Anyone who has joined COPA knows that the strength of the organization comes from the many diverse talents of the members. In particular, a number of our members have put their software talents to use and created some of the most amazing free (at least to other members) tools that enrichen our aviation habit. Here are a few examples:
One of the most venerable (and venerated) tools is Mike Glazer's PC-based Emax program. Available for download from his website it has been under continuous development since 2003. As of this posting the current version is 21.3. When it was introduced, it revolutionized the monitoring and analysis of engine operations. It has been a crucial educational tool for countless owners, and supports all three engine data capture systems found on factory Cirrus: Arnav, Avidyne, and Garmin Perspective. (I should mention that there also is a commercial analysis package, EGView by EGTrends that supports other capture systems such as GEM, Xerion, EI, and Chelton and is used by Cirrus and many of their service centers).
I will caution anyone planning to use Mike's EMax to read the license agreement carefully!
Mike's EMax has even spawned an ecosystem of related tools. Joe Areeda's EMax Batch Processing Program facilitates the handling of large number of engine data log files, and can automatically invoke Mike's EMax for detailed analysis.
One of the newest tools to appear is Marcus Adolfsson's 'Web 2.0' spin on engine analysis with his CirrusReports.com
website. A free online service, it lets you easily upload all your
engine files, review them in a powerful Google Maps-linked display, and
choose to share them with others on the web. Marcus's program appeared
to us suddenly as a complete tour-de-force. Already he has 10's of
thousands of hours of engine data online from our members.
Moving beyond engine management, Bob Urshel gave us CirrusPerformance, an extremely elegant weight&balance and performance analysis tool that even incorporates current wind conditions to predict takeoff and landing performance. Bob has produced both Mac and PC versions (and a few of us are hoping for an iPhone version someday!)
Of course, performance isn't the only preflight concern. NavMonster.com organizes maps, decoded weather, charts, FBO's, and even food&lodging information around your designated route. Its most recent update includes decoding of the infamously unreadable Area Forecast. And it does have iPhone and mobile versions!
All of these tools have grown organically with our organization. One of the most exciting things has been to watch the feedback in the member forums go back to the authors, who then improve and implement the ideas. The result has been very robust and complete functionality. And, the member forums also provide fantastic front-line support for new users of the programs, and act as a panel of experts for findings that arise.
I am sure I have missed some other fine examples of tools created by our members. Please use the comments below to add any others. And let me finally express the deepest gratitude of our membership for the selfless efforts that have produced these marvelous systems.
Posted
27 Jan 2009 8:26
by
Curtis Sanford