Worth mentioning are two popular timers targeted specifically for cockpit use, including the $50 ASA Flight Timer. The ASA has no shortage of features, including three simultaneous timer functions, audible and visual alarms, a stopwatch and a digital notepad. There’s even a dedicated approach timer mode for storing up to 12 approach times.
Groppo is among a slew of European microlight manufacturers who’ve been plying the market since the early 1980s, long before the U.S. light sport rule was even a thought. Steve Bensinger told us that nearly 100 Trails (or variants) have been built for the European market, where they are called Trials.
Well known in clinical settings for its line of noninvasive patient monitoring equipment, Masimo, Incorporated offers the $145 iSp02 tablet-driven pulse oximeter. Intended for extreme sports and aviation use, the iSp02 measures blood oxygenation, pulse rate and perfusion index, and presents the data in a free tablet app that’s compatible with iOS and Android.
Walking around AirVenture 2014 at Oshkosh—almost 30 years from the day that I took my first training flight in a Cessna 150—my 15-year-old daughter Ashley spotted AOPA’s Yellowbird 152 on display. “Dad, I need one of these,” she matter-of-factly remarked in a voice that commanded the same attention as her mother’s. I was 15 when I first enthusiastically strapped into the little trainer and now Ashley is focused on dual instruction of her own in a 152. A bright yellow one, she says. While it’s tough to find anyone that’s not fond of the 150/152 (“The J3 of our generation,” says AOPA president Mark Baker), let’s put emotion aside.
