I read the portable oxygen concentrator article in the June 2017 Aviation Consumer with interest because my wife has a lung deficiency and has needed O2 when we fly above 6000 feet. We have been using the Aerox system, but she says it dries her nose.
Given its European roots, Diamond came at the DA40s design as sort of a hybridbetween the sleek glass gliders the company started out producing when it was Hoffmann Flugzeugbau and more traditional aircraft U.S. customers are accustomed to. This yielded what we think can arguably be called a world airplane.
The Gold Wing in the main photo was shot at Honda Aircraft Companys massive headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Its the first thing you see when entering the main lobby, and presumably its there as an important reminder of Hondas heritage. In 1946, Soichiro Honda established the Honda Technical Research Institute to develop machine tools and engines. In 2017, the brand name is delivering an ultramodern jet. For motorheads and curious consumers alike, the Honda timeline of milestones is an interesting read.
There are good reasons to make oxygen available at altitudes less than those recommended by the FAA. Face it, unless youre using a pulse oximeter on every flight (we certainly don’t when flying at lower altitudes), you don’t really know how your physiology is reacting on a given day. We think blood oxygen saturation is an important biometric to keep on top of.
Diamond Aircraft CEO Christian Dries is nothing if not a pragmatist, albeit an adventurous one. At Aprils Aero in Friedrichshafen, Germany, he showed both sides of the same coin when he announced three new single-engine piston models, one powered by an untried new gasoline engine from Lycoming. The latter even he concedes is an admission of sorts. The diesel engines Diamond has championed for 15 years havent fared we’ll in the high-performance single-engine market simply because the power options havent been there.
For the 2017 model year, Cirrus released the G6 SR20, which gets both an avionics upgrade and a new IO-390 Lycoming engine. Cirrus said its decision to re-engine the entry-level SR20 is significant for a couple of reasons. For one, it plans to aggressively market the aircraft to fleet operators whove expressed a strong preference for a four-cylinder Lycoming over a six-cylinder Continental. Moreover, the IO-390 substantially reduces weight, while also stretching the TBO for high-use operations.
There are very good reasons for not permitting the use of portable ADS-B Out devices and to retain the TSOs as they currently exist. Starting in 2020, ADS-B will be the primary mode of ATC surveillance, and will largely replace the current ATCRBS (ATC radar beacon system, with portions of the ATCRBS retained as a backup). Portable ADS-B Out devices suffer from some major limitations, including reliability of powering, RF radiation pattern nulling and attenuation resulting from the antenna being inside the aircraft. There’s also the lack of connection to the aircraft static system.
Weve long urged aircraft owners to retrofit shoulder harnesses for all seats of their airplanes if at all possible. The simple reason is that a restraint system that keeps your head and upper torso from smacking into the instrument panel or seat in front of you during an accident sequence is the single most effective mod you can make to your airplane to radically increase the chance of everyone aboard surviving an accident.
If youve been waiting for a cheaper FAA-approved retrofit autopilot you might not have to wait much longer. In fact, you can even have your shop begin the installation. This past April, both TruTrak Flight Systems and Trio Avionics came to Sun n Fun with STC approvals on the installation hardware and wiring harnesses for experimental autopilots.
Touring either Lycomings factory in Williamsport or Continentals in Mobile is like a stroll through time. Cheek by jowl with ancient hand-operated machine tools are modern CNC machining centers that would be at home in a Ford or GM plant. In late March, Continental revealed that its ready to scrap the old stuff for good.
Is there a value proposition in an airplane that cruises two-thirds as fast as a near million-dollar Cirrus, uses only one-quarter the fuel and costs one-fifth as much? The Bristell LSA, an Eastern European import were examining here, certainly tests the notion. Like the Tecnam Astore we reviewed in the January 2017 issue, the Bristell NG5 stretches the slow-simple-cheap ethos of the light sport airplane to the breaking point. Given its sophisticated avionics, high cruising speed and attention to interior and baggage space, the Bristell is clearly conceived as a high-end traveling machine, not a bump-around-the-pattern flivver.
In February 2016, Garmin purchased Maine-based DeLorme-the maker of topo maps and the inReach portable two-way Iridium-based satcomm navigator. The inReach tech was a good score for Garmin because it has a place in multiple markets including aviation, outdoor and marine.
