Avionics News June 2020 - 22

APPAREO'S STRATUS INSIGHT

conditions along a flight-planned route and altitude,
then graphically presents them in a profile from the
flight's beginning to its end. The forecast freezing level
"All of us at Appareo Aviation are excited to work with
is included, along with forecast cloud bases and tops.
Bryan Heitman and the Aerovie team to incorporate
The profile also includes the planned altitude and, if it
their exceptional EFB into the Appareo family, and
intersects with forecast cloud coverage, you may find
offer a complete hardware and software solution," Kris
yourself in instrument conditions.
Garberg, Appareo's president, said at the time. "We
The Radar Forecast works in a similar fashion,
plan to build on the success of Aerovie by adding many
by modeling convective conditions pilots would be
new features that will increase safety in the cockpit."
expected to encounter during the proposed flight,
Less than a year after the Aerovie acquisition,
based on aircraft speed and departure time. The Smart
Appareo has plugged that gap, with Stratus Insight,
Flight Plan feature, meanwhile, kicks in when changes
a full-featured EFB app only for
in weather advisories force a pilot to
Apple devices: iPhone and iPad, plus
divert or take an alternate route. In
the Apple Watch. In fact, Stratus
that event, according to the company,
Insight has a handful of features
"Stratus Insight goes beyond simply
either not available on other EFB
listing alternate airports - the Smart
apps, or at least not available all in
Flight Plan tool considers fuel stops
the same package. And naturally,
and day/night currency."
Stratus Insight works and plays
The added feature Appareo is most
well with Appareo's portable
proud of, however, is ATC Radio
ADS-B In receivers, including those
Transcription and Playback, a custom
incorporating an AHRS. When an
aviation speech recognition system. The
AHRS is present, Stratus Insight has
feature uses a patch cable plugged into
an artificial horizon and synthetic
a headset's phono jacks and the user's
vision display only an icon tap away.
iPad to obtain ATC audio and translate
it into text, which the company likens
Stratus Insight on Apple Watch
Features
to visual voicemail. Basically, whatever
Any EFB app wanting to be a
the app "hears" over the headset's
player in the current market needs to do several things.
audio is run through its voice-recognition system and
The most basic of them is a moving map depicted the
appears on the screen as text, including automated
user's choice of current charts, plus flight-planning
weather broadcasts, ATIS and ATC clearances. On
and in-flight "how-goes-it" information. Display of
one level and given the voice-recognition technology
FIS-B weather, including textual information, still
underlying smart speakers and the personal assistants
imagery and near-real-time weather radar, plus plotting
loaded into even basic smartphones, you might presume
TIS-B's participating traffic are mandatory, as are
this feature isn't that big a deal. If so, you haven't
a digital logbook and storing data on often-flown
listened to ATC lately.
aircraft. Stratus Insight does all this and, from our
limited time with the app, seems to do it well. But
"Say Again?"
it also incorporates something no other EFB app of
Acknowledging that voice recognition is more and
which we're aware does. We'll get to that feature in a
more commonplace, Appareo is quick to point out that
moment.
ATC audio is, well, different and presents challenges,
Other features Stratus Insight includes are a Vertical
something to which almost any student pilot would
Weather Profile, Radar Forecast, and Smart Flight Plan.
attest. "The high rate of speech, noisy signal, narrow
The features basically work as their names imply. For
frequency band, and unique location identifiers are
example, the Vertical Weather Profile looks at forecast
among those challenges. Appareo identified that
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Avionics News June 2020

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