Ok, so a company I have ownership in, owns and flies an Embraer private jet.? I sometimes fly the airplane, as I have a commercial pilot certificate and have earned the type rating to fly in the right seat.? I can speak to this.? And I'm authorized to make decisions of this nature for this airplane.? (The airplane is a Praetor 600, the type rating is EMB-550, it can carry 9 passengers plus 3 crew)
On this airplane, there's an A/V bay in the airplane that has an HDMI port and a power outlet.? It's on a shelf in the forward galley.? This is unambiguously meant for providing A/V equipment of the operator's choice.? I would see little issue or liability with someone adding a media player that interfaces with nothing but the HDMI port and power ports, so long as it is affixed with nothing stronger than velcro tape.? Embraer provided a new-in-box Apple TV as a suggestion for what to put there upon delivery of the airplane when new.? The FAA takes issue when something is permanently attached to an airplane versus stuck or sitting there, so... never screw anything down or attach anything in any way that gives the impression it's part of the airplane!
The entertainment system on this airplane is a Honeywell Ovation.? That's a system very analogous to the architecture of Crestron that controls all of the cabin functions in the airplane -- basically anything the flight attendant or passengers can access from touch screens (principally A/V, lighting, and then media control of the built-in video sources -- the inflight moving map, and a canned USB media player in this particular airplane we have never used).?
The Ovation system is controlled via a hardwired touch screen, and then, there's an Ovation app for iPad that appears to be architected as an "emulator" for the Honeywell touchscreen in the galley.? It appears to download all of the UI elements over the WiFi from the controller, just like a Crestron touchscreen downloading a vtpro project.? This Honeywell system is probably used in many other makes of airplane including Gulfstream, given that Honeywell also makes avionics and jet engines and they're all over the place.
Now for A/V control.? I could?use Proxyman (or something similar) to intercept and learn what the iPad sends to the controller in order to get the API commands to, for example, activate the HDMI input for Apple TV.? But I just never would.
Instead, do this.? Assume there is a flight attendant, or a lead principal on the airplane, who is accustomed to following and executing checklists.? That's how everything else is accomplished on the airplane, from starting the engines to shutting it down.? The most professional presentation of how to "control the Honeywell Ovation system" is to write a step-by-step checklist, intended for a flight attendant who believes himself or herself professionally competent at executing written checklists... print it on a nice durable plastic card... and have them select a place in the airplane where it "belongs".
A typical format of a crew checklist looks like this:? Object...............ACTION.? The actions should be right-justified on the page (which I'm not positive I can present in this e-mail, but easy to do in Microsoft Word if you configure a tab stop to align text this way).? Also this checklist should ideally be more like a card or smaller.? Like the size of a piece of letter paper folded in half, or smaller.
Galley Touchscreen Main Menu..................PRESS VIDEO
Input selection... SELECT GALLEY HDMI
DVD player (pretend that's what we're using)... POWERED ON
DVD Disc... INSERTED
Movie or other program... START FROM MENUS, WITH HANDHELD REMOTE CONTROL
Volume (on galley touchscreen)... ADJUST AS REQUIRED
-- AT END OF DVD PROGRAM --
Galley Touchscreen Main Menu... PRESS VIDEO
Input selection... SELECT NONE (or other, as required)
DVD Disc... REMOVE AND STOW
DVD player... POWER OFF
To a flight crew, you'll score all the points for professionalism to present this sort of checklist.
It's also worth pointing out that the crew is going to be unenthusiastic about anything that interfaces with the airplane and executes things on it outside of their control.? They are going to view a quality checklist as a polished professional way to enable them to accomplish something.
Gulfstreams -- particularly the ones with a passenger seating count of 10 or more -- have a regulatory requirement for a flight attendant to be onboard, any time 10 or more seats are occupied.? That flight attendant must have completed manufacturer specific training to qualify as that crewmember.? So you can count on there being a professional already involved and willing to be trained on a checklist as part of their duty.
Mike
AVMaster
Gary Miller
josh@LiquidPixel
nicofreda