Time to upgrade the panel.... again

It's been a few years since I upgraded the panel, and that was just a simple swap of my Advanced Flight Systems 3500 for a 4500 which was a great upgrade. I didn't have to cut any holes or remove any wiring so it was relatively painless.  My AFS-4500 has worked flawlessly over the last few years and I have no complaints on its operation. I got used to the sequence of buttons and the procedures for approaches and loved the synthetic vision display. All in all, just a great piece of avionics.

But as the years went by, AFS started to improve the software and increase the display sizes, adding more dedicated buttons and upgrading the processor. Each year at AirVenture, I would visit the booth and marvel at the larger screen and increased functionality, wondering whether it was worth the cost of moving up. This time, there would be a lot of changes required to upgrade and I knew it would be time consuming and expensive but I was getting ready to do it. I always worry when I make such a decision like this: I have a fully functional panel and now I'm going to rip things out and put something new in that could give me problems.

My original panel:

I started to imagine what the panel might look like and to make sure things would fit. I wanted to get rid of all the back up analog stuff, the airspeed indicator, the altimeter  and the attitude indicator to make room for as big a panel as I could fit in the area left. Now I had a few options with AFS. I could have gone with the 5400 and left all the back up instruments but the 5400 would not have the extra dedicated buttons and the screen size would remain the same as my 4500, 8.4". Or, I could get the 5500 which had the extra buttons. But it required a larger cutout in the panel and it still had the 8.4" screen. I would lose the back up instruments and have to find some other means to have primary instrument back up. Since I was committed to as large a screen as I could fit and a new digital back up, I decided on the AFS-5600; 10.4 High Resolution display, 21 buttons, 3 knobs, 1 joystick.  There also was an option for touch screen display and I decided to go with it, though not really sure if I was all that convinced I would use it.  I just had to make sure it would fit in my panel. More on that later.

The next issue was what to use for my back up instruments. Since panel space was limited I knew that I would only be able to use the 3.25" hole that was left so I looked for what was available. There really isn't too much out there and at first I was drawn to Trutrak's Gemini ADI.  It was inexpensive, fit right in the hole in the panel and looked pretty nice. But the one thing I realized was that the Gemini did not really give you a full blown EFIS. It uses GPS and motion sensors to simulate attitude and rates and does a pretty go job of doing it, but it does not have a AHRS.  I wanted the second AHRS and for that I needed a true small EFIS. There are only two that would fit in my panel; the Avmap Ultra and the Dynon E6.  I decided on the Dynon unit as it had everything I needed and with Dynon now owning AFS, I knew I would have product support on everything.

For fun, I did a little photoshopping of my panel. First I just stretched my 5400 to see how it would look:

Then I actually used an image of a 5600 and TT Gemini and moved my AP:

Then I put in the Dynon E6:

So I called AFS and expressed my interest in the upgrade and what it would cost. They would credit me on the 4500 and discount other parts so I went ahead and ordered from AFS in early February. It came to about $5800. I finally decided to not only do the panel upgrade but also upgrade my autopilot controller to the new Trutrak Vizion autopilot with the Emergency Autopilot Level mode. Pretty neat.

Of course being an experimental aircraft I could do this on my own but there is no way I'm doing that! Rick and Tres and Islip Avionics know my plane well and had done the previous upgrade so I found some time with them to do the job. They anticipated about two weeks so we went set a date in mid March for the work. I was committed.

I was expecting a pretty straight forward "swap" of the two AFS units but it turns out the wiring was not exactly "plug and play". First we needed to swap-out the Crossbow magnometer with a new AHRS (since they are not built into the 5 series) and this was mounted in the tail section.

We also needed to install a back up battery as there is no back up built in to the unit. The back-up battery is reasonable size and requires an additional 5amp CB to be added to the panel.  I managed to fit it just fine behind my panel.

The wiring harness itself required a bit of an upgrade so much of the wiring was replaced in the end. But after all was said and done. I ended up with a panel that looks and works great!

There are still a couple of issues. For some reason, my OAT is way off (may be a grounding issue) and my radio reception is a little weaker on one radio but that was somewhat a problem in the past. I think I'll upgrade my antennas with some newer ones and see if that helps.

In the end, I'm happy with it and I'm slowly getting comfortable with the new panel. I found myself using the touch screen more than I thought so I'm glad I went with it. Always amazed at the technology in the plane!!

Landing at Alton Bay

Well, it's been a cold winter this year and there hasn't been much time to do any flying. Once the temperatures gets below 20 degrees and the wind starts to howl, it's not much fun getting bounced around in the sky.

But every once in a while all the stars align and we get a beautiful day.

I've always wanted to go to Alton Bay but was nervous about the winds and the ice. I had an incident landing at Southbridge in Massachusetts when there was a little bit of black ice on the runway. I saw it in the pattern but really didn't pay much attention to it because it couldn't have been more the 200 feet long and on one side of the runway. Well, I should have taking it a little more seriously. With a stiff crosswind I hit the ice and started going towards the snow banks. I don't know how I was able to get it straighten out but somehow managed to get it back on the dry runway after a few really terrifying moments.

