Gear

After flying an instrument approach under IFR conditions earlier this year using Rockwell Collins’ new HGS-3500 head-up display, I wasn’t surprised to learn the company has received a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award. Rockwell Collins was named first runner up in the Transport category for introducing synthetic vision to its head-up guidance system — […]

It apparently isn’t enough for Boeing to be building the airplanes that the next generation of airline pilots will be flying. The airliner maker now plans to train the pilots who fly those airplanes as well. At least it seems that way. In truth, Boeing has been offering training for years, through its Boeing Flight […]

German manufacturer Beyerdynamic recently introduced the HS 800 Digital aviation headset. A modern-looking headset with a carbon-fiberlike design, the HS 800 definitely has the look. I recently took it for a test flight to see how it performs in the cockpit. The HS 800 Digital is nice and light, only 0.72 pounds (without the cable […]

Jeppesen has joined the Lindbergh Foundation’s Aviation Green Alliance as a founding member. The group’s aim is to tackle environmental challenges facing the aviation industry, including emissions, noise and operational efficiency. “Jeppesen fully supports the collaborative effort led by the Lindbergh Foundation Aviation Green Alliance to develop solutions for addressing environmental challenges facing the aviation […]

One iPad app we’ve written about in brief and liked in abundance is Hilton Software’s WingX Pro, designed by eponymous software maven Hilton Goldstein. Like its competitors, WingX Pro is a nav/charting/planning/database/safety utility app that seemingly does all things for all pilots for the slim price of $100 a year. New to the app is […]

Hawker Beechcraft‘s Global Customer Support (GCS) unit announced a synthetic-vision upgrade program for all airplanes in the Hawker and Beechcraft families equipped with Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21. The upgrade requires the addition of a new LRU to the Pro Line 21 platform. The hardware provides the flight crew with a simulated 3D view of […]

__In this age of iPads and Androids and apps, is a dedicated portable device still relevant? That’s the question that some might be asking with the unveiling by Garmin of its latest flagship portable, the Garmin 796, which at this writing was top-secret. I have in my hands the only model not located behind lock […]

There’s no question, using an iPad in the cockpit in place of paper charts and approach plates is better in almost every conceivable way – especially after the flight, when it’s time for chart updates, which with most popular apps from companies like Jeppesen or ForeFlight can be accomplished with just a couple of button […]

(September 2011) No matter how much we might want to deny it, this age in which we live is defined by new technologies, new behaviors and new ways of looking at and interacting with the real world. Nowhere is this clearer than in the fast-changing world of publishing, where the model for how we deliver […]

My wife and I visited Bell Helicopter in Texas recently for recurrent training in the Bell 407. The day following completion of our training, we had the opportunity to make a 90-minute flight in the new Garmin G1000-equipped Bell 407GX. I have extensive Garmin experience, and have flown G1000-equipped fixed-wing aircraft since Cessna first offered […]