Foreflight kills iPad battery dead in 3 hours

comanchepilot

comanchepilot

En-Route
Joined
Jun 1, 2010
Messages
4,020
Location
Tucson
Display Name
Joe Farrell, yeah, him
Home Airfield
TUS
Now before houstonflier comes on and shoots the messenger- the title is intentionally inflammatory to see if the brain trust here can come up with an answer.

AA flight 1965 - DFW - ONT. Window seat - left - south side. Cell and wifi were off. BT - off. Got and maintained a GPS lock for most of the flight - 3hr 20 min long from boarding and nest building to battery shutdown.

Neither WAZE nor maps nor other programs that often keep running the background were doing anything.

Foreflight V. 5.0 [hmmmm - a new release] the map was open for sectional and they were all downloaded and in memory - nothing else was selected in the right hand column.

I've never had the iPad battery down down so fast ever. Even video playback does not drive it down so fast.

Anyone else had a negative experience with the new FF version?

Since the GPS chip is receive only I cannot imagine that it boosts power to change the gain? That is the only iPad explanation I can think of -
 
I have the latest I Pad and I have heard that the I Pad 2 is better with battery life. What I Pad ran the batttery down so fast?
 
An earlier version of FF ran my iPad 2 down to about 20% power in 2 hours a year ago. I don't remember which version it was, but I don't find Joe's experience surprising at all. Now I have mine charging on ship's power whenever I fly with it.
 
I don't leavew mine on, just like I never had the howie keefe book on my lap the whoile time. In either case I lean it in the wall on the floor when I'm not using it and pick it up whan I need it.
 
I flew a 3 hour flight in my Comanche using my iPad 3 and FF and Stratus and had 48% battery left on my iPad, 2 hour and then 2 hours home to glendale AZ - and landed with 12% left. . .

I never had to use external power for the iPad for GA length flights before - I have it if I need it . . . but this kind of surprised me -

I sure would like to see FF publish a power table - telling us which features when turned on [like the terrain map?] use power without any corresponding benefit since it is not displayed . . .
 
I got 4.5 hours out of my iPad in flight and battery went dead as I was on approach to my home airport.
 
I wonder if the Mini will be any better - I fly with a Mini now - and wonder if the smaller, non-Retina screen will last longer? Sure, the battery is correspondingly smaller and lower capacity as well.

I wonder about the moving map and whether track up uses significantly more power??
 
I turn my screen off periodically during the flight and only refer to it when I'm actually needing something (or when I'm paranoid / twitchy and checking my xtrack error)
 
wait a sec... Joe, you were in my back yard and didn't stop to say Howdy?
 
comanchepilot said:
Since the GPS chip is receive only I cannot imagine that it boosts power to change the gain? That is the only iPad explanation I can think of -
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as a receive-only superheterodyne receiver. They work by broadcasting the carrier and reading the interference pattern.

You were probably in violation of 14 CFR 121.306(a). Unless AA has determined that iPads with active GPS (I.e., not in airplane mode) won't interfere with other GPS systems.
 
Last edited:
comanchepilot said:
I've never had the iPad battery down down so fast ever. Even video playback does not drive it down so fast.
Click to expand...

I did have a problem with my IPhone and IPad have incredible battery drains (at different times). There was something wonky in the OS running the processor at max power all the time. My IPhone ran dead in 45 minutes.

It was a known issue, the fix was in the Apple support knowledgebase.
It took a full backup to PC, wipe, and restore to fix it.
 
MAKG1 said:
There is no such thing as a receive-only superheterodyne receiver. They work by broadcasting the carrier and reading the interference pattern.
Click to expand...
I beg to differ. First of all, virtually all superhet receivers include an RF "front end" (amplifier tuned to the received frequency) that precedes the injection of the local oscillator into the signal path and that can prevent virtually all leakage of the LO into the antenna. Second, if there was any significant leakage of LO output on any GPS receiver it would likely prevent the receiver from capturing any GPS signals because they are so weak. That's not saying an iPad doesn't emit RF, just that if it does, the RF won't be coming from the GPS receiver.
 
MAKG1 said:
There is no such thing as a receive-only superheterodyne receiver. They work by broadcasting the carrier and reading the interference pattern.

You were probably in violation of 14 CFR 121.306(a). Unless AA has determined that iPads with active GPS (I.e., not in airplane mode) won't interfere with other GPS systems.
Click to expand...

You mean like the ones the pilots have in the cockpits? Not in airplane mode? Used as EFBs?

I may have been. May being the operative word. AA needs to make that determination - not me.
 
gismo said:
I beg to differ. First of all, virtually all superhet receivers include an RF "front end" (amplifier tuned to the received frequency) that precedes the injection of the local oscillator into the signal path and that can prevent virtually all leakage of the LO into the antenna. Second, if there was any significant leakage of LO output on any GPS receiver it would likely prevent the receiver from capturing any GPS signals because they are so weak. That's not saying an iPad doesn't emit RF, just that if it does, the RF won't be coming from the GPS receiver.
Click to expand...

There we go - I LOVE 'geeky' answers - you guys know so much more about this stuff than I do.
 
comanchepilot said:
I wonder if the Mini will be any better - I fly with a Mini now - and wonder if the smaller, non-Retina screen will last longer? Sure, the battery is correspondingly smaller and lower capacity as well.

I wonder about the moving map and whether track up uses significantly more power??
Click to expand...

I accidentally left my mini (dead) in the airplane the night before a long flight (KCHD-KSNA). I was able to charge it to about 50% between lunch and leaving. It lasted the whole way to SNA, about three hours. I was shocked. Today my mini went down 20% in about 1.5 hours. I have a charger in the airplane but I realized it only works sort of sometimes. Sigh.
 
I have noticed a spike in battery drain lately too with FF open. I used to go all day and end with over or at least around 50%.

Recently though, I fly 2 legs and see I'm at 22%! Not sure what changed. It's a company iPad and running old iOS 5.1.1 due to FAA having to approve updates. Only thing to change was I updated FF app.
 
AggieMike88 said:
wait a sec... Joe, you were in my back yard and didn't stop to say Howdy?
Click to expand...

I was in Beaumont Texas passing THROUGH DFW - I would NEVER be so unneighborly.

I now know where God will give the Earth an enema. . .
 
cirrusmx said:
plug the ipad into the cig lighter and prob solve.
Click to expand...

depends where I am . . . and not every airplane nor airliner has one. And that is not the solution to poor programming - either by Apple or FF . . .
 
it's a well known fact that checking battery life drains the battery

just like you can check your oil level so often that you will cause the level to be low and will have to add more...causing you to check the level again...
 
Jaybird180 said:
it's a well known fact that checking battery life drains the battery

just like you can check your oil level so often that you will cause the level to be low and will have to add more...causing you to check the level again...
Click to expand...

Who 'checks' battery life in an ipad? It is displayed in the upper right corner 24/7 when the unit is on. . .
 
It's a quantum thing. If you look at it, even in the corner, it drains extra juice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top