Well when the forecast looked good for January 30th, I decided to give it a try. The winds were out of the north 8 to 10 knots and the skies were beautiful. I called the morning of the flight and spoke to  Paul LaRochelle who gave me the good news. Conditions were just great.

The flight up was uneventful and I decide to make a low approach to get a good look at the runways and check the winds. There were already a few planes there and from my approach it looked fairly benign. I made one loop in the pattern and came around for a landing.

Here's my approach:

Everything went perfect. I spent some time walking around and met many people who were really glad that "the planes were back!" Many come out just to watch the planes land and I've been told there have been some doozies. Spent some time talking the guy who plows the snow and he gave me a history of the runway and the many different conditions they have run into. It was great to be there.

Quite honestly, the most difficult part of the whole day was taxing back to the runway. I actually started to slide a bit in the wind and did not use the throttle enough to keep myself straight. Sure enough I ended stuck in the snow off the runway and had to get out to push myself off.  But once I got back on track I was able to make it to the runway and depart to the south. All in all a great day and a lot of fun.

Service Bulletin No. 70

When I first bought N9GZ from the John Mark Stroud back in '09, I noticed some small cracking at the base of the vertical fin. These cracks seemed to be a paint issue but I followed up with John and he provided some email correspondence from the factory on their take on the issue. Their view was quote "Nothing I see gives me a concern for structural integrity since the vertical fin structure relies primarily on the vertical fin spar and secure attachment to the fin trailing edges and bulkhead C. The cracks are surface in nature, stemming from flexing or expansion of the adhesive joint on the right half of the vertical fin."

So I kind of forgot about it since there wasn't any structural problems with the plane. Over the next two years or so, the crack grew slightly and if anything,  I was starting to let this small blemish on an otherwise nice paint job start to bother me. I knew that I had to get this fixed one day but I kept putting it off. I was worried about matching the color and wondering who could I trust with painting the plane. Then I started reading of some other owners who had similar cracks and thought maybe there's something more going on here. It wasn't long before Glasair released Service Bulletin No. 70.

The you read through the bulletin, you'll see what amounts to the issues and the fix. It involves sanding down the area and also installing a reinforcement piece to the vertical spar at bulkhead C. I ordered the part for the spar and had Joe at A&P do the install. Thankfully there were no deep cracks and everything pointed to just some cosmetic cracking. However, now I had to see who could paint the plane to match the original color. Well, the closest guy also happens to be the best around, Ed's Aircraft Refinishing over at Brookhaven airport. The problem was getting an appointment.

Eventually, Ed found time for me and did a great job adding the additional composite to the area and matching the paint.

So for now, all good.

Landing Lights revisited... LED

As you may have seen in my earlier post I changed out the standard halogen MR16 landing lights for HID lights a few years ago and really liked the improvement in brightness and range of the high intensity lights.  Because of their size, there weren't too many options available and I wanted the brightest I could find. I decided on a pair from Rigid Industries and Joe at A&P did a great good installing them. However, they were not without their problems. The main issue was that I rarely could get both of my lights to come on at the same time. Sometimes, if I cycled the switch it would work but it was hit or miss. After hours of tinkering with it for months, switching parts and calling the manufacture, I just gave up and started to look for a replacement. (I see Rigid doesn't even sell them anymore..) Now there are others out there but I was starting to see if I could find an LED MR16 replacement. Well, so began my long road to make something work.

Now there are a number of MR16 LED's for home use, but there are two issues; brightness and noise. I ordered a number of sample units to see if they would work and quickly found out that anything less than 1000 lumens was not going to work for a landing light. Plus the cheap home improvement store ones would completely interfere with my radios. I wanted as bight of a LED as I could get so I was sure someone out there had done something for the experimental market. Well, none of the Glastar Sporteman owners had a solution but a guy with a Van's RV had. He did a lot of work trying different lights and ended up with a LED CREE flashlight unit that would fit the MR16 mount in the wingtip of his plane! There had to be a few modifications but it would fit in the MR16 housing. The unit was rated for 9-12v and 2000 lumens and sold for about $30! This was great!

So I ordered a few from China and waited 4 weeks for them to come in. (ugh..) I also decided to do something else I couldn't do with the HID's; have the lights pulse or wig-wag for added safety. I looked around for a number of options and decided on a simple solid state unit from this guy. The unit is small and the wiring is easy.

 Mounting the lights and wiring them up was not that big of a deal. I originally wanted to have a three way rocker installed to replace my original light switch but that proved undoable, so I decided to add an additional switch for the wig-wag function. I was amazed how bright they were.

