While flight tracking systems (FTS) have historically been integral to air carrier and corporate flight ops, New Zealand-based Spidertracks gained traction in the GA market in 2010 with its model S3 portable satellite tracking unit. The Spidertracks is a simple concept. Utilizing aviation-grade hardware, combined with low bandwidth data connections and data delivered over satellite, […]
It’s that subject we pilots don’t really want to think about—and often only speak of in hushed tones: Do we really have a fighting chance if we have to stuff the airplane into someplace that doesn’t even remotely resemble a runway? The answer is that yes, we do have a good chance of surviving a […]
That high-quality smartphone pic you shot of the overcast layer as you climbed on top makes for a good Facebook post, but it’s even better as part of a PIREP. That’s what a new app called Virga does. Think of it as the social media of PIREPs, and it’s growing users for good reason. MORE […]
I’ve long-term tested every model of Garmin’s D2 aviator watch since the first in 2013, and as reported in the November 2022 issue of Aviation Consumer, of them all the D2 Air is arguably Garmin’s best attempt at a watch for aviator athletes. It’s just the right size, has a feature set that’s easy to […]
Thanks to the internet allowing me to work from anywhere that has a high-speed connection, my wife and I have chosen to live in the mountains near a very user-friendly, general aviation airport (Boundary County, Idaho, 65S). That means that we spend time flying into backcountry airports, boating on remote lakes and hiking where we […]
Portable satcom communicators are a worthy addition to the survival gear when cell coverage quits. Press the SOS button and a response center will dispatch first responders to the rescue. But today’s portable locator devices, or PLDs, take the rescue process to a better level with text capability through an app. Staying in touch with […]
If you’re building an aircraft from a kit, you probably agonize over which avionics to go with. But almost as important as the avionics suite is the electrical distribution bus that powers them—and the other electrical systems on the aircraft. If you come from the certified aircraft world, you’re used to the old-school mechanical circuit […]
Well-run avionics shops know how to manage the time-burning and important task of building custom panels. And demand is so high—and schedules so far behind—that many shops sub the work to third-party panel builders. The benefit to the customer is a finished metal panel that’s highly custom, even sporting slick styling that nicely complements interior […]
If you’re doing your own routine maintenance—and if you’re not, why not?—you’re going to need a means to open your canister oil filter after every oil change. There are choices on the market, and each design seems to follow a slightly different philosophy, even if the desired result is much the same: Cut the base […]
If you put the brakes on a big avionics upgrade because of the eye-watering price and lead time, you likely considered used equipment. In normal times that might not be a bad plan, but the market isn’t exactly what I consider normal. Have prices of pre-owned electronics skyrocketed as they have for aircraft? You bet […]
We see plenty of fuel exhaustion events in the NTSB wreck reports, and we suspect some might have been avoided with fuel totalizers. These are valuable devices, especially when interfaced with panel GPS navigators, because you’ll always know how much fuel you’ll have to a given waypoint in the flight plan. Better yet, if your […]
In a connected world with everyone wearing earbuds, it’s logical to consider an in-ear headset for the cockpit. Although they aren’t for everyone, if you haven’t tried them, you should. While flagship ANR models from Bose and Lightspeed deliver big on comfort and performance, we’ve long appreciated the freedom and decent audio quality from a […]
