /etc/crontab/root and restart the Kindle:

*/5 * * * * /mnt/us/movess.sh

#!/bin/sh                                                                                                                                            
# movess.sh - move screenshots to pictures/screenshots directory for image viewer                                                                                 
/bin/mkdir -p /mnt/us/pictures/screenshots                                                                                                                
/bin/mv /mnt/us/documents/screen_shot-*.gif /mnt/us/pictures/screenshots/                                                                            
/usr/bin/find /mnt/us/pictures/screenshots/screen_shot-*.gif -mtime +2 -exec rm {} \;

Any screenshots taken via Alt-Shift-G will be copied (within 5 minutes) to the "screenshots" folder on the home screen. Screenshots older than couple days are purged, too. I am not exactly sure what the battery impact of this may be (though it looks like cron doesn't run in sleep mode). A better way to do this may be through launchpad keybinding.

3.1 Upgrade
Worth it for one simple usability reason - because of the changed dialog layouts, it now takes only one keystroke to highlight "Beginning" in GoTo or "View Notes" in menu item, both heavily used with approach plates. Again, note that 3.1 PREVENTS JAILBRAKE, so jailbrake first if you ever intend to install any hacks.

K3 vs. iPad/Android tablets
The iPad is obviously in a different league, anyone who has played with ForeFlight must admit it is hands down the best aviation app out there. But besides initial and ongoing subscription costs ($600+, $30/mo), it is also quite large and suffers from usual glare issues.

A more direct comparison is a cheap Android tablet, such as the Coby Kyros. I have considered this, but decided against it since non-AMOLED displays are unreadable in direct sunlight, and cheap touchscreens, while intuitive can be hell even in mild turbulence. You also have to worry about battery life, or some ship power arrangement, since they will last only a few hours (yes, long enough for a flight, but again, you have to worry about it).

So the sub-$200 Kindle's e-ink display, outstanding battery life, and free 3G is hard to beat, even if the browser leaves something to be desired.


Feedback/suggestions/rants welcome.

[fordan]

Admittedly I'm only just working on my Instrument written, but I have to think not being able to see at least the map and the profile view that lists the altitude you can descend to on the same page would be a pretty significant limitation. The weather stuff is neat, though.

I love my Kindle 2 for reading, but for aviation I have to say the iPad is still the winner, even with size & potential glare issues. Even without Foreflight (which is insanely great for pilots), the screen size still makes it a better chart viewer, and the better browser and color makes it better than a DX for preflight weather analysis. Sure you save $3-400 on the device, but compared to the other costs of aviation...

[speedlever]

Very nice job, omk!

[stevedw]

One thing I've found as I created chartbundle is that many vendors really don't allow you full-screen on their native formats(MOBI, EPUB)(Without TOC support on the Kindles, I've never even bothered testing PDFs). The K3 is probably the 3rd worst I've tested. (Worst being the Kobo, second the K2) I find the Kindle DX, while bulky allows a full plate to be single page readable. But for the 6" readers, I think the Sony and NOOK are the leaders in not giving you huge margins, at the loss of Free 3g. My personal preference, right now, if you don't need full sun capabilities, is the NOOKcolor.

I have videos showing many different readers showing plates on Youtube if you search for chartbundle.

[nascarrunner71]

I purchased a DX for aviation chart research. It was cumbersome. Then the iPad came out. It is, hands-down, superior for chart use and weather. (NetJets just got 135 approval). The anti-glare screen protector makes it perfect.

The website I was using for kindle chart support is already backing off. My husband has snuck off with my DX.

I'm back to reading on my k2.

[gca3020]

But wait, don't you have to turn it off for takeoff and landing or the plane will explode in a ball of hellfire?

Seriously, though, this is awesome, and a great nonstandard use of the technology.

[nascarrunner71]

We use "airplane mode." And of course, have control to turn them off if something is amiss.

[omk]

Originally Posted by fordan

Admittedly I'm only just working on my Instrument written, but I have to think not being able to see at least the map and the profile view that lists the altitude you can descend to on the same page would be a pretty significant limitation.

Yeah, I thought fullpage would be a must, but it turned out to be not so important to me in the end because of the way I now brief approaches and just confirm a few details later. Also, because of the size, I have the k3 mounted at eye level, almost part of the instrument scan. If you can get a DX or iPad mounted in a similar manner, great, but that was not an option for me.

Same with the TOC, it sounds like a deal killer at first, but the index/goto lookups are actually very intuitive, since that's how we [used to ?] look at books....

In the end, individual preference and you never know until you try it in the cockpit. None of these devices are human-factor engineered for aviation, but that's why they are so cheap, too.

[fordan]

Originally Posted by gca3020

But wait, don't you have to turn it off for takeoff and landing or the plane will explode in a ball of hellfire?

Seriously, though, this is awesome, and a great nonstandard use of the technology.

It's a risk we're willing to take to further SCIENCE!

Actually the rule that prohibits electronics on air carriers or private flights when done via instruments has a provision that allows either the pilot in command or the carrier/operator to permit electronics if they have determined it will not cause interference with the communications or navigation system.

[omk]

Another interesting datapoint: on two recent 3+ hr flights at 11K and -15-20C OAT with no cabin heat (but sunny day), the K3 display refresh slowed down very noticeably, but continued to work (including 3G/wifi where there was signal).

[flierz]

The aviation gadgets are to be checked thoroughly and this one is simply good to use under any lighting conditions.
aviation apps