hey guys
i got a thing in the mail we're gonna strap a BOM to a plane
all right this little bomb shaped thing was sent over to me by Levil aviation actually i'm not sure
how to pronounce that i don't know if it's level or Levil aviation but you know what it doesn't
matter they sent it over to me to give you guys a review of it and actually they asked me to give
you an honest review of it so that's what we're gonna do but let's go ahead and get it opened up
all right you guys know i've already done this but i'm just gonna do it again for you
it's actually a nice unboxing experience but first thing we have a little letter saying
that they're allowed to manufacture these from the faa uh quick start guide but here we go
here is the bom it's all wrapped up and it's removed before flight red um what else is in
the box oh move before flight some extra mounting pieces ooh little antenna that goes on the bottom
and some mounting plates so this guy is called the BOM and it's in the shape of a bomb but it's not a
bomb per se BOM actually stands for broadcasting outer module and i don't know if the name came
before the acronym or if it was the other way around but regardless i like the name of it
the idea is that you mount this somewhere to the exterior of your airplane and it sends out all
kinds of information wirelessly level has packed a lot of tech into this little guy like adsb
wash gps and high performance ahars information that streams to your tablet of choice providing
you with everything you need if you have an instrument malfunction or other related
emergency even though it's marketed as a backup solution here with the things that this is capable
of i can see it being more useful than that so let's get up close and personal with this guy
the overall build quality seems rather nice its outer casing is split into three major parts that
fit together nicely to help reduce overall drag on the nose there's several little holes for its
different measuring systems and at the back spinny fin things to power and charge itself in flight
on the bottom is an antenna and on the top it provides an easy mounting system for installation
and removal over here we have a little removable plate that gives us access to the charging port
and sd card slot for data recording all right it also comes with this nice little cover to protect
it and when you put it on here there's a magnet that's inside of it they'll turn the unit off so
you put it like that and it's gonna save the battery for your next flight
now they didn't tell us that we couldn't do this
so we're just gonna do it anyways but let's take a look inside let's let's take this guy apart
wow i can't see a ton that's going on inside of here but
there's still a lot of stuff going on that's kind of cool um i don't want to break it so
we're just gonna but enough about the hardware let's take a look at the software
it works on both ipad and android and presents its information in a fun way
like if you enjoy steam gauges you can add a bunch of windows like this and add the gauges you want
my favorite has to be the aethes i trained with a garmin g5 and level's display here actually
i prefer it better for some reason i think it has to do with how where the compass is but overall
the app is good and intuitive to set up even in the settings menu where you set instrument sources
measurement units and vspeeds to make sure that your display is accurate
the only clunky side i found with the software was the device configuration for the BOM but once you
figure it out it works well enough you see level has other products this app works with so options
for those devices are in here too plus some other things that i'm pretty sure i shouldn't be messing
around with but over on this tab here the options for the BOM and what they are calling caging is
the first thing that we see which is actually configuring it to work with your airplane i
think configuration might be a little bit more intuitive but caging is what they went with
and down here we can make adjustments to pressure altitude and the pedo speed if needed and we can
also set up an angle of attack indicator here which we'll talk about in a bit maybe now that's
enough of a tour of this guy and it's software so let's head over to the airport to test it out
hey guys i'm out here at the airport a second time because my memory card got corrupted
but i wanted to show you how i mounted the the BOM to the airplane before i went on the flight
now you see i'm inside of a club and i needed an option to be able to mount and unmount the BOM
as i needed didn't want to leave it here all the time so level has gone ahead and partnered
with enflight cam and they made this adapter to make it so you can mount the BOM to a wing strut
level does provide those metal plates i showed you before to create a more permanent option
if you wanted to leave it on the plane all the time but this this works great for me
and now we're gonna jump back to that flight that we went on and oddly enough the weather
is the same today as it was then just a quick psa here for safe flying i brought my buddy john along
with me to kind of act like a safety pilot i know i'm going to be fiddling with my ipad and this BOM
and i wanted someone i could hand the plane off to guys seriously here at fly with the guys we
try to fly as safely as possible and we encourage all of you to do the same so please take someone
