What's New -- Products and Services

This month AVweb's survey of the latest products and services for pilots, mechanics and aircraft owners brings you lightning maps, weight and balance on your cell phone, light sport aircraft and much more.

If you know of a new product or service other AVweb readers should hear about, please send us a note.

King School's Practical Risk Management For Takeoffs and Landings

If you're like most pilots, managing your takeoffs and landings risks is one of the most important parts of your flying. Fifty percent of all accidents occur during takeoffs and landings. That's because these critical phases of flight require not only physical skill, but also superior decision-making risk management that's frequently overlooked during typical flight training.

Consistently good, safe, takeoffs and landings are the result of preparation The first step in making critical decisions is learning to manage the risks. Next is the consistency and steadiness that comes from informed confidence.

Using this highly interactive course, you'll learn how to make the right decisions with every takeoff and landing. You'll learn the industry-lauded PAVE and CARE method for managing the risks inherent in takeoffs and landings, and you'll actually practice your perceptual skills with realistic scenario-based questions. And, this course is approved for the FAA WINGS and Avemco Safety Rewards program.

Practical Risk Management For Takeoffs and Landings will teach you how to apply superior decision-making and perceptual skills with every takeoff and every landing. Three CD-ROMs and 93 minutes running time before interactive questions for under $50. Order by going to the King Schools' Web site.

Garmin GPSMAP 396

Garmin's latest handheld GPS is the GPSMAP 396 and it includes some revolutionary features. Using XM WX Satellite Weather, the Garmin 396 features NEXRAD, METARs, TAFs, TFRs, lightning and winds aloft, and several other important weather products to help pilots make informed navigational decisions.

This new aviation handheld also can reduce pilot workload by displaying Traffic Information Service (TIS) data when interfaced to the Garmin GTX 330 transponder, and can send frequencies with the touch of a button when interfaced to the SL30 nav/comm radio. The Garmin 396 is also capable of receiving XM Satellite Radio's 130-plus channels of music, sports, news, talk, and entertainment programming through a subscription. Once on the ground, the unit continues to provide information in a car or boat via the automotive and marine navigation modes.

Pilots can customize the map display to overlay XM WX data directly over the unit's Jeppesen and topographic map databases, or display individual weather products on the weather explorer page. In terrain mode, the Garmin 396 combines inputs from built-in terrain, obstacle, and electronic flight databases to give pilots a depiction of proximity hazards that require their attention. Pilots can customize their own minimum-clearance limits to receive terrain cautions, which pop up as digital thumbnail images.

The Garmin 396 has a 256-color, high-resolution (480 x 320-pixel) TFT display. The unit also features USB data transfer, fast processing speed, and a rechargeable, lithium-ion battery pack.

With the press of a button, the unit toggles into automotive or marine mode. When on the road, users can load the Garmin 396 with optional MapSource software for voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions to addresses and points of interest. The optional auto kit -- which is being offered free with a purchase of the Garmin 396 during the EAA Airventure in Oshkosh -- includes a friction and dash mount, a cigarette-lighter adapter with speaker output, a 128-MB data card, and a MapSource City Select CD-ROM for detailed maps of the United States.

On the water, the Garmin 396 offers a worldwide marine database and U.S. tide data. When paired with MapSource BlueChart marine cartography, this waterproof unit displays information including depth contours, inter-tidal zones, spot soundings, wrecks, navaids, port plans, restricted areas, cable areas, and anchorages.

The Garmin 396 is available at a suggested retail price of under $2700. For more information, visit Garmin's Web site, or order a Garmin 396 from major resellers such as AvShop.

(AVweb's Editorial Director Paul Bertorelli recently wrote a Q&A about the Garmin 396.)

Jeppesen Lightning Maps

Jeppesen recently began adding lightning weather maps to its full lineup of weather products.

Innovative technology allows the detection of both cloud-to-ground lightning and lightning within clouds. Cloud-to-cloud lightning data is highly pertinent to pilots and dispatchers -- typically more than 70 percent of all lightning strikes happen within clouds. Before Jeppesen began offering these new weather maps, only cloud-to-ground lightning data was available. By utilizing the latest technologies, Jeppesen is now able to provide a more complete lightning picture to its customers. The new lightning charts rely on 90 sensors across the United States that regularly detect lightning strikes as far away as northern Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, Latin America, northern South America and the eastern Pacific out to Hawaii.

Jeppesen will offer lightning data as separate maps that are updated every 10-15 minutes as well as lightning data with infrared and visible satellite images. In areas outside of the NEXRAD radar network, lightning data is the best way to determine if convective activity and thunderstorms are present. The display software allows Jeppesen to show past lightning strikes as well as current strikes, so users can see trends in the activity. This is helpful in determining if a thunderstorm is growing or decaying and showing the movement of the active cells.

For more information, visit the Jeppsen Web site.

Smartsoft Flight WTK for Cell Phones

Smartsoft has released a new version of its weight and balance software for mobile phones: Flight WTK 2.1.

Flight WTK enables pilots of both helicopters and airplanes to perform weight and balance on their cell phone in as little as 40 seconds. Flight WTK also gives pilots the ability to download data for their aircraft model in addition to manual installation.

Running exclusively on mobile phones, the application does not make use of SMS or other expensive services. Flight WTK is unique in that it uses the mobile phone as a computing device and runs like a software application.

The new version now calculates and visualizes crosswind and runway info. Runway, crosswind- and headwind-components are shown in the display. Wind velocity, wind degrees and runway heading can be spun up and down while looking at the image.

Flight WTK 2.1 also has an upgraded and improved user interface. Flight WTK is available for virtually all mobile phones that support Java, and costs about $60. For more information, visit the Smartsoft Web site.

Ikarus C42 And Breezer Certified As SLSA

The Ikarus C42 and Breezer have become two of the newest certified entries in the rapidly expanding field of Sport Aircraft. Both aircraft, which were imported from Germany by Sportsplanes.com, were certified by the FAA and have debuted in the United States at the EAA AirVenture.

Sportsplanes.com will be the official marketing agent for the two Ikarus designs. Over 650 copies of the C42 are already flying in Europe and the Breezer, which is a totally new concept, was developed specifically for the Sport Aircraft category.

Sportsplanes.com will also be introducing the new Russian Sigma aircraft at Oshkosh and expects to market the plane as soon as SLSA certification is completed in August.

For more information visit the sportplanes.com Web site.

Latest Chelton Software For Experimental Aircraft

Chelton-equipped experimental aircraft will again be the first to benefit from the Chelton Flight Systems R&D Department. Chelton's latest software release, 6.0, is available at AirVenture 2005 in Oshkosh. This software is the basis for what will be certified in 2006 for transport-category aircraft.

Some of the features added to the new version include: shaded-relief terrain with relative elevation-based coloring similar to a satellite map; 400+ nm of terrain depiction; automatic PFD reversion; both V-bar and dual-cue flight director; and a basic ADI mode for training applications and transition. Version 6.0 also includes the interface to WSI weather, and displays graphical and textual METARs, TFRs, textual TAFs, winds/temperature aloft, graphical AIRMETs/SIGMETs, and more when installed with the av-100 receiver and WSI inFlight subscription.

The new software also includes the enhanced VNAV autopilot control, representing the first digital EFIS/autopilot combination available for the experimental market, with both LNAV & VNAV coupling. When in VNAV mode, the EFIS offers low-speed-envelope protection, and will not allow the aircraft to stall.

Direct-To Avionics is the exclusive distributor to experimental aircraft for Chelton Flight Systems EFIS-SV products. Visit their Web site for more details.