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Ask Slashdot: Hackable Portable Music Player For Helicopters?
First time accepted submitter mrhelio writes "I work for a medium-sized helicopter company; we mainly fly tourists around on sightseeing flights. My company needs help finding a hacker-friendly portable music player for our helicopters. We have a problem with our onboard music players — mostly because it is an obsolete terrible design. The manufacturer has made an updated model, but it's basically the same obsolete design with the same terrible software and user interface. We are worried about spending $1000 per unit on these because the manufacturer will eventually stop making replacement units and then we will be force to buy upgrades for our entire fleet again and get everything recertified. (Any piece of equipment hard mounted in a commercial aircraft has to be certified by the FAA and it takes a lot of paper work, time and money for that to happen.) So we have a new plan: get portable music players like iPods, and plug those into the aux input in the intercom system. We need something that has nine hours of battery life, can hold at least three hours of music, and has remote control options for start, stop, volume, and selecting tracks and playlists, and a display that is visible in bright and sunny as well as dark conditions. The remote control option is the toughest part to find. The pilots need to be able to control the music without taking their hands off the flight controls for safety reasons. There are buttons and toggle switches already designed into the flight controls for these kind of purposes and we have mechanics/ engineers that can wire it all together, but the music player has to support the remote interface in the first place. Our first choice would be to give each pilot an iPod, but Apple is notoriously anti-hacking and anti-open source, plus you have to pay them ridiculous licensing fees to get access to their USB interface. So we are looking for a manufacturer that is open source / hacker friendly and makes something that meets our needs. Do you know of anything that would work for us? Maybe something that runs Rockbox? Should we just break down and design something from scratch like the Butterfly MP3 player?"
Don't forget this requirement: whenever the airman presses the push-to-talk button, you want the music to stop. I'm pretty sure the ATC controller will not be interested in your playlist...
Other than that: why don't you just use the auxiliary input of the 4-way intercom?
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Anytime you plug something to an airframe you have to have certification.
Even if the device is "portable".
Start with a list of already certified devices...
I'm no audio expert or pilot, but it seems an adequate setup was designed in the 1970's. I could see this schema working well in cases of mechanical malfunction or unusually feisty tourists, though I suspect you could always choose a different act for more conventional flights.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
If you need to mount something to the control of the pilot, like tge remote, wouldn't that require faa aproval?
As a tourist who's been on one or two small, sightseeing aircraft - can I suggest going without the music?
Especially on a helicopter where the background noise is already quite phenomenal, going without some barely-audible music warbling away over the headset is hardly going to impair my experience. I'd much rather be looking out the windows (or absence thereof) and listening to what the pilot has to say...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
If you spend more than 20 hours to engineer something yourself, the $1000 starts to look like a bargain.
We are talking about a helicopter - something that flies
It's important that whatever that gets played on board does not interfere with the RF sensitive equipment on board of the chopper
Nowadays airplanes from Boeing and Airbus have re-designed their planes to better shield themselves from whatever interfering RF that may emit from consumer electronics - from cellphones to laptops to tablets
I do not know if the choppers are similarly shielded from RF interference, though
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
and mount it somewhere. instantly superior to commercial airline entertainment systems. and cheaper.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't know where you got this from. Apple has no problems putting open source software on the App Store, for example. Some open source software developers however have a problem with that.
To put your own code onto an iPod Touch, what you need is a Mac, $99 for a developer account, and you can install any software you write on up to 200 iOS devices of your choice. No need for hacking at all. No restrictions on what your code does.
Small world, I encountered the same project with our PA44 and Kingair fleet and we couldn't find a solution like what you were describing. Your requirements require mounting things inside the cockpit which require approval and also causes TEM issues, however, I don't operate under FAA jurisdiction. You may find in-line players attached to headsets to be more compliant.
