As of 2012, the Matrix is in its fifth model year and although sales for all the OEMs have tanked, the Matrix and its pressurized stablemate, the Mirage, continue to be strong sellers for Piper, accounting for more than a third of its total sales by units. In 2008, the introductory year, the Matrix outsold the Mirage five to one because, dealers say, it had a substantially lower price. So much for price sensitivity.
You cant imagine how difficult it is for us to keep a straight face when we ask a company for an estimated delivery date of some new airplane or widget. We dutifully report what these companies tell us and when theyre out of earshot, we allow the sniggering and eye rolling to begin unabated. But there are exceptions. Some companies do what they say theyre going to more or less when they said they would. One of these is Aspen Avionics, which we are selecting as our company of the year.
I read with great interest the EFIS article in your September edition. I did not participate in your survey, but feel compelled to comment on my G1000-equipped Diamond DA40. I obtained my private certificate on steam gauges and then purchased my Diamond DA40. After two incidents where I am convinced that my glass cockpit saved my bacon (and that of my CFI), I would never fly steam gauges again. In October of 2007 on approach, while working on my instrument rating, I was descending through 1200 feet on long final at the POH-specified air- speed of 70 knots. ATIS information informed me that surface winds were 7 knots from 250 degrees. I scanned my MFD and thanks to the winds aloft vector on the G1000, I observed that the winds aloft were 37 knots from 040 degrees. I mentioned to my CFI that there would be one heck of a windshear on approach.
At a Wall Street analysts forum in 2007, the CEO of Ballistic Recovery Systems, Larry Williams, told the audience why he thought the all-plane parachute made sense: “In 2005, there were just over 1600 [accidents] involving general aviation airplanes in this country that resulted in 556 deaths. Now, if you offset that with the fact that were saving 199 people, all of the sudden, parachutes start to make sense.” Except that its not that simple. As of this writing, BRS has claimed to having saved 233 lives, but thats counting every occupant on every successful parachute deployment as a saved life. A quick look at the record shows that death was far from a certainty in many of the parachute deployments. A subtler knot in the logic that BRS has saved 233 people is that having a parachute installed affects the delicate balance of risk versus utility in aircraft. We know from experience and interviews that there are pilots who will take on conditions such as rough weather with the chute that they wouldnt take on otherwise. We can only guess that some of the CFIT accidents in the Cirrus were influenced by the faulty assumption that the pilot will always have enough time to pop the bddn chute before auguring in. But the risk equation is more complex than that. Situations such as single-engine at night over mountains or low-visibility takeoffs are risky only because the consequences of an emergency are high, even though the likelihood of failure is extremely low. Having an ace-in-the-hole to cover that unlikely event will shift the go/no-go call for some pilots. We believe those pilots will get more out of their airplane with a negligible increase in real risk. So BRS may be overstating its positive impact on lifesaving, but also understating its positive impact on aircraft utility.
When Thomas Paine was writing about times that try mens souls, he was actually referring to the American Revolution, but thats nothing compared to GA sales figures for the first quarter. No ones jumping out of buildings yet. But then again, hangars don’t have second stories. Okay, so 2009 hasnt been so hot thus far, but like everyone involved in aviation, were optimists and we sense a turnaround in the wind. In any case, pilots and owners are still buying things so its time for our annual review of the best products and services weve seen during the past calendar year. When we reviewed our reviews for the past 12 months, we were surprised to find more new stuff than weve typically seen in a year. Heres our roundup of the most recommended things we tried this year. Were normally cautious about effusing too much about products with no market history, but were making an exception for this one. CubCrafters Super SportCub merits this treatment because in the LSA world, its truly innovative. It has a true ASTM engine-at 180 HP, a big one-and the concept of an uncompromised, hotrod LSA hasnt been offered by anyone else. The trouble with the LSA segment is that one white plastic airplane with high wings looks like any other white plastic airplane with high wings and we see a new one of them every week. The Super SportCub is thus in a league unto itself and deserves notice for that. For more, see www.cubcrafters.com
Pilots who fly a lot of weather sort themselves into two groups when it comes to the risk of flying in ice. One group-call them the “Im-willing-to-give-it-a-go” set will launch into any reasonable forecast and deal with the ice as it comes. The other group-call them the Legal Beagles-would do the same, but they get their pants snagged not so much on the actual risk, but whether the FAA will come after them for flying in forecast or “known ice” in an airplane not equipped for it. Great swaths of pulp forest have been sacrificed in the name of trying to define known ice and were not sure weve succeeded yet. What we have managed to do is create a not-so-small market slice of would-be buyers to whom an airplane legally equipped for known icing is a big deal. Ever sensitive to the whims of the market, Cirrus has created the perfect airplane for these buyers: The new SR22 line equipped with a TKS-based flight-into-known-ice package. In the past, weve viewed so-called FIKI packages as more window dressing than real substance. TKS is such an effective system that, in our view, with respect to actual icing outcomes, whether the system is certified or not is a distinction without a difference. To be sure, known-ice packages protect more surfaces and are probably more robust, but our view is that if 10 airplanes certified for known ice and 10 with so-called inadvertent systems flew the same winter systems for a year, there wouldnt be a noticeable difference in outcomes. So whats to improve? In the Cirrus view, that would be the highest fluid rates of any TKS system on a single and what amounts to significant design decisions that mold the Cirrus icing system into an integrated package. Conclusion: It works better, its easier to use and gives the pilot more control and more choices. Heres how.
