In a recent policy statement, the FAA gave the regulatory green light to replace traditional vacuum-driven attitude instruments with electronically driven replacement indicators. This means you can remove the vacuum system from the aircraft, since the policy doesnt require a backup spinning gyro. In many cases, you wont need a backup at all.
Sometimes the clue bus arrives late to the airport, which is the case with the FAAs PS-ACE-23-08 policy statement for getting rid of vacuum attitude gyros, including the primitive system that drives them.
Trackers, intercoolers, and GPS- see what our readers have to say about last month’s featured topics.
That may be the case if your aircraft has wiring issues. While the cabin of a noisy piston-powered aircraft is perhaps the worst environment for listening to your favorite tunes, its often the aircraft wiring that makes the sound quality laughable by even the lowest standards. Bluetooth audio panels help because eliminating the patch cable that connects your music player to a music input jack can also eliminate noise. But they arent the cure-all for subpar music quality. Even with a flagship Bluetooth audio panel like Garmins GMA350C and PS Engineerings PM8000-series, music playback quality will only be as good as the wiring between the audio panel and headset jacks, the health of the ignition system, charging system, grounds and a slew of other variables.
For buyers willing to drop as much as $1100 for an aviation headset, the current market has no shortage of choices. Moreover, models in this high end of the market sport more advanced features than ever, while promising the best sound quality, comfort and build quality money can buy. To subjectively determine which model takes the top spot (not an easy task, considering the personal nature of selecting a headset), we spent the better part of a year flying with four models we think represent the best of the best. While our evaluation turned up an overall favorite, each model has its strengths and weaknesses and our takeaway is its hard to make a wrong choice.
If you fly one of the vast majority of general aviation aircraft, you can legally operate over any of the waters in and around the U.S. without any sort of flotation device aboard. The requirement to carry survival equipment for operations over water more than 50 miles from land set out in FAR 91.509 only applies to airplanes weighing over 12,500 pounds and turbojets. We bugsmasher operators don’t have to carry so much as a set of water wings.
If youre looking for Bluetooth connectivity for entertainment and tablet app interface, you don’t have to spend big on a major audio system upgrade. Consider that a full-up GMA350c audio panel interface could easily top $5000 for an average installation. Thats a hefty price to pay for Bluetooth connectivity. As an alternative, you might try connecting your devices through a Bluetooth headset, including the updated Bose A20. While the enhanced A20 isn’t a new model (it was introduced five years ago), the set now gets the Bluetooth capability the market expects-including wireless music streaming. The only way to listen to music with the previous version was to plug it in via stereo patch cable. Unchanged is the A20s 12-ounce top end, including its fit, finish, ANR audio performance and comfort. New to the A20 is a redesigned control module, which requires swapping the interface cord (also called the downcable.) The downcable also has a new microphone in favor of an improved and more adjustable one, which can be attached to either earcup.
The idea of the push-pull twin makes such fundamental sense that it has been applied to aircraft designs in one form or another for nearly 100 years and in literally dozens of models youve never even heard of. Back in 2005, Adam Aircraft tried the idea again with the A500 push-pull piston twin. Like many before it, it failed more by market reality than by a fundamental flaw in the idea.
The concept of a wireless cockpit-pushing flight plan data from a tablet app to certified avionics, to name one capability-is supposed to curtail the task of programming a panel GPS. I think Garmins Flight Stream Connect wireless network, via its Pilot tablet app, succeeds in doing that, but doesnt eliminate all of the workload, which is a good thing. That was my impression after Garmins Jessica Koss demonstrated the Flight Stream and ADS-B interface as we flew in the company Cirrus in the Northeast airspace, pictured to the right.
From left to right, above: The D2 Bravo watch has an electronic HSI display, which is based on GPS track data. Its an awkward way to navigate, in our estimation, but whatever works for backup, right? Perhaps more useful is the display of textual METAR data, which is sent to the watch from Garmins Pilot tablet app. The waypoint page is useful for quickly identifying navigation data to nearest waypoints. Finally, the Bravo offers some of the same athletic functions as the Forerunner sports watch, but the Forerunner is better packaged for extreme sports.
Overall, editor Larry Anglisano did a great job of explaining the Skyvision Salus-3 portable ADS-B Out/In solution and the Xtreme Vision software (June 2015 Aviation Consumer.) We were impressed with the articles accuracy and his ability to review it without personal bias. However, there are a few finer points related to certification.
Weve seen this before. First it was Garmins D2 pilot watch for interfacing with its Pilot tablet app and VIRB action camera. Then it was the Google Pebble watch, compatible with the Wing X Pro 7 app. Now ForeFlight introduces its own app interface for the Apple Watch.
