The day of the rental Id scheduled through OpenAirplane with Orchard Beach Aviation in Manistee, Michigan, was bitterly cold and deliriously clear. Id reviewed the local briefing for Orchard Beach Aviation, nevertheless, on arriving at the airport it took me a few minutes to figure out the FBO was in the terminal building.
When youre traveling and want to rent a car, so long as youre 25 or older, have a drivers license and a credit card, its a piece of cake. But for airplanes, almost without exception, the reality has been that if you want to do some flying while away from home base, you have to go through the local FBO or flight schools checkout to rent one of its aircraft. That means at least two or three hours and $300 before you can take the family for a ride-a pretty daunting obstacle.
I always enjoy reading Aviation Consumer, and it was nice to see the article on survival kits in your February 2015 issue. I wont pick the article apart and go into what should have been included, but it would be nice to see future articles on survival kits for different geographical regions, such as the tropics, the desert and so forth because each area has its own challenges.
Piper Cubs are known for a lot of things, but good brakes arent among them, at least if were talking OEM equipment. Our pre-war Cub had the original expander tube brakes that, although rebuilt and we’ll maintained, worked sporadically we’ll at best.
Using its experience building patented motorcycle racing brakes, wheels and forks, French manufacturer Beringer Aero brings modern braking technology to small aircraft with a new line of bolt-on brake components and wheels. Said to be the lightest brakes and wheels available for small aircraft, Beringers components are now used by several OEMs, including Cirrus, Diamond and Pilatus, in addition to a long list of LSA and experimental kit manufacturers. The product line is unique because it includes an anti-skid feature, plus wheels that accommodate tubeless tire installations. We took a close look at Beringers line of brakes and wheels for LSA applications at this years U.S. Sport Aviation Expo, and also sampled its larger braking system in a new Cirrus. We think the technology represents the next generation of aircraft brakes.
I read with interest your article on the FAA and the new Part 23 revision in the December 2014 issue of Aviation Consumer, and would like to share my experience of obtaining STC certification and PMA approval.
For the better part of the last decade, the aviation industry has been talking about a revised version of FAR 23 that would streamline and simplify aircraft certification, theoretically slowing the sharp rise in the cost of new aircraft. Yet two years after the Congress passed legislation requiring the FAA to complete the Part 23 revision by 2015, the FAA says it wont meet the deadline. Even the Europeans are baffled by this delay; industry sources say Europe is far ahead of the U.S. in implementing these changes.
Since many aftermarket products are certified under AML STC (thats blanket approval for a large number of aircraft models), the demand for FAA field approvals has lessened over recent years, but the process is complex. Field approvals require sizable amounts of paperwork and coordination on the part of the installer, while the aircraft owner absorbs the cost and downtime. Shops we talked with are frustrated with the process.
In our review of the 100 most recent Cessna 310 NTSB accident reports, landing gear problems led the list. There were 25 reported gear-related events, 20 of which were collapses. There were probably more because gear-up landings arent always reported-they almost never cause enough damage to meet the NTSB definition of a reportable accident.
We’ll attempt to answer that in a bit. First, a history refresher. When buyers were looking for a modern alternative to the Garmin GNS530 somewhere around 2008, all eyes were on the BendixKing KSN770. The brochures made it look like the retrofit navigator that would put the sleeping BendixKing back on track and a jogging Garmin sprinting to the engineering lab. The system was everything the market was calling for—airways, VGA display, touchscreen, radar overlay, plus the rugged hardware that BendixKing was known for. Unfortunately, it was years in the making and the market didn’t sit still.
After talking with brake manufacturers and maintenance technicians about their experiences with aircraft brakes over a combined total of more than 100 years, we distilled that experience down to a list of simple things pilots and owners can do to get the most out of their brakes while saving money. [IMGCAP(1)]Include the brakes on the preflight—even if they’re covered by wheel pants, look at the condition of the visible parts and check for corrosion, cracks…
Given today’s avionics and RNAV approaches, do you really need a timer? Truth is, many of the devices in our panels and on our portable gadgets already have a timer built in. Using that timer, however, can be a challenge as the sequence of commands to access it in the Garmin G1000, for instance, might not be something you’re going to always remember or find sufficiently convenient. So, we think a dedicated, standalone timer is still useful. Sure, you could use the timer function in your smartphone, on the Pebble Smart watch or the one in Garmin’s D2 pilot watch, but we think timers are best placed within the instrument scan.
