The internal GPS in Apple devices uses so-called Assisted GPS data from cellular towers, but the receiver wasn’t designed for aviation. That’s why it’s not uncommon for an iPad or iPod to struggle with maintaining a GPS signal lock in flight. That makes a remote GPS receiver necessary.
Until the advent of the Pitts Special, aerobatics was a horizontal affair, even in the hairy-chested, fuel-sucking, 450-HP Boeings and Wacos. Practitioners pirouetted under the stern God of Energy Management—gravity and drag meant vertical maneuvers were brief events.
New airplane owners lament to me that they were taught nothing about the process of buying, owning and maintaining an aircraft when they learned to fly. Accordingly, their aircraft ownership education came through the back alleys, as it were. The quality and thoroughness of that tuition made for some expensive mistakes—now they are constantly looking for good information to keep from making bad purchases. They want to know the rules.
Pilots are known for large watches and an affinity for gadgets—high cool factors being important. If size and cool factor were the sole measures, Garmin’s new $450 D2 Pilot Watch is the winner.
David Clark has a lot to prove with the new DC Pro-X noise-canceling headset. Not only does the mid-priced ANR headset market offer a healthy variety of good-performing models—including the Lightspeed Sierra and Telex Stratus 30XT, to name a couple—but the company’s X11 model was a disappointing performer, based on our evaluation and feedback from other users.
There has long been a subset of pilots with a certain sense of adventure and the burning desire to own an aerobatic airplane. While most lust after an aerial hotrod such as one of the Extra 300 series or a Sukhoi Su-29, economic reality means putting something a little less impressive into the hangar.
A new engine is only as good as the cylinders the shop or owner picks and cylinders have, episodically, proved problematic. As we go to press in early September, this is indeed the case with an extensive manufacturing run of Engine Components International cylinders that the FAA proposes to remove from service via a massive AD.
You might not think about cabin lighting until you reach for the overhead light switch on a dark night and nothing happens. Maybe you dropped something on the floor or between the seats, or maybe you need to read a paper chart (remember them?).
Since 1968, the 36-series Bonanzas has steadily built a solid record for workmanship, performance, handling and comfort. Prices on the used market reflect the high regard for the airplanes. Easy entry to the rear seats and club seating made them popular with passengers as we’ll as pilots, even though the aft CG limit can make loading a challenge and some turbocharged models are a little light on useful load. Aftermarket mods such as turbonormalizing and tip tanks can turn a 36-series Bonanza into an airplane that can carry four people 1000 NM at 200 knots.
It can be said that 406 MHz ELT technology evolved too late to be the huge seller that industry leaders predicted. While 406 ELT systems were stuck in a lengthy certification process, satellite tracking systems emerged from the transportation industry and into aviation applications. New Zealand-based Spidertracks was an early player with the Spider S3 (there’s also the competing Spot line of products that we’ll look at in another article). The new $1795 Spider S5 sends and receives SMS messages through a smartphone. It also interfaces with Lockheed Martin’s surveillance-enhanced search and rescue (SE-SAR) system.
The FAA says that stall-related loss of control is responsible for approximately 40 percent of fatal accidents. As a result, the agency wants to streamline the certification process and bring angle of attack indicators to all Part 23 aircraft. In a perfect world of avionics retrofitting, AoA systems would be considered a minor alteration. That’s hardly the case and part of the reason why AoA systems aren’t common in small certified aircraft. The way we see it, if any company could succeed in bringing certified AoA systems to Part 23 aircraft, it’s the one that pioneered wing leading edge lift detection over 50 years ago and holds 135 patents that are spread out over a broad aircraft segment (they’ve developed 18 in the last five years).
When Rotax surprised us last year with the rollout of its new 912 iS engine, we were skeptical of a claimed 20 percent improvement in fuel economy against the old standby 912 ULS. In a four-cylinder, high-RPM geared engine, that sounded like an overpromise. During our factory tour at Rotax, we politely told the engineers we would reserve judgment until the engine hits the field. Eighteen months later, it has and just as we suspected, Rotax’s initial claims were off the mark. But in the wrong direction, if the company’s recent year-long test of the 912 iS is to be believed.
