| |
Aircraft Review
|
Diamond DA42-L360: Lycoming Reborn
When Diamond was hard into its certification of the DA42 Twin Star in 2005, it knew it was taking a big chance on the untried Thielert 1.7 diesel engines. But it also hedged its bets by running a near parallel certification effort of the same airplane fitted with Lycoming’s angle-valve IO-360, a well proven powerplant. It back-burnered the Lycoming project once it appeared that the diesel engines were both preferred and were gaining ground in the market. It now appears as though the Lycoming hedge is paying off, by necessity. As is well known by now, the Thielert diesels turned out to have a spotty service record at best, a disastrous one at worst. The engine required numerous periodic replacement parts—mainly gearboxes and clutches—but also lots of unscheduled (and expensive) maintenance that all but tanked the 1.7 diesels as serious contenders. As we go to press this month, Diamond is finishing certification details on the resurrected Lycoming project under its new version of the airplane, the DA42-L360. (The trade name Twin Star has been dropped because of a trademark dispute with a helicopter manufacturer.) The Lycomings will be offered as an option in place of the newly certified Austro AE300, which Diamond also brought to fruition by launching a company just for that purpose. The new engines will be available for both new aircraft and owners of existing Thielert diesel models who may wish to convert. (We suspect many will.)
|
|
AirNav RadarBox: Cool Gadget, High Price
By Jeff Van West
If you find the idea of looking over a controller’s shoulder to watch traffic fills you with glee, we’ve got the product for you. RadarBox is a two-part system. You get a receiver that picks up 1090ES and Mode S transmissions from aircraft and sends it to your computer via USB, where it feeds the RadarBox software. Data for the planes your box sees is also sent back to the RadarBox servers, and that’s where things get interesting. The server collects data from RadarBox users worldwide and makes this data available to you. RadarBox has over 2000 users worldwide, so that can average over 900 flights visible around the globe. Of course, you can limit the number viewed by proximity to you, airline, flight status and more. In fact, the number of options for viewing the data on top-down maps and tables of information is almost daunting.
|
|
Used Aircraft Guide: Cessna 337 Skymaster
In the light-twin world, there’s Cessna’s 337 Skymaster push-me/pull-you design—plus a handful of Adam 500s—and then there’s everything else. Eliminating asymmetric thrust from the single-engine handling equation was what Cessna had in mind when it brought the Skymaster to market. It succeeded, since the airplane handles pretty much the same when one or both engines are turning. But some compromises were made along the way, many of which can hike maintenance costs. In an engine-out situation, conventional piston twins generally need to be handled with kid gloves lest the airplane get too slow and roll over on its back. Close to the ground, that can be very bad. Which is one reason Cessna aligned the Skymaster’s two engines with the airframe centerline, offering pilots the safety of a second engine without the penalty of adverse handling. If one quits, identify it, feather it and don’t worry about the dead-foot, dead-engine drill. The FAA even granted the 337 its own class rating, limiting pilots to centerline-thrust twins only. That part of Cessna’s plan worked, since there’s little question the Skymaster is easier to fly on a single engine than a conventional twin. But, since the VMC rollover accident doesn’t happen that often in the real world, the airplane’s overall accident record isn’t that much better than conventional twins.
|
| | |
