Aircraft Stepups

Download the Full June 2010 Issue PDF

Download the Full May 2010 Issue PDF

Its interesting to watch brilliantly engineered avionics grow stale.Two years is middle aged for panel gizmos and four years is geriatric. Avidynes popular and feature-rich EX500 is trickle-down technology from the grander EX5000 Entegra MFD. Pilots now demanded more from an MFD than EX500 can offer. Avidynes answer is the EX600. Call it an EX500 on steroids if you want, but we call it a much-needed improvement and a lease on life, perhaps for a year or two. Upgrade pricing from an EX500 is fair, but buying a new EX600 is pricey and installation could be a challenge in tight radio stacks as the bigger EX600 demands more vertical space. Heres a closer look.

Download the Full March 2010 Issue PDF

Download the Full February 2010 Issue PDF

It was close to midnight and after a long day of flying we were cooked. A couple miles out something just didnt look right. If not for the landing light reflecting off the trees, we might not be here to review cockpit lighting upgrades. The instrument-panel lighting in that 70s-vintage Arrow was so poor we cranked in the wrong altimeter setting-misreading a two for a three in the Kollsman window. There’s no reason to live with (or risk death due to) substandard cockpit lighting. Panel upgrades require skill and a decent budget. The good news is there are several options to light up your night.

We saw several examples of upgrades where one or a few of the aircraft partners shouldered the whole cost because they felt passionate about the need. One of these was a $27,000 avionics upgrade-not exactly chump change. Other partnerships ended because of unresolved differences in what an airplane needed. Similar comments came up about maintenance-all members must have the same philosophy, be it fix it now or shop on eBay.

Operating on the premise that good airframes are forever, companies have, from time to time, offered major upgrades and mods that turn the old into the new. Some have been successful, such as RAM Aircrafts twin Cessna engine upgrades or Rocket Engineerings Malibu turbine redo, but many have not. Its not that the upgrades don’t perform, but that buyers just don’t sense an obvious price/value connection. This conundrum frames the challenge that a new company called Next Dimension Aircraft will face in introducing whats one of the most ambitious mod projects weve seen to date. We define “ambitious” as a modification whose costs come close to or exceed the value of the airframe.

Composite materials are not news in general aviation applications. Their traditional advantages-less weight, often-greater strength and relative ease in forming complex shapes-are well-known. Those characteristics, coupled with reduced need for skilled labor to, say, build a wing or fuselage when compared to traditional manufacturing methods make them ideal for aviation applications. And, thanks to Cirrus, Diamond and Lancair/Columbia, along with hordes of experimental designers and LSA manufacturers, its the exception these days for a new aircraft design to be constructed entirely from metal. While its not likely we’ll see a non-metallic propeller hub anytime soon, composite prop blades are readily available right now for many engine/airframe combinations and have been for a few years. Both Hartzell and MT Propellers offer composite blades for constant-speed models-MT also offers fixed- and controllable-pitch props-and Sensenich markets a line of ground-adjustable non-metal props for LSAs and experimentals. But, weve been using metal and wood to build props for years: Why go with a composite prop? What benefits do composites offer when made into a propeller and how do the offerings from these three companies differ? How do they compare to wood or metal props, and can you save any money over the long haul by going composite?

Amphibious LSAs are like a cold ice cream cone on a hot summer day: Nobody really needs one, but once youve had a taste, you really, really want one. But practicality is a matter of perspective. Having the option to drop in on a lake or river and pull up to the local fish shack for lunch makes for some serious recreation. Having the option to use most any airport for, hangaring, refueling or maintenance is seriously convenient. Youll pay for that flexibility with a slower cruise and some added complexity of retractable gear. Hey, you cant have everything. Kerry Richter, president of Progressive Aerodyne, started building hang gliders in high school and was working on ultralights by the late 70s. The first Searey (known as the A model) was available as a kit in 1992, with the B and C models following in 1996 and 2002. The latest model is the Searey LSX / Sport. The LSX is the kit version. The Sport is a ready-to-fly S-LSA. The Searey still looks a bit like an ultralight, in our opinion. This image is dispelled once you get your hands on the aircraft. Aileron, elevator and flap controls are all pushrod and torque tube. Many of the connections are exposed for easy preflight. The wing is cloth over aluminum for weight savings, and ease of detailed inspection and repair should you run it into a dock piling. Other nice pluses are standard LED lights and an electric bilge pump. We liked the heavy switches and clean panel layout. It even has cabin heat, despite the distance to the engine.

Taken in order of expense, airframe upgrades rank like this: engine overhauls, paint jobs and interiors. Of the three, only interiors yields to the do-it-yourselfer owner whos willing to tackle a job that turns out to be easier than it may appear. For 60 years, AirTex, a Pennsylvania-based company specializing in custom interiors, has mined the vein of owners willing to tackle an interior on their own. Our interior shop customer surveys have consistently revealed owner satisfaction with AirTex products, but very few complaints. Also, some questions: Whats the quality like and can an all-thumbs owner really install what AirTex makes? To find out, we recently trekked to AirTexs Fallsington, Pennsylvania factory to have a look. AirTex is one of a few dozen vendors in the industry who have been at it seemingly forever. The company traces its history back to 1949, when founder Al Stretch migrated from the famed Irvin Air Chute Company to begin manufacturing pre-sewn fabric wing and fuselage envelopes for the post-war light aircraft industry, which was booming. By the mid-1950s, as that business gave way to more metal-covered aircraft, Stretch expanded the business to begin manufacturing custom interiors for the do-it-yourself trade, which turned out to be fairly sizeable.

Getting approach plates to play on portable electronic devices has proven to be a round peg in a square hole. Several companies have tried to crack this nut, but it seems to defy an elegant why-didnt-I-think-of-that solution that resonates with everyone. The latest effort is to adapt Amazons much hyped Kindle e-reader to the task of being a chart library, something it was never designed to do but can actually manage with a reasonable degree of grace. A company called Gold Seal Ventures through its Web outlet www.airbrief.com will launch this product formally at EAA AirVenture in July. They sent us an advance unit for a first look and although were favorably impressed, perfection still eludes. Amazon has made ripples in the publishing world with its Kindle e-reader, a device thats sold as being so-called electronic paper. Kindles are among a class of products that have electrophoretic displays that use minutely charged particles re-arranged on a plastic substrate to produce readable images and text. The process is somewhat like the old Etch-A-Sketch toys we had as kids, but instead of a couple of X-Y knobs, the process is done rapidly by applying selective voltages to the screen to rearrange ink particles into type and rudimentary images.