Goodness knows, there are a lot of ways we can spend money on improving our airplanes and plenty of folks who will promise us the moon in terms of performance or glitz or impressive panel displays. Many times the sales promotion includes a claim that the product makes the airplane safer. But which products do? New paint? Hardly. Glass panels? No proof, yet. Retrofit shoulder harness? You bet.
Life keeps getting in the way of flying. We know that the best way to keep our skills and judgment level high is to fly frequently and take recurrent training every six months—just like the pros. But with seven-dollar avgas, we certainly aren’t flying nearly as frequently as we would like, and few of us schedule recurrent training more often than required by the FARs.
in the Garmin GTN navigator owner survey (March 2013 Aviation Consumer), some respondents dinged the product for having a steep learning curve. Moreover, we heard from owners who took Garmin’s factory training course, commenting that it was too short—and fell short—when it came to mastering some of the subtleties of the system’s feature set.
Weight kept the whole-airplane parachute idea in the world of fantasy for the first 70 years of powered flight. It took a terrifying ride to earth aboard a broken hang glider and new materials technology to allow Boris Popov to found Ballistic Recovery Systems and develop a viable arrangement that could successfully deploy a parachute and lower an aircraft and its occupants to earth. BRS products (BRS, as “Systems,” is the company; as “System,” is the device) began saving lives in the ultralight world and expended successfully into FAR 23 airplanes with the Cirrus line and a retrofit for the Cessna 150/152. The number of lives saved as a result of BRS deployment is approaching 300, according to BRS company numbers. (Our research shows 48 deployments, of which 36 were “saves,” with 76 lives saved in Cirrus aircraft—most, but not all, of the other saves were in ultralights.)
It’s been over a decade since we last looked at aviation life rafts. While there have been noteworthy changes in the industry, numerous evolutionary improvements and some new offerings, it’s also a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. Winslow still, in our opinion, offers the best rafts—you pay a premium, but we feel you get the value for your dollars.In this article, we’ll focus on the most commonly available two- to six-person life rafts from EAM Worldwide (EAM), Revere Supply Co. (Revere), Survival Products and Winslow LifeRaft Co. (Winslow). With a few exceptions, these life rafts are not certified in accordance with FAA TSO-C70a (we call them “non-approved”) and are generally significantly less expensive and often weigh considerably less than approved life rafts.
When we visited the Cirrus Aircraft factory in Duluth, Minnesota, last month, we couldn’t help notice the positive vibes that echo throughout the operation. There’s reason for boardroom fist pumps. Production slots for the new G5 SR22 are sold out through October, the SF50 Vision Jet is we’ll on the way toward certification and delivery in 2015, and the competition is struggling to sell half as many aircraft as Cirrus did last year. Cirrus built a total of 253 aircraft last year alone. Unlike other manufacturers, Cirrus doesn’t distribute aircraft to a dealer network, so production is based on customer orders.
You can retrofit instruments and avionics in your aircraft panel, so why not custom retrofit your own simulator to match the layout? That’s the concept behind the new Flight Training Cockpit Advanced Panel, which is sold by PilotMall.com. The tabletop simulator—which uses Saitek ProFlite electronic instruments, avionics and controls—allows for a custom layout, thanks to a modular and interchangeable design. The simulator’s instrument panel is made of 14-gauge steel and mimics a real panel, which even includes a glare shield.“We’ve been selling the Saitek flight training instruments and avionics panels for years, but customers have recently been asking for an easy way to mount the instruments to make the suite look and function like an actual aircraft panel,” said PilotMall’s Neil Glazer. The Advanced Training Cockpit is appealing to owners who might rearrange the instrument and avionics panel in their own aircraft and want to practice flying the new layout.
If you are flying a high-performance single, piston twin or turboprop, particularly if you use it for business trips, there is an increasing probability that you will get a notice from your insurer or employer requiring that you take annual recurrent training.
Ever since the price of personal pulse oximeters dropped out of the stratosphere, we’ve owned one because it is a fast and easy way check to see if we are at risk of doing something foolish because the lungs aren’t delivering enough oxygen to the brain. Now that the selection of pulse oximeters is confusingly large, with prices from about $25 to over $200, we decided to examine a cross section. We found that the lowest priced units worked pretty well, the others under $100 weren’t necessarily much better, and the most expensive was worth the money if you are going to be using it frequently, want a warranty and may subject it to a rough environment.
With new iPad apps appearing every day, it was inevitable that ground school, written prep and aviation reference materials would hit the tablet market. And sure enough, there’s plenty out there for someone looking to add a new rating or to just have a convenient reference library. We limited our app search to the instrument rating because it’s a popular and useful rating. We looked at the one app that’s available, Sporty’s, two online instrument written courses, ASA’s Prepware app and two e-Books. Overall, Gleim and King Schools got good marks for their online courses, and while we felt Sporty’s app was good, it needs improvement. We liked ASA’s inexpensive Prepware for final brushup for the written and the two e-Books we reviewed.
When the light sport aircraft rule was busy being born a decade ago, it was intended to be a poster child for inspired innovation driven by reduced regulation. While there’s no argument that LSA has ignited a bushel of new designs, not much has been said about safety and crashworthiness. Is it reasonable to assume that a 1320-pound airplane will be as safe as one weighing 300 or 500 pounds more?
It’s one of those aircraft truisms that performance requires compromise. Controllability at low speed means compromising the wing that enjoys high-speed cruise. That’s what makes vortex generators (VGs) seem too good to be true: They claim lower stall speeds in singles and twins without a penalty in cruise speed. Sometimes they bump up the gross weight. For twins, they reduce minimum controllable airspeed (Vmc). This is speed below which controlled flight becomes impossible with the critical engine failed and the other engine at full power. Below Vmc, there isn’t enough rudder and aileron authority to counter the natural yaw and roll of the asymmetrical thrust. Translation: The airplane rolls over and crashes.
