Products: Sporty’s Flight Gear back-up battery

February 1, 2019 By Jill W. Tallman

A portable back-up battery for electronic devices has become almost like another bit of survival gear: You can certainly fly without it, but you sure feel better when you’ve got one.

UPDATE

GameBird GB1 in production

High-tech aerobats from Bentonville

By Dave Hirschman

The first production Gamebird GB1 is finished and flying, and five more of the two-seat, carbon-fiber aerobatic airplanes are under construction in Bentonville, Arkansas (“Carbon-Fiber Showpiece,” April 2017 AOPA Pilot).

“This was the first GameBird produced completely in the United States,” said designer Philipp Steinbach, who guided the airplane through certification in the United States and Europe. “We’ve sold 21, and our focus now is production and delivery.”

The $400,000 airplanes are stressed for plus or minus 10 Gs, cruise at 200 knots, and can travel more than 1,000 nautical miles at a time. The Chilean Air Force bought seven GameBirds for its airshow demonstration team, and other formation groups are evaluating them, too.

“The first production airplane is going to an owner in France,” Steinbach said. “The next one is going to South Africa, and seven are going to Chile.”

The company has 28 employees, and expects to produce two airplanes per month in 2019.

GameBird has been focused on forming a production team, getting a production certificate, and obtaining FAA and EASA approval for adding a Garmin G3X avionics system. Now that those steps are complete, the company is shifting to production.

“It’s on us now to deliver,” Steinbach said.

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Sporty’s recently introduced the Flight Gear back-up battery for iPad. Sporty’s delivers its own take on a standard design, and the result is a nice upgrade.

I compared the Flight Gear battery to an iSound battery, which is a brand Sporty’s sold at EAA AirVenture in 2013. The iSound is black, five-eighths of an inch thick by 5.5 inches, and weighs 14 ounces. It looks and feels like a brick. It could—and did— overheat in the cockpit.

The Flight Gear battery weighs 14.6 ounces. At 7.75 inches, it is longer than the iSound, but it is just one-half of an inch thick. The unit is white, and when I set it on a seat or on a glareshield during test flights, it never overheated. It can charge up to five devices.

Noting that you run the risk of encountering interference on the radio any time you use an electronic device in the cockpit, Sporty’s said the Flight Gear was tested to ensure it won’t become a nuisance.

I flew with the Flight Gear connected to an iPad; on the ground I noticed some interference that disappeared once in the air. It was perceptible but not annoying.

Flying with the iPad but without the Flight Gear, the amount of interference on the ground was negligibly less. There was no interference when flying without either device.

Other differences: The Flight Gear doesn’t have a built-in flashlight as the iSound did, which is fine; I can’t imagine anybody grabbing their back-up battery if they truly needed a source of light. The Flight Gear also lacks a proprietary charging cable and instead uses a micro-USB, Type-C, or lightning cable. That’s convenient, because you likely have extra USB cables and won’t have to keep track of a one-off cable just to charge this unit.

The micro-USB cable included with purchase is about 5 inches long—no problem if you want to connect the battery to a laptop and charge it. If you are a wall-socket type of person, you’ll need a longer cable.

There are smaller, lighter, and cheaper options available, but sometimes the extra cost pays dividends in peace of mind.

—Jill W. Tallman

Price: $79.95

Contact: www.sportys.com