BENDIX KING AV80R - A FULL REVIEW

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WHEN we took a first look at the Bendix/King AV8OR last year we were quite taken with its size, features, and price. Having now had the opportunity to conduct a more extensive test we’re happy to report that our first impressions were right – the AV8OR is a cracking little handheld GPS.

The AV8OR is roughly the size and shape of two cigarette packets side-by-side. The screen is a generous 11cm diagonally, with a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels. A variety of low-profile mechanical controls and interfaces are arranged around the edges of the device in a way that makes the AV8OR easy to hold, and this, together with its regular shape, somehow allow it to seem smaller than it really is.

In fact, the screen area is about 20% greater than that of the Garmin 495, even though at 215g the AV8OR is not much more than half the weight of the Garmin. On the other hand, the screen resolution is noticeably inferior to that of the Garmin. Anyone used to the venerable Bendix/King Skymap IIIC will feel familiar with the operating logic of the AV8OR. The big difference, of course, is that the AV8OR is operated largely through its touch-screen interface, rather than physical buttons.

A small stylus for use with the touch-screen is stored in a recess in the case, but it isn’t tethered, and so to avoid losing it in the cockpit, we never used the stylus in the air. Fortunately, the touch-screen works really well, and even in moderate turbulence we never had much trouble touching the right places on the screen with a finger. The main navigation screen is a moving map display, together with navigational data fields along one edge of the map. The data fields can be customised to show the usual information such as track, bearing, ground speed, etc.

Other handy options include a tiny CDI display, and a stop watch. Other functions and menus are accessed through pop-up soft keys that appear when the moving map is touched. This includes soft keys for zooming the map. These soft keys disappear again after a few seconds to leave an unobstructed view of the map.

Another clever little feature is the North Pointer in one corner of the map display – double tapping on the pointer toggles the display between North Up and Track Up modes.

The display options for the moving map are a bit limited. Basically, there is a Topo On mode, a Topo Off mode, and a relative terrain display. There is also a very small terrain profile view where the aircraft’s current altitude is shown in comparison to the terrain elevation along track. There is no full screen CDI, and no simulated flight instrument display. We really liked the ability to pan the map display by simply touching and dragging a finger in any direction across the screen. The movement doesn’t have the silkiness of, say, an iPhone, but it’s perfectly adequate, instinctive and convenient. The aeronautical database is comprehensive and includes ATZs, MATZs, VRPs, obstacles, airways and more.

Simply touching an item on the screen provides access to more information. For example, touching an airfield symbol provides information on runway direction, surface and length, comm and nav frequencies, etc. For entry of waypoints into a flight plan, a full-screen QWERTY keyboard pops up, which we found very quick and easy to use. Waypoints can also be entered into a flight plan by touching them in a miniature map display within the New Flight Plan screen. However, our favourite option for non-trivial flight plans was to load the flight plan from Jeppesen FliteStar. 

This simply involves exporting a flight plan from FliteStar to a specific directory on the AV8OR’s SD card. Replacing the card back into the AV8OR makes the flight plan available to be activated. Checklists can be set up on the device, but this has to be done using a PC to add the checklist items to a text fi le, and then transferring these files to a specific directory on the SD card. 

The AV8OR comes with a really good selection of accessories including a yoke mount and suction cup mount, mains charge, cigarette-lighter adapter, PC/USB cable, external aerial, and a very neat carrying case. The 280-page user manual is provided on CD. European aviation and road databases are supplied on a 4Gb SD card. We used the suction cup mount to attach the unit to a fl at area of the canopy. This mount provides secure attachment, but we found it a little tricky to position the AV8OR exactly as we wanted it. As an alternative, the AV8OR is light enough and has a fl at back surface such that it could be attached to an instrument panel with a strip of Velcro. The AV8OR features a rechargeable 800 mAh Lithium-Ion battery as standard. 

That provides power for about 1.5 hours of operation with the screen backlight at maximum. During our testing we were happy with the backlight turned down, and achieved about two hours of operation from a full charge. An optional 1600 mAh battery is also available, which Bendix/King say is good for three hours of operation at maximum backlighting.

In addition to its aviation navigation function AV8OR also features a decent automotive navigator including turn-by-turn guidance, voice prompts, speed limit warnings, and most of the other features you would expect in this sort of device It also allows you to play music (MP3 and WMA files) and view photos and videos (AVI, WMV, MPG, ASF). A set of earbuds is included. Updates to the firmware are currently free and, as reported in the last issue of LOOP, the latest firmware update includes support for interfacing to the excellent Zaon XRX PCAS device to allow traffic information to be shown either directly on the moving map display or in a separate traffic display.

VERDICT

Overall, we really like the AV8OR. It might not have every bell and whistle that you could wish for, but it does a great job with the essential functions, it’s very simple to use, and is fantastic value for money.

Many thanks to Adams Aviation for the loan of an AV80R to test. The AV80R is available to buy from its pilot shop for £629. For more information visit www.flyingshop.com

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