Cockpit Accessories

AeroVonics has in mind inexpensive replacements for vacuum instruments with its AV-20 and AV-30 self-contained multifunction instruments. The $800 AV-20 fits into a 2-inch instrument hole-the size of a typical clock-and provides 11 discrete functions, including attitude, AoA, bus voltage, flight timer, TAS display, G-meter and a clock. There are actually two versions of the instrument. The AV-20 is a minimal variant that doesnt have the gyro sensing. It will sell for about $499. The AV-20S packs all the features. We saw the instrument demonstrated at AirVenture and although it appeared to have some sort of extraordinarily sharp display, AeroVonics Jeff Bethel says no, its just a garden-variety TFT. But the AV-20s software tweaks the graphic processing at the sub-pixel level, giving the instrument dense colors and smooth refreshes.

I always think of AirVenture as the last chance, final frontier when it comes to product marketing and this year my eyes were laser focused on Honeywell and its BendixKing division. Once the king of all avionics, BendixKing has been, as we say around the office, the lost ball in tall grass, with a history of unveiling prototypes of fresh products that ultimately end up stalled in a long certification process. The KI300 retrofit EFIS display unveiled several years ago, which is the proposed replacement for the ancient KI256 mechanical flight director, is only one example.

The fatal accidents we have had fall into two categories: typical accidents and rather unusual and unexplained ones. I have participated in almost every one of these NTSB investigations, gaining 30 years of experience with these airplanes, including a time when the company was manufacturing kits. The time period between 2014 and 2017 was rough for Flight Design and 2016 in particular was a witching hour for the whole S-LSA industry, with almost three times the statistical average of the years before and after. As was said, the fleet numbers, particularly by type, are so small that there is a lot of uncertainly in the ability to predict much from the raw data.

A clean-sheet design with STOL capability, the Kodiak initially catered to humanitarian groups that needed to get in and out of tight and unimproved strips. It carries a sizable payload (upward of 3500 pounds and roughly 2500 with floats), seats up to 10 people and most important, it runs on Jet-A for operating in places where 100LL is impossible to get, and of course to up the ante in reliability and operating simplicity. Quest chose the 750-HP Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34. It has a 4000-hour TBO-which at the time was the most widely produced single-stage variant of the PT6A-making worldwide field support even easier.

Aside from connecting to an iPad running the IFD100 app, which adds a second IFD550 display/control set, the navigator connects to a Bluetooth keypad as another option for data entry. Its standard on every IFD model and adds to the choices of how you interact with the navigator. There’s the native hybrid touch, knobs and keys, plus you can interact with the navigator from the iPad and remote keyboard. It really caters to a wide variety of users

An intercoolers goal is fairly simple: Reduce induction air temperature. If you had a simple Ideal Gas Law PV=nRT compressor, the simple fact of compressing gas (in this case, ambient air) from, say, 10 PSIA and 23 F (at roughly 10,000 feet) back to sea level pressure of 14.7 PSIG would heat the gas. But, in addition to that ideal gas behavior, our turbocharger compressors have other inefficiencies, like internal recirculation and heat transfer from the cowling environment, that heat the gas further. Its not uncommon to see compressor discharge temperatures (CDT) over 200 degrees F at middle altitudes and over 300 F in the flight levels.

In our July issue we published a survey of some of the tugs on the market that are suitable for moving airplanes weighing less than 6000 pounds. We reported on 20 tugs put out by seven manufacturers and found that electric models had come to dominate the field. We somehow managed to overlook one manufacturer: Best Tugs (www.besttugs.com) of Spanish Fork, Utah. Best Tugs offers three sophisticated electric tugs that fall within our under-6000-pound area of interest.

• LSA ACCIDENT REVIEW
• CESSNA HD T206H
• MULTI-ENGINE RATINGS
• AIRTEXT LT SATCOMM
• UNLEADED AVGAS
• USED PIPER PA-46

If youre in the market for a used Piper PA-46, the good news is there are plenty of them for the taking, plus the oldest ones can be found for around $200,000. Moreover, a Malibu, Mirage or Matrix can wear a lot of hats. For pilots looking for experience in high-altitude, pressurized flying, a Malibu or Mirage is a logical step up. The unpressurized Matrix, with the same cabin as the rest of the PA-46 line, works as a comfortable people hauler with more simplicity and perhaps lower maintenance costs than its pressurized brethren.

Wear anti-slip footwear that provides solid footing. Youll likely be working with stepladders, perhaps while balancing wash brushes that can damage control surfaces and antennas should you slip. The hangar floor gets slick. Ours was slickened from runoff and nine overflowing wash buckets filled with the proper mixture of soap and water. As we learned, some of the stronger washes work best when undiluted, while serious degreasing and stain removal mean applying the cleaner straight from the bottle. We tried those first.

Bad Elf also suggested that flyGarmin customers who want to use the Wombat wait until the subscription has expired and then switch to the Jeppesen JDM because the cost is nearly the same and it will allow them to use the Wombat for remote avionics data updates. Worth mentioning is that Garmins Flight Stream 510 wireless card that performs a similar function (plus a variety of other ones, including flight plan transfer and data overlay) is in the $1500 price range, compared to the $250 Wombat piston model.

Youve probably heard that the FAA, through its datalink weather service and support contractor Harris Corporation, is adding new weather products to the subscription-free FIS-B ADS-B data thats broadcast to UAT/978 MHz ADS-B receivers. Since the rollout was scheduled for June 2018, like others I cranked up my portable ADS-B receiver and tablet app, but didnt see the new lightning, turbulence, icing, cloud tops, G-AIRMETs and center weather advisories that are part of the new ADS-B In data. Without sampling the new weather products yet-including the planned new radar data that will replace the current Nexrad-its not fair to say the second-gen FIS-B stream will be a SiriusXM subscription killer, but based on the lineup of expected data its quite possible. Turns out implementing the new weather products isn’t as easy as I thought it might be, but it will likely be worth the wait.