Do you want to better understand takeoff and landing performance in your aircraft? If so, you might want to check out STOLmate.
Designed by pilots and engineers Chuck Horrell and Erik Chubb, STOLmate was created to help pilots measure and improve their takeoff and landing performance.
A small sensor is mounted to the belly of an aircraft that pairs with a smartphone (iOS only). Taxi into takeoff position, touch the “Set Start Point” button, fly the pattern, and land as close to (but not before) the start point.
STOLmate will measure every takeoff and full-stop landing.
“The inspiration for STOLmate was the various STOL competitions,” said Horrell. “But in reality, the general pilot population is really the market. Using it has made me much more aware of my aircraft’s performance.”
It is a great A/B test tool. Mark your performance before and after installing a new propeller, for example, to see the impact.
STOLmate uses the GPS in your iPhone or iPad. That presented a challenge: The onboard GPS updates once per second and the published accuracy is ~6 feet. Those two factors alone made writing the software the hard part in creating STOLmate.
The user manual is written on three letter-size pages and covers installation, app setup, operation, and troubleshooting.
Installation requires no tool. Horrell uses double-sided tape on his aircraft. Zip ties are also a good method of securing the sensor mount, he said.
On the Apple App Store, the lone review states, “Any pilot looking to add a new dimension of training to their laps around the pattern should be using this.”
The STOLmate Sensor Module is priced at $399 and includes an aircraft mount. Extra mounts are priced at $14. Both can be purchased at the STOLmate website.
