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WiltshireMike
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Garmin very kindly gave me an extended free trial of their Garmin Pilot app ... it may well suit US-style 'filed airway' operation but its planning interface, certainly for European VFR ops, is not a patch on SkyDemon's, and lack of SkyEcho traffic capability is a major failing. Its database downloads are clunky and it has no vertical airspace depiction. Such a pity Garmin have elected to maintain their 'walled garden' policy; I wonder how many more G3X systems they'd sell in EU if they offered SD interface ...
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Tim Dawson
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The US part of Garmin is well aware of the desire among most European pilots to integrate SkyDemon with Garmin avionics. However at present their policy is not to allow this, presumably to encourage more pilots to purchase their own Garmin Pilot app. We brought the issue to Garmin's attention again at Aero this year but there has been no change in policy as yet.
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WiltshireMike
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I asked Garmin Europe about Skydemon <> Aera 660 interfacing and here is their reply: "In terms of Skydemon, we are aware of a desire, especially from UK customers to have some sort of integration with our avionics and portable units. Unfortunately because Garmin produces it's own navigation app and Skydemon is effectively unknown in the US, it's unlikely that our software developers in the US will be able to devote any time to this. I'm sorry about that, we will continue to pass this feedback to our colleagues in any case. "
I wonder just how much effort is actually required by Garmin ??
Tim, I guess you've already had a similar response?
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WiltshireMike
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Have now purchased my own Aera660 ... with SkyDemon on the PC it's easy enough to save a SD route as a .fpl to the 660's microSD card, either via a card reader, or with the 660 connected to the PC and set to 'mass storage'; MS Explorer shows two drives, one labelled as the Aera and the second, the SD card, as a separate drive. So with the new .fpl on the 660's SD card the route can be loaded from Main menu > Flight plan list > Menu > Import. I guess Garmin Pilot loads the route directly to the 660 via Connext, either on ground or in-flight? Perhaps a potential work-around for route transfer from SD to 660 could be via a Bluetooth SDIO card in a SD-to-microSD extension card adaptor plugged into the 660, but this would require SD to add an optional external drive to the Route > Save option. It wouldn't offer seamless sychronisation between tablet and 660 but might be acceptable while on the ground.
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WiltshireMike
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Hi Mike, Sadly it's a little more complex than simply connecting the tablet to the 660. I recently borrowed a friend's 660, manually entered a route then connected it to my PC to see what the internal file structure looks like. There was no obvious 'route' directory with the route saved as a .fpl file, so I guess the file is stored somewhere else, visible only to the Garmin Pilot app. The only method which I understand would work, having created the route in SD on a tablet would be to do a BT transfer to Garmin Pilot and from there to the 660. But that means paying an additional subscription and having GP running at the same time as SD to simply transfer routes. This would make for a complex procedure in flight to transfer a 'rubber-banded' SD route change across to the 660 via GP so as to drive a Garmin autopilot. In the 'all Garmin world' all this is possible, but not when SD is involved. Unless Garmin agree to cooperate with SD, that is ...
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Mike Stueber
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+xHallo Tim,
once more my question: why it's possible to connect the Garmin 660 with the PC and transfer routes (it workes perfect) and why it's not possible to do the same via bluetooth from an iPad? Your answer was:"Garmin do not allow us to interface directly with their hardware. It is their decision." Is it only allowed to you to transfer dates from SkyDemon via cable to a Garmin device? Mike Hi Tim, you asked me, if I have a cable. If I would buy a cable, to connect the GARMIN 660 with my iPad-mini, would it be possible to transfer routes like with a PC? Many thanks for a answer.
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WiltshireMike
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+xI wrote to Steve from Garmin. Will see. Did you receive a reply that you are able to share?
I too am very keen to support a (wired?) SD > 660 > GFC500 in-flight link, but which doesn't affect the SE2 wifi traffic link to my Android tablet.
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gflyer
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I wrote to Steve from Garmin. Will see.
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Tim Dawson
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FltPlan Go belongs to Garmin.
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gflyer
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May this information helps, I found on the Vans Forum about area 660.
2- Does the 660 "connext" with other Garmin apps like FltPlan Go?
Quick note to confirm I had no trouble exchanging flight plans (in either direction) between FltPlan Go on my iPad and the Aera 660 using the Connext feature. You connect the two devices via Bluetooth ... then within the FltPlan Go app you select Garmin as the External Device. Only flight plans are exchanged between the devices. There was some reference in an earlier post asking where / or if a Stratux receiver fits into the mix (I use one myself). That still requires a separate WiFi connection between the iPad / FltPlan Go and Stratux; ADS-B data does not flow to the Aera even with Connext active between the two. I gather from the Stratux development boards Garmin has recently opened some of their protocols; fingers crossed we may see that in the future.
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