Stand alone screen for a Tandom aircraft

TRCsmith

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
Messages
258
Location
Suisun City, CA
This has been mentioned before about a screen for the back seat of a tandem aircraft. I for one don't need full or even part functionality in the back as some have asked.
I and I'm sure others would just like the back seat to have the same view the pilot has, no knobs, switches buttons just a screen with a copy of what the pilot see's. I know we have the capability to do screen shots. Can that image/information be feed to a stand alone screen. ::)
 

DonFromTX

I love flying!
Joined
Dec 4, 2011
Messages
282
Location
Texas
You know as I think about it, that same configuration would be nice in a side by side seating aircraft too. I was recently flying a friends RV12 from the right seat and could not see anything on his D180 screen. Should be a low priced option I would think.
 

dabear

New Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2007
Messages
525
Location
Warrenton, Virginia
I have a tandom plane.  I have 2 screens in the front and 1 in the back.  It has worked fine for almost 3 years (come January).

Why not put the standard screen in the back?   If you can't trust the person in the back to not mess with the screen, then you really can't trust them to not mess with any other controls/door/etc.

I think the cost would be the same or more for a "not knob/button" unit since the number of units would be extremely small. 

Also, the cost of the standard screen is extremely small if you consider putting just an Attitude indicator/airspeed/altimeter in its place would be more than the screen.  And that doesn't include all the other functions the screen has.  That's why I just put a full screen in the back rather than round gauges; it was cheaper.

Thoughts?
 

southtarnation

I love flying! Wiring, ...not so much.
Joined
Nov 6, 2012
Messages
50
I have a tandom plane.  I have 2 screens in the front and 1 in the back.  It has worked fine for almost 3 years (come January).

Why not put the standard screen in the back?   If you can't trust the person in the back to not mess with the screen, then you really can't trust them to not mess with any other controls/door/etc.

I think the cost would be the same or more for a "not knob/button" unit since the number of units would be extremely small.

Thoughts?

The way to get a screen in the back without Dynon developing a dummy screen is for Dynon to come up with a Video in and out for the Skyview. That is one thing I would like to see although it would be a hardware change. It should have been there already imho. It would solve the request of a few different scenarios.
Add camera input views to your selectable screen pages, FLIR, Taxi Cams, in flight entertainment. Might even hook a "carPC" to it. Video out to a passenger or GIB screen or split the view over the Master screen and the dummy screen would be awesome.
 

TRCsmith

Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2006
Messages
258
Location
Suisun City, CA
"Why not put the standard screen in the back? If you can't trust the person in the back to not mess with the screen, then you really can't trust them to not mess with any other controls/door/etc.
I think the cost would be the same or more for a "not knob/button" unit since the number of units would be extremely small".

I doubt that the cost would be the same. Anyway, to spend that amount of money for an EFISl to set out of sight most of the time.. wasteful. In a Long EZ there is not any room for say the thickness of a D100.
A flat panel is the way to go, for my plane. ;)
 

dynonsupport

Dynon Technical Support
Staff member
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
13,226
This has been brought up multiple times before, and the issue remains the same. EFIS systems for experimental planes are low volume products. So low in fact, that the engineering cost for a product often is larger than the cost of the physical parts that make up each product. It's not a easy job trying to make really high quality products at affordable prices when your whole possible worldwide annual market is only a couple thousand planes, and competition is fierce.

Secondary screens are even lower volume. But they still need aircraft quality power supplies, processors, software, warranties, enclosures, environmental testing, and support. They amortize these costs over maybe 1/10th the sales volume, and in all honesty they cannibalize sales of our main products, reducing Dynon's revenue overall. Finally, using resources to design this would get in the way of other neat products we're working on. Before you know it, the cost the same as the product they were supposed to afford-ably replace.

This is the reason Dynon has never been able to make the business case to make a repeater screen. It's a product that makes sense if you could sell 10,000 a year, not so much if you sell 32 a year.

http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1269860696
http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1317325076/5
http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1337709273
http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1297981658
http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1176934789
http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1200789277


On the topic of video out, if we had video out, what screen would you buy to put in the back? If it isn't the same resolution, it wouldn't be very readable, and it's really hard to find commercial screens that are daylight viewable, and then can be dimmed for night flight. Dynon had to have a custom screen made to get SkyView to meet these requirements. So unless we sell that screen, it's not a very useful option. There might be a few people out there who could hack something together, but again we have to balance the cost of engineering and supporting video out against the very small market of users, and we think our resources are better spent otherwise.

If you have a pointer to a really great, affordable monitor that you think would work in a plane, point us to it and we can take a look.
 

SuperCub

I love flying!
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
52
So I see a third Skyview screen could be installed in the rear cockpit. The rear cockpit could have a switch for activation of the screen when needed. But the network is missing this screen when switched off and will throw out warnings. Could this warning be suppressed somehow ??
 
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