Magnetos always fire the spark plugs at the same point-on the order of 25 degrees before top dead center (TDC)-and rely on the combustion event to carry on by itself to reach maximum pressure by the time the piston reaches 11 to 17 degrees past TDC. Mags put out a spark of on the order of 12,000 volts. The downside: At 500 hours it’s time to pull mags for inspection and repair or replacement. That’s not cheap.
You can skirt the airspace, of course, but for many that won’t be practical. For these operators the FAA has a new “statement of policy for authorizations to operators of aircraft that are not equipped with ADS-B Out equipment.” More on that in a minute. I can see the panic building, even with new products that make for easier compliance. As an example a reader recently asked for my advice for fitting avionics in his recently purchased Archer. Since the airplane needed an IFR GPS, a transponder and an ADS-B Out upgrade to satisfy the mandate (six months away, as I type), we concluded that Garmin’s new GTX375 is a logical choice. As we reported in the May 2019 issue of Aviation Consumer, this latest all-in-one navigator makes sense for federated panels because it works with a good variety of third-party accessories. In this Archer, the 375 can drive the existing King HSI, it can connect to the existing autopilot, plus it has a built-in 1090ES ADS-B transponder to replace the King KT76A, and most important-it satisfies the mandate. Although hardly a slap and go, the installation won’t require lots of radio stack rejiggering because it’s nearly the same height as the King KLN-series GPS that it will replace. Doing some back-of-the-napkin math, also figuring some other work that needed to be done, I sent him to a few well-respected avionics shops for proposals to compare with my notes. He came back with bad news: None of the shops could touch the installation for at least six months or more.
We asked uAvionix about this and were told that it released a skyBeacon firmware field update in March 2019 and the company has been shipping new units with that updated firmware in place since the February 2019 timeframe. There isn’t firmware specific for 24-volt aircraft, but the updated firmware resolves a compatibility issue uAvionix observed when installed on 24-volt aircraft. The company also issued a service bulletin for the requirement and posted it on the company website.
To understand the significance of the J-3 Cub look all the way back to Piper’s Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, heyday, where William T. Piper was rightly seen as a visionary. But no one could have imagined how enduring that vision would be, to the extent that over 80 years later, several companies are building brand-new Cub clones that clearly trade on the mystique of the old yellow classic. Two that are front and center in the market are Legend Aircraft and CubCrafters. We think both companies nail the quality and support.
Admit it. You’ve made the statement loud and clear on more than one of those flights where you are following the magenta line in good weather and waiting for your destination to appear over the horizon. Sure, every once in a while, you’ll do a steep turn or wander off course a bit to look at something interesting-but, deep inside, you know that’s not enough. You live in the third dimension-there’s got to be more to getting from one place to another in an airplane than droning along waiting . . . and waiting. Flying is supposed to be fun.
The material my shop had on the skyBeacon pointed potentially at a “Transponder Monitor Threshold” issue and directed us to a uAvionix video. Not wanting to make an adjustment to the system, hoping it would work, and then, potentially, make several not so cheap test flights before getting it right, I sent uAvionix an email describing the problem and attaching the performance report. Within two hours I was called by David Wagner, who had reviewed the report. In a wide-ranging conversation his bottom line was that the unit was fine, I just happened to live somewhere so far from good radar and ADS-B coverage that the percentage of my flight outside of coverage would generate a failure under the FAA’s algorithm.
A variety of upgrades and accessories are available, which quickly grow the price. There’s a rolling backpack ($89.95), dual spring leather seat with LED taillight ($44.95), universal cross grip smart- phone mount ($24.95), LED front light ($44.95) and the Accessory Pack. It includes a backpack, leather seat, front LED light and a smartphone mount ($179.95). The seat upgrade, which has dual springs, is much wider and softer than the standard seat and is we’ll worth the money, in my view.
Recall that German-based Flight Design had its own four-place airplane, the C4, in the works until it ran into financial trouble. At Aero, the reorganized company announced a rethink of the CTLS line and a new four-place project called the F4. The latter will be a CS 23-certified aircraft that’s essentially a stretched version of the CTLS. Predictably, the powerplant will be Rotax’s new 915 iS. Gross weight is set at 2420 pounds with performance in the 150- to 160-knot range. The price target is under $300,000.
If anyone in the nascent e-flight business was surprised by this development, they were polite enough not to say so. The real electric airplane market remains a village cottage industry and I learned at Aero in April that the village is very busy indeed. The overarching picture is this: The certification rules are in place, or soon will be, to certify electric aircraft, battery capacity is improving glacially and two companies-Bye Aerospace and Slovenia-based Pipistrel-are set to deliver airplanes in commercial volume. Actually, Pipistrel already has, with about 60 Alpha Electro trainers in the field around the world. But lacking regulatory imprimatur, these have been more technology demonstrators than practical, useful airplanes.
Proof is the newly approved G3X Touch installed in a Grumman Tiger that I flew for this report. In case you missed the announcement, the flagship G3X Touch integrated glass panel came from the company’s experimental line, but in the course of a year Garmin earned an STC via an approved model list (AML) for over 500 aircraft models. In the current certification climate that’s no joke, and neither is the dollar investment to get it done.
In an effort to keep the right mix of content, I generally try not to run two major avionics reports in one issue. But this months Aviation Consumer perhaps breaks my cardinal rule twice with reports on not one, but two glass display systems: Garmins G3X Touch and Aspens new MAX display upgrade. Unavoidable, really. There’s a lot to cover. And in all the years covering avionics for the magazine Im not sure Ive seen this high level of competition. Thats not even thinking about ADS-B upgrades, which Im trying to forget with little success.
