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Dear Seattle Avionics customer,
It's great to be back at the keyboard writing a newsletter. It's been some time but, believe me, it's been the busiest time I've ever seen at Seattle Avionics. In the past few months, our business has exploded as we introduced our SkyPad2, ChartData for the major iPad/iPhone apps, and European ChartData. Not to mention a SkunkWorks project that is about to see the light of day. Whew!
Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I suspect we're all busy, I'll keep it brief but, hopefully, interesting. You'll also see some additional emails from me during the next few days going into more depth on iPad applications, our new SkyPad2 Slate and, perhaps most importantly, our incredible Black Friday specials. In fact, if you haven't done so already, I strongly suggest you sign-up on Twitter to follow us (@SeattleAvionics) because these Black Friday specials are, by far, the most interesting offers we've ever made but are limited to a small number of customers. First come, first served. Sign-up here: http://twitter.com/SeattleAvionics.
Flight Log is a recurring newsletter for all Seattle Avionics customers, with the latest news, tips, and tricks. I'm very interested in your feedback, either to the newsletter or to any Seattle Avionics product. Please send any comments or suggestions to me directly at
Pictures of the Month There is so much to cover here that I couldn't resist two pictures this month.
iPhone/iPad Anyone? We call this Voyager WebPlan and it's Voyager anywhere and everywhere.
Parlez-vous français? Approach plates, airport diagrams, and IFR HI/LO Charts now available for Europe.
 iPad Apps (Part 1)
While we don't make an iPad app, Seattle Avionics provides our ChartData to the leading iPad apps including WingX, Beacon, and SkyRadar. And, very soon, two more major iPad app vendors will be introducing versions of their apps using our ChartData. This means that the same FAA-certified quality data that we provide to Aspen Avionics is now available on the stunning Apple iPad.
In fact, the current issue of Aviation Consumer has a great article entitled Feeding The Data Beast that includes a quote from me and discusses how we're trying to bring down the cost of data for pilots using a wide variety of devices and applications.
Click here to read the story.
Since we work with so many iPad apps, we're always asked which is best. Obviously, we're a bit sensitive about answering that head-on because each has unique features and is worthy of your consideration. In fact, there is so much to talk about that I'll be sending a separate email out tomorrow that discusses each in-depth.
Perhaps best of all, since ChartData is purchased from us, one ChartData subscription works for all of these apps. That makes it easy to try all of them and choose the one that's best for you; your ChartData investment is preserved no matter which app you pick.
One Black Friday hint: For the first time ever, we'll have a tremendous special on our iPad ChartData. If you have an iPad, be sure to sign-up with Twitter to get the details on Friday morning as the offers will be quantity-limited.
Again, more tomorrow.
 Introducing the new SkyPad2 Slate (Part 1)
Sleek. Elegant. Solid. These all apply to the incredible new SkyPad2 Slate.
The original SkyPad2 has been very successful. It's a powerful machine, with a bright screen, a WAAS-enabled GPS, and our exclusive flight-optimized version of Windows 7 including our SkyPad Controller application. It also doubles as laptop with its swivel-out keyboard. But some of you told us that you'd prefer something smaller, sleeker, and without the keyboard. Something like an iPad but running Windows.
We listened and the result is the SkyPad2 Slate. It has virtually identical hardware specs (except a keyboard) to the SkyPad2 Convertible (as we're now calling the original SkyPad2). Same bright screen, same CPU, same video chip, etc. It's just a little easier to handle without the keyboard. And, let's be honest, it's really cool!
It was introduced at AOPA about a week ago and instantly became a hit. On Wednesday, I'll send much more detailed info about the exciting SkyPad2 Slate. In the meantime, you can check it out by clicking here.
While we won't announce the Black Friday specials until this Friday, I will drop a small hint. If you're in the market for a portable moving map, I very strongly suggest you sign-up to our Twitter account to learn about the specials. The specials will include an offer far beyond anything you've seen before. Let's put it this way, we've offered employees time and a half to come to work on Friday to man the phones.
Click here to follow us on Twitter.
 Voyager WebPlanTo me, Voyager WebPlan is the most exciting thing we're working on these days and I had a lot to choose from. I've been dying to tell the world about it.
In a nutshell, WebPlan is the power of Voyager's award-winner autorouter now available anywhere on almost any portable device. That may sound like a Web-based flight planner and, I suppose it is in some ways. But it's much, much more. One of Voyager's most popular features is called WebSynch. Introduced three years ago, WebSynch is a unique synchronization technology that lets a Voyager user plan on one machine, click a button, and send the plan to any other machine running Voyager. In other words, plan on your large work desktop PC then push the plan to your SkyPad or laptop. Very slick, very easy to use, very popular. WebPlan grew out of WebSynch. Beyond synchronization, WebPlan allows pilots to plan new flights on any device and have them available everywhere else they want them. Not just rudimentary, generic flight plans but wind-optimized, fuel-price optimized flight plans tuned specifically for your plane. Voyager WebPlan even automatically gets an official DUAT weather briefing for you and emails it (and your flight plan) to you! You can access WebPlan from any smartphone like the iPhone or Droid, as well as any other Internet-connected device like the iPad. Even use a PC or Mac.
Perhaps most interesting, however, is the work we're doing with our iPad/iPhone app vendors right now to embed WebPlan directly into their apps. In fact, the current version of WingX 7 has some support for it today. If your favorite iPad app doesn't have WebPlan, tell your vendor to talk to us; we made is especially easy for their developers to add.
While we still have some more work to do on WebPlan, I wanted to let everyone know about it as we see it as a core future technology for Seattle Avionics. Expect a link to the WebPlan beta very soon.
European Charts and Plates As you may know, we recently worked with Aspen Avionics and the FAA to introduce the world's first (and only) FAA-certified approach plates and airport diagrams not made by Big J. That's a hard act to follow but I think we came up with something good.
Seattle Avionics now offers 15,000+ geo-referenced IFR and VFR approach plates and airport diagrams from more than 30 European countries. We even have seamless IFR Low and High altitude charts for Europe. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
European ChartData is available now to Bendix/King AV8OR ACE customers. We expect it to be available in early 2011 for Voyager and iPad applications.
Voyager 5
Yes, you read that correctly. As you may know, we spent years working on Voyager 4 to give it the spectacular DirectX-based charting engine. Voyager 5 extends on this base to add support for new technologies (such as ADS-B and Zaon), better approach plate management, day and night modes, European flight planning, faster performance, and much more. While the exact feature set is being finalized by our Marketing and Development teams, we expect this to be a tremendous release. And no, we're not sharing a release date yet ;)
One of my job's most interesting tasks has been selecting the aircraft you see on the "splash screen" when you start Voyager. Now I'd like to pass that baton to all of you. As much as I like the SR71 Blackhawk, a new version of Voyager needs a new plane. Thus, we're having a contest to see who can come up with the best plane for Voyager 5. The winner gets a free year of EFB ChartData. Please send you suggestions (with a picture or URL, if you like) to Voyager5@SeattleAvionics.com Fine print: Judging will be entirely at the discretion of Seattle Avionics and we reserve the right to select our own plane if none of the submitted entries convey what we want. In the case of two or more submissions of the same plane, the first one submitted wins.
Upcoming Events Seattle Avionics Software will be showing the SkyPad, Voyager, ChartData, and WebPlan at the following upcoming events. Stop by to say hello, see the latest features, play with a SkyPad, or ask the experts any questions.
February 26-27, 2011. Northwest Aviation Conference and Tradeshow. Puyallup, WA.
March 29 - April 3, 2011. Sun 'n Fun. Lakeland, FL.
Until next time, happy flying.
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