Grab a few old Android devices--maybe N1s--turn off their cellular and wifi radios, load them up with music, and use 3.5 mm audio cable converted to whatever your aux input is on your existing system. Some 3.5mm audio cable can be purchased with/cobbled together to include built-in play, pause, and track skip buttons... Also, there's the rooting factor for most Android devices as well as the fact that most non-Apple smartphones use some variant of microUSB for charging and syncing.
hands up anyone who goes on a helicopter to listen to music. I'm sure they want to impart some sort of emotional response by giving others their interpretation of what the flight experience should be, but please.
Why don't you use Pandoras?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_pandora
They have great battery life, are very hacker-friendly, and great audio.
Large library size (160gbs), loooong battery life and very friendly to RockBox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowon#MP3_players
You are allowed to add wire / connectors / relays (without recertification), but not equipment?
Incorrectly added wiring can bring down an aircraft.
Relays can arc, producing RFI.
Loose connectors can cause deafening hum if not worse.
It is not about software, but about hardware. Apple requires you to buy a chip from them to "identify" your accessory as "runs with iphone" if you want it to do anything more than plain audio out. That is what the OP is talking about.
Considering this, I'd be looking for some iphone/ipod dock that has all the buttons you want and is certified. Rip that out of it's enclosure, connect your own buttons to it and you'll have your interface. No need to reinvent the wheel here, just adjust the packaging to your needs.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
No. 1 being the music player: Chose a decent android tablet (of the 5-7" flavour), throwing in some extension battery if necessary. This will cost you close to nothing, and it's upgradeable in software, later upgradeable by cheap replacement.
No 2. being the remote control: I strongly suggest you create an USB keyboard emulation - either by taking apart a physical keyboard or by using something like an Arduino. This needs to be done only once, as it needs much more (and more professional) work - emulate the media keys from a typical keyboard and chances are, most things will work out of the box. If not, see 1. - you can do everything else in software on the device, without touching the helicopter.
A while ago a friend found this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android
I don't know where they are at in their development. It connects to the device of your choice via Bluetooth, which would mean that the actual player could be whatever. Battery life is listed as 7+days. And I do imagine that you could attach a watch to a lot of things besides your wrist.
The other specs are listed in the kickstarter project.
get raspberry pi, attach some little display (kent displays?), install mpd and some ncurses client, program your keys with use of gpio.
Can you please post for us what helicopter company you work for, so we can know to never, in our fucking lives, ever fucking ride in one of your helicopters?
I'm sorry, but "hacker friendly" and "hacked together" systems have no business in a vehicle which, when it malfunctions, will likely kill or severely maim all of its occupants.
If your company is too fucking cheap to buy properly certified gear - do without a music system. This "We need something portable to get around regulations" bullshit smacks of corner-cutting, and I have to wonder what other things you do to get around regulations. When the safety of your pilots, and your customers, is at stake, cutting corners is both foolish, and unfortunately for you, illegal.
Potentially open source/hackable standards change faster than established ones. The iTouch/iTunes format seems pretty stable and there's talk of a streaming service. The units are a couple of a hundred each and easy to upgrade. There's a limit to the number of devices that can fall under the same content but it still seems like an easy solution. You can go with an Android solution to fight the Apple standard but name one that will exist ten years from now with any certainty?
One thing that I'd like to point out is that the RF problem has diminished by the user devices themselves. When you go from 12V switching to under 1V, you're looking at a lot less RF interference coming from the device anyways. Go from kilohertz to mega/gigahertz and you up the interference frequencies; lowering the range they can travel and the odds they'll interfere with the much slower switching electronics in the craft.
Basically, at this point it's hard to tell the average portable consumer device from background noise, as long as it's not intentionally transmitting.
I don't read AC A human right
and build a custom control set of buttons (programmable via Python) going through the GPIO port. Take a look at the following:
http://www.raspbmc.com/about/
There are controls on the heli for the current (craptastic) system for playing music and controlling the player. These can be used for controlling the player and piping the music around correctly.
Since these controls are already there, they don't need reapproval.
