Brolin McKay wrote:
...Bug fixes and data updates will still happen with GPS, but we've been hamstrung for a while with performance limitations in the 740b. It has been redlined for a while ie. ytou have synthetic vision on half the screen max on the 740b while iOS et al are far more capable devices and have new hardware released every year.
Do many people fly regularly with the synthetic vision on full screen?
If so, how do they know where they are?
That's a serious question, by the way. Synthetic vision is very cool, yes--but I must be missing something really important about it, because I don't see what the big deal is.
I'm not a Luddite. I usually have iFly running on two devices simultaneously: a 740 in the panel and a "Max" size iPhone suction-cupped to the side of the windscreen. On both devices the synthetic vision "EFIS" is visible as a minimized instrument, about half the width of the screen. I almost NEVER have it larger than minimized on the 740, which I consider the primary navigation device in my airplane. Instead I want a map on the 740. I'm very uncomfortable when I can't see the map at half-screen size or bigger.
Occasionally I have synthetic vision at half-screen on the iPhone--but not usually, and practically never at full screen. Sometimes it's useful for spotting airports or custom waypoints, and once it was very helpful when I needed to miss a couple of TV towers that went higher than I was when the ceiling and viz had turned bad. But mostly I keep it minimized. It's great fun; but I don't think of it as a serious navigation aid.
So what should I be doing different that is so important to the development of iFly that it can't be done with the slow 740 hardware?