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Permalink Reply by Kurt Satter on November 30, 2016 at 4:26pm

I got an iPad Air as a Christmas present from my daughter when I ordered my CH-701 kit.  I searched all over for a good, flush panel mount.  I found a really nice one that makes inserting/removing the iPad very easy.

https://www.flypadmount.com/

The panel came out really nice too ...

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Permalink Reply by John Austin on December 1, 2016 at 8:10am

The flush mounts look nice - sort of make tablets looks like a "real glass panel," but in my opinion aren't the best mounting method due to the inability to re-position the screen to eliminate glare and wash-out.

Of course, some will counter that dedicated-aviation glass panel displays are flush mounted, too!  However, "aviation quality" displays such as used in EFIS's and GPS's, etc. are a minimum of 600-1000 nits in brightness to overcome glare and direct sunlight wash-out.  The average tablet computer - including iPads - was never designed for dedicated aviation use and run from 300 - 450 nits - way too dim in direct sunlight.  Tablets work great in dimly lit bizjets that have relatively small window area, but not so good in cockpits with large windows or worse yet, a canopy. In those situations, you usually need to re-position the screen to get the best viewing angle - and that angle changes relative to your direction of flight and the sun's position. You'll find the need to re-position increases the farther you move a tablet laterally away from directly in front of your seating position.  When the tablet is sitting over to the right side of the panel, it greatly helps legibility to have the tablet's screen tilted towards the left and slightly up.

Probably the most versatile mount is one of the RAM mounts on a short arm - this allows a huge range-of-position of the tablet - it can even be turned to the co-pilot's/passenger's direction if necessary.  A little less obtrusive alternative is a low-profile swivel mount such as this one from ProClip USA:

These only protrude about an inch from the panel and allow swiveling and a few degrees of tilt.  I use an iFly 740 GPS for my moving map and ADSB weather and traffic depiction.  Even though its screen is 1300 nits brightness, I still like to be able to slightly tilt it a few degrees this way or that to eliminate an occasional reflection:

I also use a low-profile tilt/swivel mount for the CO detector next to the iFly.  It has a LCD screen and it helps to be able to tilt it towards me for optimum visibility. Works great!

John

N750A

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Permalink Reply by Michael Chesney on December 1, 2016 at 9:11pm

I started out with a Ipad mini 2 and it was difficult (if not impossible) to view in direct sunlight or in a sun filled cockpit but the newer Ipads have improved quite a bit. I've got the Ipad pro 9.7 now and it has 511 nits with a very effective  anti-glare coating. It is a vast improvement over the earlier Ipads in direct sunlight.

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