An AUX jack is already isolated so anything added to that is not part of the system. And similarly (I hope, if not the engineers will have to build a shim and get that certified once) with the control panel connecting the stick media controls to the current media player. Just plug your jig into the isolated side of the control box and it too doesn't need recertification.
As long as it doesn't have WiFi enabled.
I wonder if you could modify something originally intended for a car?
Newer aftermarket stereos often have aux input, a USB port for flash sticks and sometimes you'll find they've already paid Apple for iPod connectivity so you wouldn't have to. You can even find models with remote control support, though if you want to use existing remote controls I think you'll have to reverse engineer how the manufacturer's done it and make your own adaptor. This should be perfectly doable, however, as there's an existing industry that does exactly this so the steering-wheel remote controls you find built into many modern cars can be adapted to function with the aftermarket head unit. You might even be able to find a company that'll work with you to do the job just for the fun of it.
They're dead easy to wire in - they come with a fairly straightforward loom already there and there's a range of plugs on the market so you could build your own loom, fit a standard plug to it and when the manufacturer discontinues the stereo, put in another one that's close enough with minimal extra modification. They're already in a steel case so I don't imagine shielding will be a big deal.
They're also cheap enough that you should be able to pick something suitable up for a fifth, maybe even a tenth of the obsolete units you don't like.
The only thing I'm not sure about is getting FAA certification...
You can control a smartphone over Bluetooth. Search for "a2dp receiver". First hit on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/STEREO-BLUETOOTH-HEADSET-HEADPHONE-A2DP-MOBILE-WIRELESS-CORDLESS-/350596896980?pt=PDA_Accessories&hash=item51a13418d4 They're cheap and readily available, and they have hardware buttons for pause/play/next/prev. Anyone who knows which end of the soldering iron to hold can tap into the buttons.
Or just get a MP3 player that has actual hardware buttons; again just solder yourself in instead of trying to figure out a control API.
Alternatively, use an Android netbook, phone, or tablet. Cheap, easy to customize the firmware to your needs, USB ports so you can control it either by emulating a keyboard or using a serial dongle (you may have to hack the media player software), no Apple tax. 9h battery life is tough, but if you can get a DC port of some sort on the aircraft then you can use a DC-DC converter to run it as much as you need.
Open standards remain the same because you don't have to change it by planned obsalescence. The USB Mass Storage Device standard is the same for Linux for the last however long the standard was written.
iPad covers don't fit iPad2.
Apple refuse to tell anyone what the next connector is going to be (therefore how can it be the same as the previous connector?).
And the streaming service is ALREADY AVAILABLE if you get your FOSS-derived device.
Why are you so certain Apple's *current* standard will remain for 10 years? How long did the current dock connector last?
The kind of device you';re talking about surely doesn't need any more juice than a common MP3 player. I keep a cigarette lighter to USB adapter in my car, and it supplies my phone with more power than it needs indefinitely. I don't suppose helicopters have cigarette lighters, but you must have some equivalent.
Or maybe not. A little while back I watched Generation Kill, in which Recon Marines invading Iraq are always running short of batteries for their night vision goggles. Can anyone explain to me why HUMVs don't come with battery chargers?
I would recommend a Nokia N900. Availability would be the tough part, but it will do everything you need. It has a nice transflective screen that is legible in direct sunlight, and it is one of the most hackable devices around. Being a phone, it has several radios in it, but those can be disabled through software.
The N9 would most likely also work, and those are still in production as far as I know. The screen is also legible in direct sunlight, but I think the N900 would suit your needs better.
Rockbox, the open source MP3 player firmware, and one of its supported devices.
Cowon audio players also come with a remote, I believe. But why bother with a remote? If you're prepared to wire something in, make a small wiring harness for the device (connecting wires to the button contacts), slather the solder points on the device in hot glue for some stability, and plug it in before takeoff. You're plugging the 1/8 inch jack in anyway, right?
