myWingMan app adds new terrain, traffic and airspace features

The new terrain and obstacle shading feature makes it easy to see nearby hazards on both the chart and synthetic vision display.

Bendix/King has a long history of producing high-quality, panel-mount radios and avionics. About a year ago they took this avionics expertise and created the myWingMan app for iPad. This app offers a lot of the same features as the apps that came before it, including digital charts, flight planning, preflight weather, in-flight navigation and synthetic vision. MyWingMan takes advantage of a user-configurable 3 window split-screen display that can be quickly reconfigured based on phase of flight. This takes advantage of the iPad’s large screen and makes it easy to view lots of information at once. For those that want a simpler display, the app can also show any of the views on a single screen.

Bendix/King released several updates throughout 2013, adding Dual XGPS170 ADS-B weather compatibility, iLevil AHRS support for the 3D view, DUAT(S) flight planning, and many other improvements. The latest version 1.3 update, released last month at Oshkosh, continues this trend and added the following improvements to the app:

• 2D graphical airspace and warnings – this feature color codes Class B, C, D, MOAs and Restricted Airspace as you approach and enter them, and will display visual alert warnings.
• Terrain and obstacle alerts – with this feature enabled, charts will be color-coded with red and yellow shading to show nearby terrain. Additionally obstacles can be displayed on the charts, and will change color to yellow or red when within certain altitude parameters. The terrain and obstacle feature also includes audio alerts.
• ADS-B Traffic and 3D audio alerting – display traffic on the map and get location-centric 3D audio alerts. For example “Traffic 4-o’clock high” sounds as if it’s coming from over your right shoulder (audio alerting is via Bluetooth from the iPad through any Bluetooth audio-enabled headset, the KMA 30 audio panel or any other Bluetooth audio-enabled panels).
• Support for Sagetech Clarity Receiver – adds ADS-B traffic and weather, WAAS GPS and AHRS.
• In-flight automatic route planning – allows you to use the Smart Routing function when in the air.
  

The Bendix/King myWingMan app is available as a free download from the app store and includes a 30-day free trial. An annual VFR subscription is available for $99.99. The IFR version is $149.99. The app requires an iPad 2 or newer running a minimum of iOS 6.