After a one-year hiatus, the big airplanes and pilots who fly them came to Las Vegas for the 2021 NBAA-BACE gathering. The mood was positive, and not unlike the lower-end piston market, things are hopping in the bizjet and turboprop world. New airplane announcements, new avionics projects and certification, retrofit programs for old jets and […]
Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of the Evektor Sportstar. We had (past tense) several of them here in southern Indiana, and I administered a lot of checkrides in the Sportstar. I believe that the Sportstar is a major player in the LSA community, with a couple hundred of them flying in the U.S. At one point I think they were the third most numerous LSA, behind Flight Design and Legend. That would put them in the middle of the pack of the ones you considered. And I know the Sportstar had its share of accidents. Why did you omit the Evektor from your accident statistics?
The suite for the King Air has three high-resolution 12-inch color LCD screens. There’s pilot and copilot primary flight displays and a multifunction display. The displays are instant-on and the whole system comes up ready in roughly 20 seconds. The screens have multilayer anti-reflective coating that permits a pretty wide viewing angle-as much as 80 degrees. They simply have to be high performers for big cockpits and the are. There’s a dedicated autopilot controller directly above the MFD, plus two PFD controllers.
A clean-sheet design with STOL capability, the Kodiak initially catered to humanitarian groups that needed to get in and out of tight and unimproved strips. It carries a sizable payload (upward of 3500 pounds and roughly 2500 with floats), seats up to 10 people and most important, it runs on Jet-A for operating in places where 100LL is impossible to get, and of course to up the ante in reliability and operating simplicity. Quest chose the 750-HP Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34. It has a 4000-hour TBO-which at the time was the most widely produced single-stage variant of the PT6A-making worldwide field support even easier.
Youve probably heard that the FAA, through its datalink weather service and support contractor Harris Corporation, is adding new weather products to the subscription-free FIS-B ADS-B data thats broadcast to UAT/978 MHz ADS-B receivers. Since the rollout was scheduled for June 2018, like others I cranked up my portable ADS-B receiver and tablet app, but didnt see the new lightning, turbulence, icing, cloud tops, G-AIRMETs and center weather advisories that are part of the new ADS-B In data. Without sampling the new weather products yet-including the planned new radar data that will replace the current Nexrad-its not fair to say the second-gen FIS-B stream will be a SiriusXM subscription killer, but based on the lineup of expected data its quite possible. Turns out implementing the new weather products isn’t as easy as I thought it might be, but it will likely be worth the wait.
The oldest SR22 models date back nearly 18 years, where they sold for just south of $400,000. Today you can buy a cherry, first-gen SR22 for less than half. And while there’s little comparison between a G1 and the current SR22T G6, which flirts with $1 million fully loaded, an old Cirrus with updated avionics and a young engine isn’t a bad way to get around.
To avoid being driven to the ragged edge of sanity by the profusion of ever-specialized avionics, we like to sort this stuff into bite-sized categories. the latest is one we would have never predicted: the wing-mounted, self-powered AHRS. As if one wasnt enough, there are actually two of these devices, the Levil Aviation BOM were reviewing in this report and a new product called the WingBug, which we’ll examine in a future report.
These days its hard to imagine that a wood and fabric four-place piston single like the Bellanca Viking still exists, but it does. And although there arent great squadrons of them around, the Viking retains a loyal, almost cultish following.
When I made my products-to-see checklist before launching for Sun n Fun last month, Icons A5 never made it on and it should have. But in my world it was an easy chore to drop because Icon went silent. There had been no press releases in my inbox and little if any industry chatter since the high-profile fatal crash of Roy Halladay last year. So when it dawned upon me while cruising home that Icon wasnt even at Sun n Fun, I thought about all of the delivery positions that Icon was to begin filling, and also some of our readers who slapped down deposit money to get on the list for an A5. Whats going on at Icon?
The final stages of an avionics installation can be the most critical because thats when the configuration and final testing occur. Unfortunately, its when a shop can be rushed to the point where you-the aircraft owner-are left holding the bag to test newly installed gear, which includes critical ADS-B equipment. The good news: Shops that do the most ADS-B retrofits will own the specialized test gear to make sure the system is programmed and properly tested before you fly the aircraft away. The better shops will fly it with you for a final check. But for shops that are less equipped, you’ll have to fly it off yourself and eyeball the data on the Public ADS-B Performance Report, or PAPR. Link to this automated tool at https://tinyurl.com/y9hrtsyw. It can tell a shop a lot about the systems performance should they have to troubleshoot it. When the government was paying out rebate checks for ADS-B upgrades, it required specific flight testing and a validation report for conformity. Thats no longer the case, but you might follow similar guidance when validating a new install. The FAAs advisory circular 20-165B provides guidance for ADS-B Out system installations and airworthiness approvals. In it you’ll find the recommended flight profiles and maneuvers to perform on the flight test. Worth mentioning is that a typical FAR 91.413 transponder test wont check a 1090ES transponders ADS-B data output.
Magnetos have been around so long that one cant help but wonder if Benjamin Franklin went directly from his supposed kite-into-a-thunderstorm electricity experiment to his basement where he built the first one.
