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How to build an awesome WiFi hotspot airplane entertainment system for $105

What is this? For just $105 you can build a wifi-hotspot entertainment system for your airplane. Your passengers can watch 100s of movies, music videos, TV shows right from their personal IPad or IPhone in flight. I have this set up in my plane, a Cirrus SR22. Each passenger decides what they want to watch. How do my passengers set this up? Tell them to install InFuse 3 (free app) onto their IPad or IPhone before the flight. In flight, they connect to a WIFI hotspot on your plane and watch movies in the Infuse 3 app. (above) Infuse 3 IPad / iPhone app. Where does the Wifi Hotspot come from? It's created with alien technology, recently declassified in Area 51 vault. Kidding. It's created by a tiny device that is about same size and weight as a cell phone. What to buy Buy the Kingston Mobilite Wireless G2 Flash Reader ($50 on amazon ). Buy a 128GB or 256GB SD card. I use a 128GB and can fit over 100 movies on it. How to set it up Copy ripped mo

Optimal method for buying used airplane

Sellers hide stuff and tell you what you want to hear but you can still get good info with the right questions. 1. NTSB record search to look for accident history Go to aviationdb.com and punch in the N-number. 2. Call seller and ask few high level questions: Any offers on the table now (Good planes will have offers pending) Is it in annual Approx how many hours has flown each year for past 5 years Is it IFR certified Any damage history What known squawks Assume you're getting only partial information from the seller. But you will eliminate 2/3 aircraft already at this stage. If it passes this test (> 100 hours each year) ask for logs. 3. Spreadsheet the logs Make a spreadsheet and copy the TACH, HOBBS, DATE, COMPRESSION #s for each cylinder, for every annual, oil change and repair. Have the spreadsheet compute things like "days between oil changes" and "hours between oil changes" and "days between annuals". You get a nice

The Vykruta Pilot Weather Planner

I made a handy weather planner for advance briefings. If you're briefing 3 days, 18 hours or 8 hours prior to departure, this guide will tell you exactly where you can get information from.  Feel free to  edit/improve . The FAA should teach it this way. Let's say it's Wed afternoon and you're doing a Friday sunrise flight across the country. You know it's about 36 hours away. Look at the graph below and scan down. I must check: Surface Prog Chart Extended Convective ECFP Winds/temps Area forecast - close enough to be useful Nothing else to do. Tomorrow evening, 12 hours prior, I can check a few new ones: Low level + Mid Level SigWx Area forecast TAF CIP + FIP Icing AIRMENT + SIGMET Just before flight, I go to the now column. Metars, radar, ceiling/vis, satellite. The full list of services is: Surface Prog Chart Extended Convective Forecast Product (ECFP) Winds / Temps Low Level SigWx (SFC-FL240) and Mid Level SigWx (FL100-45

Updating and understanding Cirrus G2 SR22 Avionics and Navdata on a budget

As proud owner of a Cirrus G2 SR22 that comes with all original avionics, it's likely your avionics are all out of date. This guide is intended to help owners understand these systems, how to upgrade, and what to upgrade. 3 main components There are 3 components you care about. PFD MFD EX5000 Garmin 430 #1 and #2 Each component comes with a specific firmware version. This is the software running on board the device. Somewhat like running an older or newer version of Windows. The firmware for 1 & 2 come from Avidyne. The firmware for #3 come from Garmin. You'll have to contact each company separately to figure out details. What versions do you have? Go to the setup/info page of the PFD, MFD and take photos with your cellphone. Next, turn on the Garmins and take photos of boot up screen. You'll now have a record of all the important serial #s and versions. The avionics shops will need this to give you quotes.  Register your MFD and PFD When you ge

Flying with ice: proficiency review

Winter is quickly approaching so I did some review in flying with icing. Whether you're equipped with TKS, FIKI, or nothing, proficiency and knowledge is as important with icing, if not more, than nay other aviation weather phenomena. Especially after a long, warm, summer, when we haven't had much exposure, review is super important. This is super condensed. Most dangerous is 0c to -20c in cb, 0 to -15 in stratus. Watch OAT like a hawk when IMC. Keep flaps up if icing occurred With no deicing equipment, work on getting out of ice at first sign Don't use autopilot when picking up ice, it will mask effects Land 10 to 20 kts above normal, no flaps, long runway  Use extreme caution when maneuvering to land with icing: shallow banks, high airspeed Watch for airspeed drop at cruise. 10kts drop is serious sign of icing. is it induction icing (lower rpm?) or structural icing (increased drag?) alt air, carb heat.. Ice occurs on prop first, tail second, wings third. So b

Flying the Grand Canyon

I've flown the grand canyon 4 times now and never know quite he best route. Stole this from email thread with some pilot friends: First, you want the special chart for that area. It's great if you can get it on your EFB but if not, get the paper one. Now if you look at the flight here: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/ flying/2010-11.html#Flight-To- Grand-Canyon-Through-Las-Vegas Arnaud, if you scroll down, you'll see the google earth view showing where you land on 19R and the taxi to Atlantic Avaition in McCaran or another better view if you scroll down even more: http://marc.merlins.org/ blogimg/thumb1024_6103_PAO_ LAS_HooverDam_GCN_LAS_PAO_ Google_Earth.jpg As to where to fly, this will give you an idea, but the chart does not show you the magic waypoints and corridors that are only on the special chart: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/ gps/gmap/20101125_Grand_ Canyon_Las_Vegas.php?maptype= VFRCHART&center=KGCN Long story short, get the GPS waypoints plugged in your EF

Entrepreneurs and hackers: Programming Language / API survey 2014 for modern web service front end.

I had a discussion with entrepreneurs about their choice language as of summer 2014. The top contenders are: Ruby on Rails Node.Js Java Python C# Clojure Scala PHP cc  Chasen   Denman   Litchfield   Charmley Like Like  ·   ·  Share Albert Ko   PHP for a fast MVP. Then Java/Python. 3 hrs  ·  Like Tom Vykruta   Albert are you familiar with more modern languages like RoR and Node.Js? (the industry has generally moved away from PHP and Java). If you are familiar and still prefer PHP/java would be curious to hear your thoughts. 3 hrs  ·  Like Justin Litchfield   I'm a Ruby guy. In addition to Rails, Ruby has Sinatra for lighter-weight web services, and some stripped down versions of Rails for API-specific use that are pretty good. I think that for me it strikes a great balance of simplicity and testability.  ... See More 3 hrs  ·  Like Justin Litchfield   A startup in the space next to my