I now have used my IPad Mini and a collection of RAM mount hardware and Wing X and Garmin Pilot software to navigate to and from convention and about while there totaling 13.8 hours on the tach.
The Ram mounting collection which I will use in the airplane as well as my motorcycle or could use in my car or anywhere I really wanted to mount something. So I can mount both my IPad Mini or my IPhone5 or both at the same time in the airplane. Here is my collection.
A Ram X Grip for my Mini and my IPhone. I like the X Grips because they are not custom made for any exact hardware and can hold anything they fit around. I also have three double socket B size (1" ball) arms in different lengths, 1 3/4", 3" and 6". One 1" ball on a stud and a suction cup mount RAP-B-224-2U. I choose this suction cup mount because it is only 3" in diameter and will just fit inside a '52 and earlier insturmement bezel and then suctioned on to the face of the instrument, an electric turn and slip in my case. The ball on a stud is mounted through an already existing hole in my instrument panel in the center above the piano keys.
X Grip mounts
Double socket B size arms
Suction cup mount RAP-B-224-2U.
To power my Mini and the Dual XGPS170 GPS and ADS-B receiver I bought. I purchased this Belkin cigar to USB charger. It is a 20 watt 4.2 amp adapter.Each plug can supply 5v at 2.1 amps or 10 watts, sufficiant for the Mini, a IPhone and or anything else. Not all dual plug adapters provide 2 high output plugs. This one also came with a 4ft Lightning charge/sync cable which both the Mini and the IPhone5 use.
Belkin 20 watt 2-port charger
So how did it all work. First lets get the Dual XGPS170 receiver out of the way. It was dead on arrival. The GPS worked fine but I watched it for 13 hours hoping to see anything out of the ADS-B receiver but not a peep. This past Saturday I confirmed it was dead flying in my friends Cardinal with his Garmin GDL-39 picking up 5 stations and showing traffic and weather while my Dual did nothing. It's going back to Sporty's tomorrow. But you might ask why I choose the XGPS170. It was an impulse buy really. But I did realize that if I bought the Garmin GDL-39 I could only use it with Garmin software and I didn't want to be locked into that. Unfortunately the Dual XGPS170 will not work with Garmin software either.
So off to Bardstown, KY from Quakertown, PA and I don't have a single current paper map on board. Very weird feeling. I have my Mini mounted in the X Grip suspended from the suction mount stuck to the side of the windshield by the 1 3/4" arm. It fit neatly to the left of the yoke in front of the mag switch key. I though I'd like this location. It wasn't bad traveling west with a morning sun behind and being blocked by the cabin rood. Glare was very tolerable but it started to bug me that I couldn't see out the left side bottom corner of my windshield without looking around the Mini. As visibility was a terrible 4 to 5 miles I ended up looking at my heading a lot in order to keep flying in the right direction. I started favoring looking just out the left side of the plane. I was using Wing X getting more comfortable with it's features as time went on.
After about 2.2 hours we landed and before leaving I used my 6" RAM arm attached to the ball in the center of the instrument panel and the smaller X-Grip to hold my IPhone in the center of the cockpit. I opened Garmin Pilot on it and we started our second leg. Now I could scan both left and right and always have a display showing my heading. This is how we finished our 5.5 hours to Bardstown and subsequent trips about while there.
Then we started for home. We where traveling north east looking right into the morning sun. The glare of the Mini made it impossible to see no matter what I did. I soon took it out of the RAM mount and laid it on my knee. It was only slightly better to see there. I soon put the Mini in a side pocket and used my IPhone5 with Garmin Pilot software to navigate. The smaller IPhone5 was small enough to angle so glare wasn't the same problem as the Mini. We used the IPhone alone for navigating the reat of about 4 hours home. We only pulled out the Mini when we needed to see something bigger.
Now for the software. I've used Wing X and Garmin Pilot the most. I've also tried the AOPA FlyQ software on local trips. None of them are perfect and quite frankly neither of them stand out enough for me to buy. I was using Wing X because I could get another 30 day trial and it would work with the Dual XGPS170. I really like the Garmin Pilot software because unlike any other software you don't have to look at a sectional to get aeronautical information. You can set it up to look almost like a traditional GPS of the past we all know. But it is missing some simple stuff like vertical navigation and you can't change it to MPH. I actually liked the AOPA FlyQ over Wing X but FlyQ won't run on a IPhone. I've now decided even the Mini is to big to mount in the cockpit for me and my primary viewing screen with be my IPhone with the Mini as a secondary source but keeped out of the way. So FlyQ is out until they make a IPhone compatible version. BTW the IPhone is about the same size at a Garmin 430 but I think you can see a lot more because of the long orientation available with the IPhone
So the good news is we have lots of choices and the bad news is we have lots of choices. To me not one of them stands out better than the others. If I had to pick one piece of software right know I'd have to go with Garmin Pilot even without the features Wing X has. Only wish I didn't have to by the GDL-39 for ADS-B weather with the Garmin.
My IPhone5 mounted from the center of my instrument panel on a 6" arm and held with the X Grip.