My airplane partner and I are upgrading the radios in our piston single to bring them into the present century and to comply with the ADS-B mandate. After much thought and discussion, we decided on Avidynes IFD540 box you reviewed in the March issue. Avidynes AeroPlan extended warranty plan offers a free warranty extension for three years. However, to get the extension, we have to sign a Waiver, Release and Indemnification document that could bankrupt us.
Acquiring a multi-engine rating is a rite of passage for any pilot who dreams of flying for a living. There’s no denying the feeling of power you get on first grabbing a fistful of throttles and shoving them up to the stop. There’s also no denying that, unless you pay for a type rating yourself, its the most costly rating you’ll get on a per-hour basis. With the market offering three production twins being regularly used as trainers, we were curious as to how they stacked up. We flew each one, spoke to several instructors at flight schools that did a significant amount of multi-engine instruction and used an out-of-production twin thats still used for training for comparison. After all the Vmc demos and engine-out simulations, we came away of the opinion that all of the airplanes have some weaknesses, but none that are crippling-although someone who learns in a Twin Star will need significant additional training to fly anything other than a jet-and that the Tecnam P2006T has the potential to take over the multi-engine training market.
Affectionately known as the worlds largest flying sweet potato or Da Pop, because all Apache N-numbers originally ended in Papa, the Apache and Geronimo conversions of it, are still seen on training school flight lines.
Every pilot considers the aftermath of having to put an airplane down other than where he or she desires. Every year some pilots are required to put such thoughts into action. Contemplating the worst and preparing for it is something pilots are trained to do-and part of being ready to implement an after-accident plan of action is having equipment available to carry it out. That means having a survival kit in the airplane.
Training to handle in-flight icing is one of aviations worst Catch-22s: Most pilots fly airplanes that arent certified for flight into known icing-therefore its illegal to take dual to get experience in ice in those airplanes-so the first time a pilot gets into icing conditions, he or she is all alone in of the most complex situations in aviation. The FAAs just say no to flight into icing approach is not rational given that, according to an AOPA study of NTSB data, icing accounts for 10 percent of all weather-related accidents and 22 percent of fatal weather-related accidents. With those kind of odds, it would seem that a pilot who flies IFR where there’s a risk of airframe icing would do his or her utmost to get hands-on experience in dealing with ice in the type of airplane she or he normally flies.
As we researched icing training for owners of non-FIKI airplanes, we generally found that owners of FIKI airplanes could get training in actual icing conditions without too much trouble. Organized courses are not common-although instructors and organizations sometimes include training in actual icing conditions as a part of the checkout process. Also, owners who took recurrent training in their airplanes sometimes worked with their instructors to pick up some ice while doing so.
If its true that the SR20 flies like an SR22, its also true that it crashes like one. Thats why the Cirrus training approach for both aircraft are nearly identical. When we looked at 50 random SR20 crashes in the NTSB reports, it came as no surprise that runway loss of control events topped the chart.
I just read with much interest your review of the Beech 35 series in the November 2014 issue of Aviation Consumer. My family and I owned an A35 for 10 years (thats it in the lower photo), having sold it for upgrade to an A36. I tend to agree with most of your points, with a few exceptions and critical points you left out.
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.
According to GAMA sales numbers, the Cirrus SR22 outsold every other piston single in 2013, including the entry-level SR20.Whats interesting is that the SR20 arguably has a broader mission profile than the SR22. Cirrus even markets the SR20 as a dual-role aircraft that can function as a trainer and distance traveler. Perhaps that is why SR20s are more likely to end up on flight school ramps than in personal hangars.
The Guardian Aero455 panel oximeter might not have been invented if company founder Ash Vij didn’t find himself crossing the Rockies in his Cessna 206 without a pulse oximeter. He knew the status of his oxygen supply, but was pretty interested to know his blood saturation. Vij is convinced that his panel oximeter is the cure-all for misplaced portables.
There aren’t any magic bullets for eliminating general aviation accidents—but I’ve just run across a dedicated, reasonably priced simulator training program that has a lot of potential for reducing the most common type of GA accident, runway loss of control (RLOC).