But I like another commenter's suggestion: just skip the music. I find it annoying and distracting, if I recognize it's there at all (and I'd prefer to not recognize it at all).
from personal experience i can vouch for a company named cowon. there media players have the best quality sound output on the market. the x7 and x9 have a week of battery life and there android variants can obviously use bluetooth remote technology. i own an x7, and you can set them to actually be a remote in themselves, when you lock the screen you can set the volume controls to be the skip track buttons, and the enter button becomes the pause button. when i drive i just set a playlist im in the mood for and carry on my marry way. i never have to look at the screen, i just put it in my lap and when something needs changing i hit a button. i never have to look most of the products have 32gb versions, though the x7 has a 160gb hard drive in it. only word of warning is there interfaces are known to be quirky, but you get used to them. give them time to... settle down, then they become as dependable as dogs.
Buy a Tablet PC, attach a hardware keyboard (which is easy to wire) and customize the software for your needs. Remove the wireless modules from the Tab to be on the safe side.
So we have a new plan: get portable music players like iPods, and plug those into the aux input in the intercom system.
If you haven't already, please check that you get decent sound quality through the intercom.
Put giant speakers outside the helo (by the rocket pods) and blast Ride of the Valkries
One advantage is that it's easy to inject the pilots messages into the system.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
look at the Gilderfluke (https://www.gilderfluke.com) playback systems. they are designed for this type of application. the SD-10 may be enough if your requirements are simple enough or the SD-25 can handle almost any requirement. designed to run on 12-24 V power , use SD cards for storage, 2 external switch inputs, line level audio outs.
1) Find three more helicopters
2) Learn to play alltogether this
3) ? ? ?
4) Profit!
Those who are curious to hear the piece can find it here. Please don't play it over my home, thanks.
How about a Raspberry Pi?
Buy:
- a Pi. (http://www.raspberrypi.org/)
- Plastic Pi case (https://www.modmypi.com/shop/)
- 32gb SD card
- HDMI touchscreen (http://www.chinavasion.com/china/wholesale/Home_Audio_Video/LCD_Monitors_TV/8_Inch_LCD_Touchscreen_Monitor_AV_VGA_HDMI_Car_Kit)
Install Xbian, a XMBC media player based Linux os (http://xbian.org/) and you've got everything you need.
Cheap too!
Why bother with the intercom at all? Just get a dozen cheap MP3 players and give each passenger one. Everyone pick their own song. The sound quality is better because they're all listening from the earphone instead of the intercom. Less distraction to the pilot as well.
Would something like http://dx.com/p/mp3-player-module-with-remote-controller-fm-usb-sd-106197 be adaptable? The music would be transported on an SD card; the IR remote could be wired into the existing buttons on the controls.
(Sorry this is posting as AC; once I start writing the post I can no longer see any option to log in. Peet McKimmie here...)
If you've got engineers who are happy running wires around and have a basic knowledge of a *NIX OS then go for a Raspberry Pi. Power it from the aircraft's aux supply, USB for remote, SD card/s for your music storage, set playlists etc on the ground by plugging in a monitor, mouse and keyboard. No lock-in, entirely open source, easy to integrate with the systems however you like and no wireless signal for the FAA/CAA etc to worry about.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
What, you can't just put an automotive music player in a helicopter?
I would think that would be kind of cool, some big bazooka speakers and a subwoofer. Blast you some Li'l Wayne until the windows shake. Get some grape incense. People would line up to fly with you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I have been working on a wireless router solution for Satcoms. These are a carry-on solution this way you do not have to go through the certification requirements with permanently installed devices. We can loaded songs and media of your choice. We have been looking at the router as a carry-on low cost IFE system as well. Your application would not need the Satcom interface but we can help you if you are interested. http://www.aviationmodificationleaders.com/advrouter.php Email me if you are interested. Mark
Power for the HDMI touchscreen (9-15V) can be provided from a 4 cell LiPO RC battery. A standard cigarette lighter to USB adapter can likely be used to drop the 14.8V down to 5V for the raspberry pi.
