GA pilots on the go-especially business aircraft crew-find themselves betwixt and between when it comes to acquiring and loading the latest nav data for sophisticated avionics. At NBAA last week, Jeppesen added some new capability to its cloud-based app that essentially allows pilots to quickly assess the status of nav, terrain and chart databases and load revisions into the panel systems wirelessly from just about anywhere.
For the time being, Jeppesen’s IDM works on iOS platforms and PCs and applies to the Primus Apex avionics suites in the Pilatus PC-12. Jeppesen’s Josh Richardson told us last week at NBAA that this technology will eventually be expanded to interface with other popular avionics systems through the wireless routers that are now becoming common even in light piston aircraft. For the Apex suite, the wireless node is Aspen Avionics CG-100 wireless router system, but the technology will expand to suit other systems.
“This technology will be adapted by other airframe manufacturers,” Richardson told us. “It’s a technology that’s worked seamlessly so I suspect we’ll see a higher adoption rate by the industry. I would imagine that it will become the primary method of data delivery to the customer,” he added. The apps for both iOS and PC are free, although Jeppesen obviously charges for the data itself.
“What we want to do is to provide the customer with enough options that they can move away from physical media and gain the benefit of gathering their data from anywhere in the world, which is difficult with physical media,” Richardson said. Currently, with this technology in its infancy, many operators still rely on data cards shipped through the mail.
For those aircraft that don’t have cabin or cockpit access to wireless, the PC version can grab the data wirelessly from anywhere in the world and transfer it to the avionics via hard wire or USB transfer.
