Ringtones

I bit the bullet over the summer and installed a Garmin 750, along with two G5s, a JPI 830 and a Garmin 345 to comply with the ADS-B mandate. The panel was upgraded in 1998 – two years before I acquired the airplane – with a then-state-of-the-art King stack. So it was time.

The 750 comes with Push-to-Command, so you can switch pages and displays and frequencies by keying the button and speaking the correct phrase. And it talks back. If I say, for instance, “say time to destination” it will speak into my headphones. And I can stream music into the intercom via bluetooth. I use my iPad Mini 3 for music – the same one that’s running Foreflight with weather and traffic overlays via Bluetooth.

The JPI doesn’t talk. It has alarms and blinks when you exceed them. But it does get GPS info from the 750. So since these devices now have the ability to share information, I thought what if, instead of a blinking alarm, the JPI played a song snippet – a ringtone – instead.

For a high CHT I’d choose Led Zeppelin “You Need Coolin Baby I’m Not Foolin’. Forget to lean for cruise, Beatles “Baby You’re a Rich Man”. Shock cooling, Stones “She’s So Cold”. Runaway prop, of course Del Shannon’s “Runaway”. (Yeah I know Ye has one, too – I’ll pass). Low fuel, obviously Jackson Browne’s “Running On Empty”.