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Review of APIC Software by Tim Fountain

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

About the Author

Tim is a 400-hour Private pilot with an Instrument Rating who flies a Cessna-182 out of Georgetown, TX. Tim is also a volunteer pilot for the charity Grace Flight whose aim is to help people in need of free air transportation for medical and humanitarian purposes. Tim is also working on his single and multi-engine commercial pilots licenses.

The challenge

My main purpose in selecting the Approach Systems APIC software was to reduce the amount of paper approach charts I carry in the plane whilst improving situation awareness. The plane is already equipped with an IFR approved Garmin 430W and a Garmin 396 with XM Weather, neither of which shows Low-level Victor airways. I also wanted to investigate the concepts and usability of an electronic flight bag (EFB) without a large expenditure. Since part 91 flying requires no formal EFB certification, I was able to use a regular tablet PC as the primary source of approach plates. To date I also carry current low-level en-route, approach and section charts as a backup, but have not needed them.

The solution

I had a spare Toshiba Portege M400 Tablet PC that was ideally suited to the EFB task after some careful modifications to improve it reliability. The M400 runs Windows Vista Ultimate and I added 4GB of high-temperature memory and swapped the regular HDD for a Seagate EE25.2 Ultra rugged 80GB hard-drive. The HDD is capable of operating from –30C to 85C, up to 18,000 ft altitude as well as being very shock resistant. For power I use an Igo Juice 130W DC to DC notebook power adapter. I have used this setup on the ramp where the temperature was 45C and the Toshiba CPU was still under its maximum operating temperature. I use SpeedFan 4.38 to keep the CPU fan on maximum whilst monitoring CPU and HDD temperatures.

I bought a GlobalSat BU353 USB powered WAAS GPS for around $50, which manages to get 8+ satellite fixes whilst sitting on the floor of the plane! The GPS looks like a standard serial port to Windows, and I used a very useful piece of software from Fransom called GPSgate that splits the incoming GPS serial port into a number of virtual serial ports that can be accessed by different applications.

Apart from the APIC software, I am also running Global Mapper 10 which me to display VFR sectionals that are also georeferenced .One of the virtual serial ports from GPSgate is used to drive Global Mapper 10. The sectionals can be downloaded from the NACO online store and are cheap at $1.60 each (July 2009 prices). Apart from giving superb VFR situational awareness with a moving map sectional, the main use I have found for the sectionals is to display low-level IFR victor airways and intersections. Passengers also really like to see a very detailed moving map of the terrain that matches what they see out of the window!

I found the APIC software to be very intuitive and the ability to modify the checklists to the plane is very useful. In addition the safe taxi feature can be a very useful a some of the bigger, unfamiliar class B &C airports I frequent in Dallas and Houston where the ability to see exactly where you are on the airport is very impressive.

When I first got the setup running, I went and shot some approaches “under the hood” with a safety pilot in VMC to ensure that APIC would work as required, and also to see how useful georeferenced approach plates are. I was astounded at the level of situational awareness that APIC adds to the approach plate. You can visually see at all times where you are on the approach, in addition to having the full approach plate with all the usual information right in front of you. The customized views make it very easy to switch the view to be just the approach plate, during the approach, so maximizing the use of the screen. The ability to set heading, speed and VSI bugs on the virtual HSI is also very useful.

Positives

Up to date Georeferenced approach and taxi plates.
Approach plates on a 12.1” screen resting on your lap.
Low cost software and updates.
Customized views.
Customizable bugs on HSI.
Ability to setup a flight plan and alter it in flight.

Negatives

Laptop needs to be able to operate in the extremes of temperature, altitude and vibration (solved with some customization, I would use an SSHD if I were to update the tablet).
Tablet requires dedicated pen – easily dropped in the bumps (I keep a backup on my kneepad).
Tablet works well as leg warmer in winter, not quite to nice on a 100F Texas day.
Tablet is too heavy to use conventional mounting.
No georeferenced Low-level enroute digitized chart product available from NACO, the LLER charts are currently in PDF format, not georeferenced and low resolution and in my opinion not very useful – I still have to carry LLER charts.

Potential Improvements to APIC