Most avionics can only be judged from a brochure until the box is bolted into your panel. NAVIA is an exception: the same Navia OS that runs on the displays also runs in a web browser, at glider.flynavia.com. It is free, it is ours, and it needs nothing but a laptop or a tablet.
Pilots use it for two quite different reasons. Before buying, it answers the only question a specification sheet cannot — what is it actually like to fly with. After buying, it becomes the place you do your preparation, because the work you do there follows you into the cockpit.
This article covers what the demo is, what the two sign-in doors do, what carries across to the aircraft and when, and — just as usefully — what a browser cannot show you.
What it is
It is Navia OS, not a video or a simulator of one. The build at that address is the glider build, so it is laid out for soaring: tasks, the map, the vario side of the system. There is no powered-aircraft build at present.
The first thing you meet is the login page, and it is worth recognising, because it is the same login page you will meet on the aircraft — down to the two checkboxes. Remember me and Are you the primary pilot? mean exactly what they mean in the cockpit, the second of them declaring you pilot in command. If the demo feels familiar the first time you power up a real NAVIA, that is why.
Guest, or signed in
The login page offers two doors, and the difference between them is the whole point.
- Guest lets you look around with no account at all. As on the aircraft, a guest gets a fresh copy of the default settings and nothing is uploaded to the cloud. Ideal for a first look; useless for preparation, because none of it is kept.
- Sign in with your LX Cloud account and the demo is no longer a toy. Your settings, your display profiles and your files are the ones that arrive, exactly as they would on any NAVIA you sign in to — and what you change is saved back.
That second door is the one to use if you already own a NAVIA, and the one worth creating an account for if you do not. It is the same account the aircraft uses; the demo is simply another screen signing in to it.
What carries into the cockpit, and when
Nothing about the demo is a special case. It is a screen signing in to LX Cloud, so the ordinary rules apply — synchronisation, offline and flight recording covers them in full, but in short:
- Plan a task, rearrange your screens or set up a display profile in the browser, and it is stored against your account, not against the machine you were sitting at.
- Your aircraft picks it up the next time the Core has internet — over the aircraft's Wi-Fi, its cellular modem, or your phone's hotspot. Synchronisation runs at sign-in and then every few minutes.
- It does not run in flight. The configuration you took off with is the configuration you land with, so do the preparation the evening before, not on the grid.
The practical shape of this: build next weekend's task at the kitchen table, and it is waiting for you when you sign in on the aircraft. No cable, no SD card, no laptop balanced on the wing.
What belongs to you travels; what belongs to the aircraft does not. Aircraft configuration — the polar, the flight envelope, weight and balance — is owner-level work that lives with the machine, and the demo is not where you do it. See what belongs to you, and what belongs to the aircraft and commissioning a new aircraft.
What a browser cannot show you
Being honest about this is more useful than overselling it. In the demo there is:
- No air data. No pitot, no static, no TE probe, so the vario and airspeed behaviour you would judge a vario system by is not there to judge.
- No real traffic. FLARM and ADS-B targets come from hardware in the aircraft.
- No engine, and no connected devices. EMU, Sense, Traffic and Grip are absent, so anything about how the parts of the system talk to each other has to be read rather than flown — see the system architecture.
- No hardware. Sunlight readability, the size of a 7-inch portrait screen in your panel, and how the Grip falls under your hand are exactly the things a browser cannot answer.
So use the demo to judge the software — the interface, the layout system, how tasks are built, whether the way it thinks matches the way you fly. Use a dealer, or a free online consultation, to judge the rest.
Where to go next
- Accounts, the four roles and display profiles: accounts, roles, profiles and screens.
- What syncs, when, and what happens with no internet at all: NAVIA and LX Cloud.
- How the hardware fits together: NAVIA system architecture.
- Deciding between systems: choosing between Era, LX 10K and NAVIA.