with you the first time you're flying with your BOM or any new device anyways moving on
so i'm just gonna say this this thing is really cool i know i have the same information right
in front of me but seeing it in real time on my ipad and know it's coming from its own independent
source was just next level for me now i talked a little before about the setup of their e-fis but i
also have on the screen traffic right here which is a huge deal to me i fly out of busy airspace
and being able to see where everything is around me and how close it is is just awesome to me and
i know that you're seeing it here i'm running for flight on one side of my ipad by using ios's
split screen feature this seriously makes it look and feel like i'm using some kind of ten thousand
dollar fancy piece of avionics and i would still have navigation in an emergency situation
now after flying out over to the lake i handed john the control so i could really
dig into some of the settings here i got the unit caged or calibrated for our flight
and adjusted the air speed and altimeter so they match the planes and then added
my v speeds which i really should have done on the ground but that's why i brought jong along
so one good thing about it being a cloudy day was that there was actually some weather
we don't get a lot of that here in arizona but we could see the rain off in the distance and
sure enough the BOM set that information over to our ipad and we saw it pop up in for flight
but this reminded me another feature that i had shared with john a little bit earlier
that little impeller on the back produces so much electricity to charge and make the BOM operate
that the excess electricity has to be sent off somewhere so it sent off as heat to the nose
of the BOM which prevents icing this was good for today because the temperatures were actually just
below freezing and there was more moisture inside of the air than we anticipated when it took off
now just for fun we went ahead and did a few maneuvers to see how the BOMresponded and it did
really well i was impressed by how responsive it was i could see how it could easily be used inside
of a backup scenario but like i said before i want to give this a little bit more credit than that
i can totally see this as a training tool for instructors i mean think about it
you're sitting on the right side of the plane and it would be great to have an extra evis
right in front of you plus much like i did on this flight you can record the screen when the
student starts maneuvers and then show them how things went inside the end during your debrief
now i can also see this used as a adsb in and weather information alternative even
though it costs more than other products that do the same thing the idea of having a backup
and an independent charging system makes it so you don't have to worry about making sure things are
charged or bringing along extra batteries for those longer flights now the last cool feature
that this guy has that i didn't mess around with on our flight was the angle of attack meter
i've never really flown with an aoa before so i'm not the best person to talk about it but it's just
another cool feature this guy has to offer so what are my final thoughts on this no i like it
it really does provide a level of peace of mind as a backup and it's an easy way for me to take
features to planes that aren't as well equipped as the one that i currently fly now there are some
software things that i'd like to see added like a couple more round dials so we can have a true full
six pack right there but i can tell you that level level level i think that's what it is is ready
and willing to work on stuff like this like i made a suggestion when i first got the unit and before
i even went on my flight they had it implemented and it was actually really useful on my flight
now there are two things that i'd really like to see added to the BOM that i think would make it a
better device the first being an exterior power button and the second being a power indication
light because it uses vibrations to turn on you have to tap it on your hand if you want to test it
but then you don't know if you tapped it enough to turn it on because it has nothing to tell you
that it's working you could remove the little plate that's right here to take a look inside
but an exterior power button and a power indicator would make a world of difference
that way if you forget to turn it on before mounting it to your plane or you
have it permanently mounted you can check its function before you start your engine
now if you're interested in getting a BOM and strapping it to your plane you can head over to
level's website for more details on it but i'll leave a link for it down in the description and
if you're ready to buy one make sure you use the code fly with the guys all lowercase and you can
get five percent off your purchase i know it's not a lot but it lets them know that i sent you there
alright guys i really do like the BOM they they didn't pay me to make this video they
sent it to me so i hope that you like my review and if you did please give this a thumbs up also
head on over to our channel page and subscribe while you're there because we're going to be
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get notified immediately anyways share aviation wherever you can and we'll see in the next one