Find a way to quiet the noise of the rotors so your passengers can hear the music. I'm sure the people and animals on the ground would appreciate it too.
(Don't say it can't be done, Seal team 6 has some pretty quiet helicopters.)
They have decent music players, are reasonably "pro hacker", they used to have a version of angstroem linux for the Gen7 Archos48 player
(with a 500Gb disk and reasonable vibration resistance, obviously to be checked on an helicopter)
the current models run Android ICS.
neither portable GPS nor intercoms nor timing devices nor "PCATD-lite" things nor any of the other portable gadgets that go in an aircraft have to be "certified" by the FAA.
I'm curious but the article discusses wiring the "portable" device into buttons on the control stick. If so then at what point does this stop being a portable device? It seems a truly bizarre set of rules that requires certification of any permanently mounted device but will let a mechanic "hack" what is effectively a docking port into the aircraft. Doesn't the docking port need to be certified too because that is not portable and will be hard mounted to the aircraft.
The remote is going to be the difficult part, especially if you want to choose playlists.
I've recently bought an iPod nano 6G and found it unusable in my car: the touch screen means you have to look at the device to operate it, and I'm not going to do that while driving.
So I bought an iJet Nav remote with physical buttons for pause, next track, and previous track (also volume up and down, but those are not necessary in my setup). This gives me enough control for the things I want to do while driving, and the pysical buttons mean that I can operate them without looking.
The Nano 6G will operate with the iJet Nav attached for about 5 hours on battery power.
Choosing a different playlist is going to be way too distracting however you set it up. The only acceptable option I've seen is an iPod linked to a car stereo through the CD changer input. Dension (I think) makes a device that will do this, and it will map 6 playlists to the Disc 1-6 buttons on the car stereo, so choosing a new playlist is a matter of pressing one button.
I think you'll have to plan ahead and have an appropriate playlist cued up before you take off.
Have a look at Qi Hardware's NanoNote. It seems like it it fit the bill pretty well, especially if you pair it with TuxBrain's Universal Breakout Board (a small breakout board that plugs into the NanoNote's MicroSD port).
I've bought two NanoNotes for use as portable music players (one for me, one for my wife). We've been running MPD + ncmpc on them (which makes it convenient to either browse or search for songs), along with smart auto-DJ (which means that you can just pick a song to start with, and it'll automatically keep the play-queue filled with appropriate-sounding songs), for the past two years or so.
Running just on the commodity battery that fits inside, we've found that they'll run for at least 8 hours; but they also support the addition of small external battery that'll get you another ~30 hours.
-rozzin.
"Our first choice would be to give each pilot an iPod, but Apple is notoriously anti-hacking and anti-open source, plus you have to pay them ridiculous licensing fees to get access to their USB interface."
If your first choice would otherwise be an iPod but you can't hack their USB... don't. You don't need to.
Every time I ride my motorcycle, I control my iPhone playlists just fine without anything USB driven. The bike headset uses bluetooth and gives me play, pause, skipping in both directions, volume, controls.
I'm guessing what's already on your flight controls is no more than that. So find someone else who's already done the work and piggyback off it. All you need to do is wire your controls to the controls on the pre-existing device and you're done.
The iPod/iPhone connects in via aux so it's not hard wired. The controls themselves, you were always going to have to reconnect and get FAA approval anyway. If you want to save even more money and go with a pre bluetooth spec iPod, bluetooth receivers that mount in to their dock connectors are $50. Should be solveable in an afternoon and you get your first choice of player.
Note: It's pretty much taken as a confirmed rumor that Apple's changing dock connectors with the new iPhone. That said, bluetooth means you're only replacing the charging cable anyway.
