A Geek Goes Flying

(home charging and night before checklists) The tech I use in the cockpit has gotten complicated enough, I’ve actually come up with my own pre-pre flight checklist (and an associated checklist for when I’m leaving the [rental] plane, so I don’t, e.g., forget my GPS unit shoved up under the windshield). Following this at least a few hours before the flight makes sure everything’s loaded, charged, and working. I recommend setting up something similar. At home, I have a ‘charging station’ setup, with: Anker PowerPort 5  40W 5-Port USB Charging Hub ($20). Everything plugs into this to recharge. Seemed to be the best bang for the buck, and it’s well reviewed (5 stars, >2000 reviews). Anker [5-Pack] Premium Micro USB cables ($10). Charges the battery packs , Logitech keyboard , etc. Cable Matters Mini-B USB Cables ($8). Charges the GPS unit and the GoPro . Anker Lightning Cable ($6). MFi-certified. Charges the iPad mini 2 . The checklist ensures: Everything’s

An update to my earlier posts... Based on this article , I think I’d now recommend picking up one of the newer RAM Tough-Claw™ yoke mounts. (I haven’t tried it yet, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that you can’t go wrong with RAM gear.) Caveat, the older yoke mount clamp has a shaft diameter range of .625"-1.25", equivalent to the ‘small’ size in the “claw” range: Model Size Shaft Diameter RAP-B-400U Small .625"-1.5" RAP-B-404U Medium 1"-1.875" RAP-B-401U Large 1"-2.25" Piper Cherokee yoke shafts are either .75" (older style, 1960s (mostly?)) or 1.125" (newer style, started in the early 1970s(?)), so the small claw will fit either. I believe Cessna (C150/152/172) yoke shafts are in the same range.

During the “Black Friday” sale, I picked up the lowest end Amazon Fire tablet, the 7" model that normally retails for $49.99 (with ‘special offers’), for $34.99. On paper, this looks like it should be an interesting little device. Capacitive IPS display, 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 8GB storage with a microSD slot that can take up to 128GB flash media, and cheap . Even at the normal retail price, this thing has to be a loss leader. ( Amazon seems to be applying the razor/blades (a/k/a printer/ink cartridge) business model here .) Quick (general) review: The aspect ratio kind of sucks for reading. The Kindle has a tall, narrow (1024x600, .6 width:height) aspect ratio; I much prefer the iPad/iPad mini’s wider .75 width:height ratio (for comparison, an 8.5x11" sheet of letter-sized paper has a .77 ratio). The build quality is nowhere near Apple’s (case in point, the screen isn't seamlessly bonded like on an iOS device, and my first Fire had dust trapped between the glass