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Jeppesens vision of the future is a paperless cockpit, a vision that has, thus far, eluded most pilots and owners we know.

Nonetheless, as one step on the road to this future, Jeppesen will soon release a new product called the Skybound Datawriter, which will make it possible to electronically transmit monthly updates from your computer directly to the datacard that fits into your GPS.

Its designed as an alternative to the present system of receiving new data cards by mail every 28 days. Datawriter users will have two options: New updates can be mailed on a CD every four weeks or they can be downloaded from Jeppesens Web site.

Jeppesen plans full release of th…

[IMGCAP(1)]Heres a surprise: An aircraft lead-acid battery is designed to last 10 to 12 years, not the two to three years most of use as a replacement cycle. Insiders in the battery industry say that a lead/acid battery contains enough reactive material (lead) to last at least five times as long as most do.

So the loaded question is why don’t batteries last longer. Why do they seem to peter out and die in 36 months or so?

The reason may be twofold. One is that aircraft batteries suffer through long periods of disuse and the other is that the natural enemy of all lead-acid batteries is something called plate sulfation, which is thought to account for 80 percent of all battery failu…

[IMGCAP(1)]Among all the things that can break in an airplane, autopilots are the most perplexing and potentially expensive, short of the engine.For years, they labor without complaint, dutifully holding heading and minding altitude. Then all of a sudden, the pitch control goes a little crazy or the needle tracking gets sloppy. Maybe its just a corroded connection or a tired servo. Then again, maybe not. Autopilots have a deserved reputation for being difficult and expensive to repair. At some point, you have to ask yourself if the box is worth fussing with one more time or replacing.

The truth is that late model autopilots-the Bendix/King KAPs and KFC or the Century 41s-are almost alw…

[IMGCAP(1)]Owning a New Piper Mirage has proven a bittersweet experience for many pilots. While the airplane is a comfortable, high-flying cruiser, its complex and has a reputation for being needy of maintenance.

Even at that, however, Mirage owners were recently treated to some disturbing news that has both New Piper and Lycoming looking for improvements, although both dispute the results of a recent survey indicating poor engine reliability in Mirages.

In the meantime, a Dallas Mirage owner filed a $75 million class action lawsuit against New Piper in late September, claiming that New Piper and Lycoming knew of the Mirages engine problems for years but did nothing to correct the…

[IMGCAP(1)]Winter flying in the northern tier is not for sissies. The ideal winter attire for occupants of my 1960s Bonanza is a pair of snowmobile pants and a t-shirt.

The stock heating system is woefully inadequate to warm a front seaters lower extremities during below-zero operations, while the greenhouse cockpit can create shoulder-high temperatures in 70s and 80s on a sunny winters flight. At night, the airplane is bone shatteringly cold, something thats not unusual for those of us who fly in extremely cold conditions.

Like all single-engine piston operators, I can warm up the cockpit a bit with a roll of Duct tape, masking wing root vents and air intakes. New gaskets for the…

[IMGCAP(1)]Whether due to good design, unique market attributes or just plain luck, some airplanes seem destined to survive the worst, only to reemerge in yet another iteration.

Such is definitely the case with the Grumman AA-5 Tiger, a model that had more ups and downs than a yo-yo but one that seems to endure, thanks in large part to a loyal owner following.

Even as Tigers remain popular on the used market, Tiger LLC, a new start-up company in Martinsburg, West Virginia and financed by the government of Taiwan, stands poised to resurrect the model yet again, promising to produce the first new Tiger by the fall of 2000.

And this wont be a revised or improved Tiger, but substanti…

CO Detectors
Aeromedix would like to make the following comments in reference to your excellent article about carbon monoxide detectors. Over the two-year period during which Aeromedix.com has sold thousands of AIM CO detectors for in-aircraft use, the failure rate has been approximately 1.5 percent.

The AIM detectors fail more often than other models not because they are of lower quality, but because they are of higher quality. The AIM detectors are the only units that test their own electrochemical CO sensor daily, and provide an alert if the sensor has drifted out of calibration.

All CO detectors with electrochemical sensors (the only sensor technology we believe sui…

[IMGCAP(1)]In the world of little airplanes, its all but a given that technology has stood frozen in time since the mid-1960s. The shining exception is avionics. Thanks to GPS and (relatively) cheap color displays, the modern high-dollar IFR panel makes the host airframe seem positively Jurassic.

But even within the rosy world of airplane electronics, there’s an exception: Collision avoidance equipment. While GPS-even color GPS-is we’ll within the budget of the common hangar dweller, electronic collision avoidance is not. Consider this: Even a basic electronic traffic avoidance system-say the Ryan 8800 TCAD-could easily double the cost of a mid-range avionics upgrade, without providing…

Skywatch and TCAD
Your article on the Ryan TCAD and the Argus map system was excellent and should help anyone trying to make a decision on whether or not to buy a collision avoidance system.

I have flown with both the TCAD 9000 and switched over to Skywatch last year. All your observations are right on. I have also noticed that the Skywatch is the only instrument my passengers ever look at.

I have only one comment comparing the two systems: I believe the TCAD system is a bit more passive than Skywatch. I believe TCAD can onlywork if the other aircraft is illuminated by radar. This is not so with Skywatch. I fly in Mexico and I can tell you that TCAD is almost…