IANAP just googler but I guess the idea is that you don't buy a $1000-2500 unit like those from PS Engineering or Sarasota Avionics.
http://www.gulfcoastavionics.com/products/537-pcd-7100.aspx
http://www.ps-engineering.com/pav80.shtml
http://sarasotaavionics.com/category/entertainment/cd_mp3_dvd-players
http://sarasotaavionics.com/avionics/fdsdx6 (a $2800 unit that takes six 1GB sd cards, this is overkill but an example of what is out there.)
Anyway I cannot be of much help but you should get something that doesn't rely on a touchscreen, and also take care about the adapter cable.
There are a lot of sites selling adapter cables for helicopter intercom to mp3 players. But one had a comment that popped my ears up. This is about recording audio from the intercom, so maybe it is not related to your use case but thought I would mention it.
http://www.mypilotstore.com/mypilotstore/sep/3335
Sansa Clip + runs rockbox, has 8GB of internal storage, and a microSD card slot. It's about $40-$50 and you just need to plug it into your computer and drop files into a folder on the device.
It's also small, lightweight and has no moving parts, which may be an important consideration in a helicopter. I mean, conceivably, the vibrations could limit the life of an iPod HDD, but I'm not expert.
http://anythingbutipod.com/ You could find reviews for android powered media players and ask the community any specific questions about those players. I recommend this site to help you find what you need. P.S. I don't know how to linkify my texts or how to do basic formatting on this site. Could someone explain how?
Or just get a zipit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr8ZQJnzyCY (Just like the nanonote except it already has rockbox and wifi).
iPod Touch + external battery + dock with remote
Problem solved.
You could actually wire the dock connector into the onboard power, or just use a standard inverter/charger.
The universal dock has a remote, and you can get an IR blaster or something to wire into your helicopter. The codes for the universal dock are out there, or you could just embed the remote that comes with the UD.
You can put the text you want as the album art, and make sure the iPod Touch doesn't sleep. You now have a big 3" screen that's plenty bright.
Why build some crappy open source thing that's hard to maintain? COTS is the way to go. Your time is too expensive to be farting around with this other stuff.
I think there was news some time ago that ipads were certified by FAA as replacements of plane manuals. Why not use them as MP3 players ?
aaaaaaa
You will not get.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I own and fly a Vans RV-6 sportplane. It's noisy as heck inside and requires good ANR headsets. I have two Lightspeed Zulu headsets, and recently upgraded my intercom to a PS Engineering PM-3000 stereo intercom. I can plug in my portable MP3 player to the intercom now and both occupants can hear the music great now. The PM-3000 has a "karaoke mode" switch where you can enable or disable the auto-muting of the music with a pushbutton. I prefer to leave the auto-muting disabled and just keep the music down to a reasonable volume since having the music mute constantly every time a transmission comes over the COM radio is really annoying. With the music constantly playing, but at a reasonable volume, I can still hear the COM radio just fine and the music sounds really good thru this intercom and Zulu headsets. The PM-3000 is fully PMA'd and TSO'ed so it's good to go for installation into a certified aircraft. It only cost $420 and I installed it myself. In a certified aircraft, you'll have to get the installation done by an A&P to be legal.
Buy a DROID phone load My Tracks onto it and activate it before a flight, stop it afterward. Give this data to a programer, have him set the DROID's music player to activate the desired files at the appropriate places in the flight based on GPS position. No pilot input needed.
Plug it into the aux input of the intercom system and velcro it down on top of the dash.
Easy and cheap!
small bluetooth enable tablets? smartphones? something that people already know how to use and is already available?
COMON PEOPLE!!!! You can switch SD cards and preload music people like, etc.......
Galaxy Nexus, bluetooth.
What is described sounds exactly what I have mounted in my truck: A 2012 model JVC stereo/bluetooth DVD deck, and my Galaxy Nexus.
