Pentastar Announces Articulating Yoke Mount For iPad

Waterford, Mich. - Pentastar Aviation has developed an articulating yoke mount designed specifically for the Apple iPad^®.  The U.S. Patent Pending mount was unveiled to the industry earlier this month at the National Business Aviation Association’s Regional Forum in Teterboro, N.J.  The first production units are expected to be available for customer installations in July, pending Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) approval.


“The iPad^®‘s rapidly expanding presence in cockpits, along with its associated applications, afford pilots an increased level of situational awareness, enhanced cockpit resource management, increased safety and access to automatic downloads of the most recently updated checklists, weather, flight and airport information,” said Danny Clifton, Vice President of Flight Operations, Pentastar Aviation.

Once secured to the mount, the iPad^® can be easily maneuvered to be viewed in portrait or landscape orientation with an adjustable viewing angle.  In the portrait position, the iPad^® can be stowed (articulated) above the control yoke.

“Providing our customers with solutions based on the way they’re using new products and technologies is one of our top priorities,” said Kim Groomes, Pentastar Aviation’s Senior Inventor and Machinist and creator of the mount.  “As we saw customers increasingly switching to the iPad^® from older style EFBs, we began working on a mount to accommodate that trend and allow pilots to operate with increased levels of safety, efficiency and awareness.”

Groomes previously designed a similar mount for electronic flight bag (EFB) devices and has designed numerous inventions used at Pentastar’s FAR 145 repair station.

The iPad^® mount will be a Class 2 EFB installation with optional TSO’d power supplies, one of the requirements for paperless operations.  The Gulfstream product line will be the first aircraft types on the Approved Model List (AML) STC for the mount, with other corporate, commercial and military aircraft types to be added to the AML STC soon.  All EFB mount parts will have PMA.  Availability for installation in Gulfstream aircraft is estimated to be during the third quarter, with availability for additional models beginning in the fourth quarter into 2013.  This will be a great addition to Pentastar’s current list of EFB STCs such as the CMC EFB on many aircraft types.

Dewan Rizky Bahari
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