Fyshh Aero·PODComing soon
A sensor pod on the glareshield and not a single cable to the aircraft.
The POD unit is the smaller, simpler counterpart of the COM device: the same self-contained puck with the audio stack left out.
It carries a GPS with a clear view of the sky, a barometer that is never put to sleep by a phone's operating system, and an attitude sensor fixed to the airframe, and it streams them to the FLT app over Bluetooth as a second flight instrument, the way the Apple Watch already is. It plugs into nothing, draws nothing from the aircraft and mounts wherever a camera would.
What it adds
Measured bank and pitch instead of estimates from the ground track
The FLT app records a flight from the phone and, if you wear one, the watch, and estimates bank, airspeed and wind from the ground track. A phone in a pocket has no idea which way is up. The POD unit is fixed to the aircraft, so it measures what the phone can only infer, and FLT fuses its recording with the others into one record.
- Measured attitude. Pitch and bank from a sensor fixed to the airframe, so a steep turn is classed from the bank actually held, roll-in and roll-out are measured, and load factor and touchdown g are read in the aircraft's own frame rather than a wrist's or a pocket's.
- Five fixes a second with a sky view. A GPS receiver on the glareshield reports position, ground speed and track five times a second, with its own accuracy figure, so the touchdown is captured whatever the phone's GPS is doing. It also supplies an independent UTC time base.
- A barometer that never sleeps. Pressure sampled ten times a second for the whole flight, never queued and never frozen by a suspended app, which is the failure that once counted nine landings for six. The phone converts it to altitude against the QNH, exactly as it does for its own barometer.
- Buffering through dropouts. The unit records to its own flash as it streams, and backfills the phone with anything it missed on reconnection. The phone does every detection and score; the unit knows nothing about the pilot.
Every landing, manoeuvre and score is computed on the pilot's iPhone from the samples the POD unit sends. The unit never receives an account, a name or a position, which is also why it can be shared between students without a thought.
How it mounts and connects
Fix it where a camera would go, press one button, fly
There is no installation, no cable to the headset circuit, no power from the panel and no change to the avionics. The POD unit is carried between aircraft like a headset and left in a school aircraft like one.
Mounts like a camera
A hook-and-loop patch on the glareshield is the simplest fixing, and the base also carries a standard quarter-inch tripod socket, so the unit goes on any suction-cup, clamp or ball-head mount a pilot already owns, on the glareshield, a canopy rail or a side console. Loose in a seat pocket it still works as a GPS and barometer, and the app says that attitude is then not measured.
Pairs in one tap
No Bluetooth bonding and no passcode. The unit advertises, FLT lists it, and a press of the button flashes the light and puts that unit at the top of the list. A phone that has used a unit before reconnects to it on its own at the start of the next flight.
Shared like a headset
A school keeps one in each aircraft and it connects to whichever student's phone is flying it; the school's portal maps unit to aircraft, so the flight's registration fills itself in. A licensed pilot keeps their own in the headset case. An instructor's phone never claims the aircraft's unit ahead of the student's.
A day on a charge
One USB-C port, one button, one light that says advertising, connected, recording, low or fault. The battery is sized for a full flying day with margin, and the unit charges from the same cable as the phone.
Compared with COM
Smaller, simpler and lower in cost, because the audio is what makes COM heavy
Everything the POD unit does, the COM device also does. What COM adds is the cable into the headset circuit and everything that follows from hearing the radio.
| What | POD | COM |
|---|---|---|
| Measured bank, pitch and yaw rate from the airframe | Included | Included |
| GPS at five fixes a second with reported accuracy | Included | Included |
| Continuous barometric pressure, never suspended | Included | Included |
| On-board flash buffer and backfill through dropouts | Included | Included |
| One-tap pairing, shared by a school one per aircraft | Included | Included |
| Cable into the aircraft | None | One, into a spare headphone jack |
| Mounting | Hook-and-loop patch or any quarter-inch tripod mount | Hook-and-loop patch, within cable reach of the jack |
| ATC clearances transcribed to the watch, ATIS parsed from audio | Not included | Included |
| Cockpit audio recorded on board | Not included | Included |
| Carbon monoxide, VOC, cabin temperature and humidity | Not included | Included |
| Engine RPM approximated from sound | Not included | Included |
| Size and cost | Smaller and lighter, with fewer parts and no serviced sensor, so lower in cost | Larger, with the audio electronics and a gas sensor that is replaced on a cycle |
The POD unit is not a certified flight data recorder or an instrument. Its attitude is relative to the aircraft's parked attitude until the app has a cruise reference, and the app labels it as such, in the same spirit as "estimated". Nothing here is a substitute for the aircraft's own instruments or for an instructor.
Early access
Fly with a POD unit before the first production run
The POD unit is built from the parts of the COM prototype with the audio left out, which is why it goes to the bench and the aircraft first. We are looking for student pilots, instructors and flight schools to fly with prototype units as they become available.
You fly with a prototype unit on the glareshield for a few weeks as a passive third recording beside the phone and the watch, FLT records as normal, and you tell us how the unit behaved in your aircraft. We fix things and send the next revision.
The POD unit will be sold as a device to the school or the pilot and priced with the first production run, below the COM device. Early-access participants hear first and are looked after with preferential pricing.