All this discussion of docking is irrelevant. Use Bluetooth.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Maybe I should also mention: the reason I originally got my NanoNote was that I was in a situation where, like OP mrhelio, Wi-Fi was more of a liability than a feature. Not having to worry about RF interference/EMI was a feature. I knew other people who had bought devices with Wi-Fi and then solved the problem by opening-up said devices and diking out the radio components, but I didn't want to have to bother with that.
That Zipit device also appears to have been out of production for a couple of years now.
And, speaking as someone who's used, loved, and even loved hacking on Rockbox, this is one of the big problems I see with it: since it's mostly working `against the grain', it basically doesn't run on anything that's still in production. On the occasion that the Rockbox hackers are able to accelerate the reverse-engineering project enough to port it to something that is still in production, that gets fixed pretty quickly. This was the case with the iPod that I bought specifically to run Rockbox, for example. When that iPod died, I accepted that Rockbox has an ever-enriching past, but no future. It's a pretty fantastic retro-system..., but it's still a retro system.
-rozzin.
Any competent high end car audio shop should be able to create a setup that works for you. If you are in the Midwest I would recommend ABT electronics.
You could just use the voice control on the iPhone, and get a headset that will attach to the iPhone via Bluetooth. There are several such headsets. I'm a helicopter pilot, and that's what I do.
I'm using my Nokia N900 for in car entertainment, aka podcasts while I drive. Since the radio uses bluetooth I'm using its buttons to control it, but I also used to use a bluetooth mouse I use while on a walk to control it. The mouse could be solder up someway to trigger the three mouse buttons and scroll wheel to send inputs over bluetooth. I don't use a display while driving, and the daylight readable would be a problem for most portable players and cell phone systems. Still since I have it working that's the route I would be taking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKaYOW9zMoY
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
What you want is a reel-to-reel tape deck, some big horn speakers, and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
No one seems to have thought about the acquisition of performance rights which can be a substantial amount based on the gross revenues of the sightseeing company.
Look at it another way. You could easily end the problem by:
1. Explaining the cost of performance rights for any music played during the flight would increase ticket costs, and it would be impossible to have enough channels to deal with everyone's music tastes. We do not have flights that last several hours like airliners.
2. Explaining the rules under which we fly require that passengers be enabled to hear what the pilot is saying at all times. That is for YOUR safety. Our pilots are highly trained and can land this aircraft safely in nearly all emergencies. YOUR safety requires quick action and compliance with any instructions the pilot gives. (You may prefer to leave out descriptions of auto-rotation and the need to begin that process nearly immediately on flame-out.)
Give each passenger a card explaining these issues, and perhaps have a map of the route on the card and urge the passengers to pick out certain landmarks from the route. Get them looking out the windows and watching the show there. Give statistics on the flight, tell people how the helicopter works, talk about the training required to be licensed to fly a rotary wing aircraft. Promote your other tours, promote a flying school that offers FAM flights.
This is a classic case of someone misinterpreting the problem, not unusual with people who aren't used to critical thinking. Instead of complaints about preoccupied teenagers not being able to listen to their music, the question should more accurately be, "What can we do to make the flight more interesting for younger kids who are at the 'bored with everything' stage."
A few good ideas might even come from asking kids after the flight what they would do differently. You might get some ideas that could actually work.
But to go off on crusade to find music players overlooks a bunch of better solutions. Going on a search for music players is giving up in defeat and admitting our helicopter tours are so boring that kids would rather listen to music.
If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
and no you cannot be messing around with such crap
Use a Windows Phone. Similar benefits to an iPhone but it uses a standard micro-usb connector and there are better tools available for programming it. Better yet the development tools run on a standard operating system on standard hardware.
iPod remotes that work through the dock connector are all over the place.
Since you have engineers who can do some wiring, might as well crack open the official apple remote and wire that into your buttons.
Or, you can find that the basic ipod protocol is already on the net. It's simpler than the iphone accessory protocol and doesn't require any authentication chips.
Or, maybe this will work. I have one of these:
http://www.brightonnet.co.jp/english/product/ipod/bi-re605b.html