| |
Aircraft Review
|
GPSS Retrofits: Automation to the Max
By Larry Anglisano
Nearly every proposal for a new autopilot installations—which these days means S-TEC upgrades—should include a GPSS option. And optional is the key word because unless you buy a flagship S-TEC 55X autopilot, GPSS won’t be included with the base system. For most customers looking to upgrade GPS and autopilot equipment, GPSS hardware is grossly misunderstood. Although hardly a major system, GPSS is considered an accessory that plays a huge part in total autopilot automation. Impressively, it emulates the tight performance found with big-airplane inertial navigational systems.
|
|
Silver Eagle P210: A Turbine That Works
By Paul Bertorelli
The turbine engine is impossibly alluring. No thrashing pistons, grinding cams, clicking valves—just far fewer exquisitely balanced parts all whirring in the same direction. But turbines are expensive and they guzzle fuel, which means that with very few exceptions, they don’t work well in small airplanes. One of those exceptions is O&N Aircraft’s re-engining of the Cessna P210 and 210 with the Rolls Royce (formerly Allison) 250-B17F/2 turbine engine, a powerplant that’s been around awhile and one that Rolls is trying to evolve into more GA applications with the advent of a new version, the RR500. Mooney expressed interest in that engine, but thus far, the project hasn’t materialized and it may not for the same reasons that turbines have stumbled before: difficult-to-manage fuel specifics and small airframes with no place to put the fuel.
|
| | |
