Industry News

Cirrus Accidents
I have an aerospace manufacturing background and when I went to the Cirrus factory last spring, I was impressed with the manufacturing discipline and the redundant fail-safe features of the design.

They have done a lot to assure that the systems are easy to learn and very pilot friendly. This will sell a lot of airplanes. The Cirrus is a delight to fly and most everything about it is attractive.

But the fact that you are told not to spin it, and if you do, to use the ballistic chute, is a serious problem, in my opinion. At best, IFR flying for a low-time pilot is a challenge. Recovery from unusual attitudes is part of the IFR agenda.

Also, many pilo…

How Toyota plans to seize the world GA market. Cessna and Piper should be listening; these guys may be serious.

Diesel Pro/Con
In case you didnt know, diesels are not good for airplanes because they are too heavy. We are going to read a stream of articles in which researchers will be obfuscating the weight (comparable to a typical….) or fudging the power (125 HP, but it is just as good as..)

Of course, what counts is the sum of the weight of the powerplant and the fuel, and that brings us to the next point. The fuel economy of a diesel under constant load is only marginally better than that of a gasoline engine. (Remember the Continental Malibu burning 14 GPH when extreme leaned?)

If we are doing this because we have to burn Jet-A, someone should whip up a 150 HP gas turb…

Cellular Comments
We greatly appreciated your excellent article on satellite and cellular communications for pilots in the June issue of Aviation Consumer.

As we prepared for the flight of the New Spirit of St. Louis, we initially planned to use Iridium equipment primarily as a substitute for heavier and less reliable HF communications over the ocean. However, during our domestic test flights and transcontinental flights, we quickly became convinced of the tremendous utility satellite communication offers all pilots.

We were so impressed with the Iridium unit and services that we acquired through Blue Sky Network, of LaJolla, California, ( Read More »

CO Sniffers
I enjoyed the article on the CO sensors in your July issue. I have had a Senco low-level monitor for eight months and have found it easy to use in my PA 28-180.

I have spoken to several other owners of CO monitors and we all get low levels of CO on taxi/ground operations. I have recently purchased one of the little air scoops that fold out of the pilots storm window and I have found that if I use it, there’s enough clean air from the propeller slipstream to keep my reading at zero or actually < 10 PPM based on the limitations of the sensor.

As an emergency physician, I realize that a short exposure to low-level CO is probably not a big issue, but it su…

Lake AD
I can sympathize with Lake Aircraft in the dilemma you reported on in your May 2002 issue. I can only imagine the amount of money invested in the parts inventory.

But it occurs to me that no matter how long it took to raise its ugly head, this problem appears to be caused by a deficiency in the design. If so, that is a Lake problem.

It also occurs to me that accepting the FAAs terms of the AD and agreeing to purchase all the required inventory was a bad management decision. Lake should have negotiated a better agreement on the AD.

Expecting the owners of these aircraft to pay the exorbitant costs of the parts is not realistic. If Airtech Canada can make a pr…

Cirrus Cruise
I enjoyed reading your article comparing the Ovation, SR22 and Columbia airplanes in the May issue of Aviation Consumer. I have owned a Cirrus SR22 for seven months and 180 hours and can state categorically that you have underestimated themodels cruise speed.

I usually cruise between 8000 and 11,000 feet and I have never seenthe 165 KTAS cruise you cite in your article. In contrast, I typically see 182 KTAS when operating ROP and burning 17 GPH or 173 KTAS when LOP at 13 GPH.To save fuel and reduce stress on the engine, I favor LOP operation in cruise.

My typical IFR trip between San Francisco and Orange Countytakes 2 hours and consumes 29 to 30…

In a breathtaking example of bad PR, a patent firm goes after Lake owners for an AD-required part. Whats an owner to do?

More on Covers
Thank you for your article on aircraft covers. I wanted to share my experiences with Bruces Custom Covers. Their product is wonderful and their willingness to customize is superb.

However, in an attempt to cover my entire aircraft, their customer service was poor and their phone manner abrupt, as though they were really busy.I suggested that every one of the fuselage and wing covers I had seen fit well, but were poorly strapped and flopped around in the wind.

I suggested a wide Velcro modification, going insofar as to purchase the materials and send them to Bruces. They were not interested, sounded mildly annoyed and far too busy to explore the possibil…

Small turboprops don’t work we’ll because they cant haul enough gas. Can Eclipse rewrite the rules?

Eclipse may be the newest personal jet, but William Lear pioneered the idea. Heres what Lear Jr. thinks of the new breed.

More Notes on Relief
Heres a comment on your recent article on personal relief devices. Unless we own the miraculous airplane of hangar talk, we all generate a lot of waste containers: Oil bottles.

Purchase a pack of purse-size Kleenex and a plastic automatic transmission filler funnel. Those will make a cheap and handy disposal system, at least as handy as the others and easier to find than the large mouth soda bottles.Get an ATF funnel that will fit into the oil bottle and trim the bottom so that the funnel fits tightly into the bottle neck, that is, it wont bottom out.Trim the top of the funnel to the height and angle that best fits the plumbing with the bottle…