Editorial

Our editors choice awards are all about innovation and value. As we look back at the last 12 issues of Aviation Consumer, we find no shortage of credible products, especially in the ADS-B and aircraft consumable markets. But no single product or company stood out for being the most innovative.So to keep our high standards in check, we wont hand out an award for product or company of the year. Instead, we’ll present a combination of a dozen products and companies that we believe deserve equal recognition for being the best of the best.

There might be, but only if you fly an airliner. I wouldnt count on an extension of the 2020 ADS-B equipage mandate for the rest of us. The airlines (through the organization Airlines for America, A4A) have proposed a five-year transition period for complying with the mandate because it says there arent enough retrofit equipment options to equip its airplanes by 2020. Specifically, these are ADS-B-compatible transponders and the WAAS GPS receivers required to interface with them.

Thats what Mooney is looking for with its proof of concept M10T, which was on display for the first time at Sun n Fun in Lakeland, Florida, this past April. If youre a hard-core Mooney enthusiast, you get it. Mooniacs are a manically enthusiastic bunch and if it werent for the demand to support the speedsters they fly, the company might not be here today. Mooney was established in 1929 and cranked out over 11,000 M-series aircraft.

That was proven at this years National Training Aircraft Symposium held at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The annual event gathered alphabet group leaders, aircraft and avionics manufacturers, and educators from many major aviation colleges and universities. The major focus at this years NTAS event was addressing the challenges of equipping the training fleet for the 2020 ADS-B mandate. But it was also an opportunity for a sales pitch.

Amid all of the buzz surrounding the announcement of L-3 Aviations low-cost NGT-1000 ADS-B solution, Ive been talking with avionics shops to see just how realistic its estimated $3000 installed price will be. You can read all about the entire L-3 Lynx ADS-B product line-which has plenty of options at multiple price points-on page 11 of this issue. But based on my discussions with experienced installers, L-3s entry-level NGT-1000 ADS-B Out system isn’t exactly the cure-all for mass, mandate compliance, and that has as much to do with the real costs of installation as it does tightening competition. Good shops consider this, and so should you. An ADS-B project can be the perfect setup for sizable cost overruns and buyer remorse.

Affordable aircraft is the name of a developing niche market that made its debut at this years U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida. The annual LSA show was even rebranded the Affordable Aircraft Expo, and includes older Part 23 certified airplanes fully or partially rebuilt to like-new standards. If it sounds like competition for the LSA market, it is. Sacrificing high-end avionics in favor of basic steam-gauge instruments and minimal radio stacks can drop the price of a basic refurbed model below the critical $100,000 price point-a target that many advanced LSA models miss.

There are seemingly more signs of stability in the avionics market with Scottsdale, Arizona-based TKM/Michel Avionics under new leadership. It says it has an improved product line and is currently planning the next generation of slide-in replacement navcomms, while it ratchets up support for existing units in service-roughly 37,000 radios.

As a motorcyclist, Ive been watching with interest new electric motorcycle technology. With e-bikes, its easy to hit high points in styling, handling and even speed, but endurance is another matter. Most models don’t appeal to road trippers and performance riders, but there is some interest for short urban commuting. Pondering Harley-Davidsons LiveWire electric model, it has plenty of cool-factor to consider adding it to a collection, but as a primary rider, I think its going to be a tough sell. If thats the case, it might appear the Motor Company has a marketing challenge on its hands. Heck, the old-school Harley demographic still resists liquid-cooled engines.

My recent month-long correspondence with a reader dealing with a botched ADS-B installation got me thinking about the logistic nightmare thats already unfolding as the 2020 ADS-B mandate gets closer. More on how you might troubleshoot your installation, or at least figure out if its working or not, in a minute. First, some updated ADS-B stats.

On the heels of the suspected decompression and hypoxia-related TBM900 crash that took the life of Larry Glazer, the president of the TBM Owners and Pilots Association, and his wife Jane Glazer, a non-pilot physician asked if there are onboard systems that monitor the health of a pilot’s body during flight. That got me thinking. With all of the available avionics integration, why not include body health monitoring in the interface? You know, important stuff like blood pressure, heart rate, pulse and of course oxygen saturation levels.

A non-pilot recently asked me if 14 years since new was old for a Cirrus. I didn’t have to pause when answering that it certainly is not. But after thinking about it for a while, it occurred to me that while the modern composite design of a Cirrus—or Diamond or Columbia—may still seem new even after 14 years, the earlier models in the fleet are indeed aging. When these mass-production composites came to market, there was much speculation on how the airframes would hold up and how difficult they would be to service when they break. Owners of earlier models are now finding out.

A recent spirited discussion with Frank Bowlin, my counterpart at sister publication IFR magazine, got me thinking about the largely ignored aftermarket avionics training market. Bowlin pointed out that a sizable part of the critical training market is underserved, and we missed an opportunity to expose this industry failure in the glass cockpit training article in the June 2014 issue of Aviation Consumer.