Automotive technology trickles into aviation in fits and starts and with spotty success. HID lighting, for example, was practically standard equipment on some cars before it finally gained a foothold in the light aircraft GA market. Now LEDs-light emitting diodes-are undergoing a similar evolution. Weve seen them in cars and on motorcycles for years and lately, theyve found their way onto wingtip and nav/position lights. Next step: landing lights. In this article, were examining a new product recently sent to us by a company called AeroLEDs. AeroLEDs is by no means the only supplier of this technology. Whelen, for example, makes a line of LED landing lights and we know of some other similar products in development. Well do a detailed comparison of all the LED products in a future issue, but in this article, were interested in testing the concept itself. Landing and taxi lights are big draws on the airplane electrical system for a reason: You need a bunch of light to reach through the murk to find night details necessary to establish depth perception and hazard detection. Although theyre inefficient in terms of converting electricity to light, conventional incandescent bulbs are still more than bright enough to do the job, which explains why theyve endured so long. At $20 a pop, theyre also relatively cheap, if not always reliable. Can LEDs hope to compare? We aimed to find out. LEDs are one of those alluring technologies that seem too good to be true. They deliver bright, cool light with a fraction of the power required for an incandescent lamp. This, more than anything, explains why LEDs are turning up in everything from flashlights to automotive tail lights. LEDs themselves have more to do with transistors than with traditional filament-type bulbs. LEDs have p-n or positive-negative semiconductor junctions, just like transistors do. When power is applied to the junction, electrons flow and drop into so-called electron holes-they actually revert to different orbits in the junction material. When that happens, energy in the form of photons is released. Physically, the p-n junction is small and so are LEDs. An individual LED is bright, but its overall light output is small, so to approach the requirements for something like a landing light or even a navigation light, multiple LEDs are ganged together. The SUNSpot product that AeroLEDs sent to us has 16 LEDs arranged in a circular lens assembly.
A friend lent me his August issue of Aviation Consumer because he knew Id enjoy reading your article on Tri-Pacers. Actually, I own a 1962 Colt, pretty much stock, although it was recovered for the second time five years ago. The previous recover was in 1973, before I owned it. With fabric still airworthy, my concern, as you pointed out, was what lay beneath it. We actually found very little structural rust and corrosion, so the restoration was a picnic and I enjoy flying it once again. Two things pop out in your article. First is the disparity in the current price range for airworthy Tri-Pacers, which your article stated as between $15,000 and $20,000. Ive been seeing prices between $25,000 and $30,000-plus. A little more research might be in order. Second is the phone number to contact Eleanor Mills, membership officer of the Short Wing Piper Club, who has recently moved to Springfield, Missouri. The number is now 417-883-1457 or e-mail swpn@sbcglobal.net. I heartily recommend the group. Their bimonthly news magazine alone is worth the price of admission.
Task one in looking at logbook software is figuring out what you want to log and why. If youre not detail-oriented and only care about when your last BFR or IPC was, then anything more than a Post-It on the corner of your computer monitor is probably a waste. If you need to track duty time, watch the numbers for pilots and aircraft in a school or business, track time for tax reasons or are in the grind of pursuing higher ratings, logbook software can be a godsend. We reviewed over a dozen systems to keep the numbers in the right columns. Here are our top picks to meet the variety of needs out there. This website is geared mostly to corporate users and flight departments, but has a lot of utility for private aircraft owners as well. Its strength is in tracking aircraft time as it meets all the FAA requirements for electronic logbooks for aircraft-including electronic signatures. Why is this useful? First, if your shop is willing, they can access any of your aircraft records at a glance and cut down their admin time by signing you off electronically. Second, part of the service is scanning in all your aircraft documents and backing them up (you can also upload more on your own at any time). Also, ADs and Service Bulletins are automatically retrieved by the system, warnings flags for time-limited parts and inspections pop up automatically … the list goes on.
Collecting, assimilating, and safely deciding what to do about weather is one of the hardest things we pilots do. But it seems like every computer platform to do this has a drawback. Weather terminals at FBOs are handy but require lots of clicks. I might drill down through many pages for METARs-a U.S. map, region map, and a state map-then scroll a long alphabetical list of stations. I go to more screens for TAFs, winds and temps, PIREPS, forecasts and satellite images. Then I try to picture the data on my route. For airport info, I pull out a book. Flight planning software puts all the weather around one route. But it requires a computer, software and, often, arduous setup and learning. Fine for home or office, but not ideal on the road. There are Web-based products to overlay METARs, TAFs, PIREPs and winds graphically on a route map. But evolution of cell phones into hand-held computers means there’s an even more convenient option. Here are the four leaders in cell phone weather. Note that your phone determines your choices or, perhaps, vice-versa.
If you live where the weather rarely falls to 20 degrees, you probably cant justify an expensive installed preheater of the type we reviewed in the March 2007 issue of Aviation Consumer. But if you still need an occasional preheat, where does that leave you? A heated hangar is one option and portable preheaters are another. Assuming the hangar is out, for this article, were examining two portable options: the old standby Red Dragon from Flame Engineering and a new gadget called AeroTherm, an electric preheater.
Like the proverbial bad penny, questions about vertical card compasses seem to resurface about once a year. We suspect owners most frequently consider them during annual when the whiskey model will no longer pass muster or needs fluid or other maintenance.
The vertical card is always an option, but were not sure we can recommend one unconditionally. We recently flew a Mooney with a vertical card and other than some screwy movements when turning to southerly headings, it worked like a charm and we have to say we liked it.
But in talking with other owners of vertical cards, our impression is that results are decidedly mixed. Some owners love them, others rip them out in short order,…