Seems like I'm all set right? Nothing is that easy. With everything installed I went out for my first flight and returned only to find the lights had failed! What had happened? Now these lights will get hot and anyone who owns one the these flashlights know that they can't stay on continuously at high output for very long. They do have a safety feature that will shut down the light to cool off and will cycle back on, but I was certain that with the lights located in the cowl and continuous airflow from the prop there would not be any heat issue. The only other reason I could think of was vibration. Sure enough when we removed the light you could hear something rattling inside. In fact vibration is a problem for any light in the cowl. Since the guy with the RV had his in the wing, vibration was not an issue. I was going to have to find a solution. Through some trail and error and a few different arrangement, Joe was able to open up the LED housing, isolate the offending part and attach it outside the housing with some additional wiring.

If you look close you can see the circuit board is now outside of the cowl light tube and insulated from any vibration. The wiring inside the LED was cheap also so we improved that. After a check on the ground I went flying and everything worked! I have flown with the wig-wag on all the time without any failures. I really can't thank Joe enough for coming up with this solution.

AirVenture 2012

I made it to Oshkosh again this year and as always enjoyed the few days I was there. It's fun making the long cross country flight and the Sportsman is a great plane for the trip. The weather was broken at around 1200 feet at Islip so I filed IFR to get out and was VFR within 20 minutes heading west. As usual I made one stop in Pennsylvania and another in Indiana before making my final stop in Watertown, Wisconsin.  There was some weather in the area but things were slowly improving as the day wore on.

Each year when I plan my trip I try to make it with the Glastar Sportsman owners who organize a mass fly in on the Sunday before the show starts. It's great fun and we leave early in the morning to avoid the rush. The other benefit of Sunday is that there is no air show that closes the airport, something that happens each day during the week of the show. I wasn't able to meet up with them this year but did take advantage arriving Sunday only later in the day. Here's my arrival:

For the first time I arrived on runway 27 which was fun.  Except for the Skyhawk who cut right in front of me then took it out over the gravel pit, which was a no no, I had no issues flying in (a lot different the last year!) I had a slight over shoot on my turn to final but made a pretty good landing.  I was thrilled to be there again!

I did have one surprise that I wasn't counting on. When some rain came through a day or two later and I decided to put my cover on and noticed a problem with my exhaust mount. One of the wires that secure the tuned exhaust under the cowl had failed.

 I don't know when it happened but I knew I couldn't leave until I got it fixed. Well, I had no tools or parts but heck, I was at EAA AirVenture! Turns out that EAA has is a group of Volunteers who have been staffing an emergency aircraft repair barn for a number of years. EAA has a great video of the people who run the booth. The people there were just great. The had the wire and crimping tool to make a new part and within a few hours it was good as new. Thanks EAA!

AirVenture was HOT this year. The midwest was in the mist of a drought and the grounds were dry and scorching! Thank God for having a high wing aircraft!

So this year was the 75th anniversary of the Piper Cub and there were about 75 cubs that flew in. It was a great sight seeing mostly yellow cubs all parked in the same spot. The first RV was also restored and did a fly buy. There was as usual so many planes to see. Here's a sampling of the planes I enjoyed the most.

75th Anniversary Cubs

Van's RV-1 

There was one plane that I saw this year which meant a great deal to me. I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1980 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and I was fortunate enough to take an aircraft design course from Professor Edgar J. Lesher, a hall of fame designer and builder who held quite a few FAI records in the C-1a class. It was a privilege to take the class from such an esteemed professor and I remember seeing pictures of his Lesher "Teal" at the University. So imagine may delight when I saw his plane being displayed with other historic homebuilts. I couldn't believe the plane from my professor was right there in front of me. I'm sure most people just walked by it but for me, that was some special plane. Sure brought back lots of memories.

Always enjoy AirVenture, even as hot as it was.

Tailwheel Shimmy

So anyone who owns or flies a tailwheel aircraft will at some point run across the annoying tailwheel shimmy. I have never run into a pilot who hasn't had that dreaded vibration that occurs during landings. Whenever I meet an owner with a conventional gear I always ask how often he gets the shimmy and what he has done to prevent them from happening. The Sportsman is no exception.

When I converted my plane to a tailwheel, I was still an inexperienced tailwheel pilot but never had any real issue with the tailwheel. But the more I flew, the more I would get the shimmy occurring. I used to think that the real issue was the pilot and not the plane and that certainly has a lot to do with it. But the more I read about the issue in the Glasair Owners Forum, the more I learned about the issues causing that awful feeling on landing

The most important thing to get right is the angle of the tailwheel. I have the Alaskan Bushwheel on my plane and they have a short video that shows the proper set up for the tailwheel. The tailwheel spring tension and angle is critical for getting the best performance out of the tailwheel. Some of the Sportsman/Glastar owners were not happy with the original tailwheel kit from Glasair . The issue was the leaf spring. The feeling was the spring was not set for the proper angle and no matter what they tried, they couldn't get ride of the annoying shimmy.

Glasair looked for a solution and came out with a different leaf spring to try and help minimize the shimmy. The angle is different and it's beefier. I had the original spring so I ordered the new one hoping it would make a difference. Here's my original spring:

Now let me again say there are a lot of things that cause a shimmy. There's the tire pressure, which has to be correct ( I keep mine around 60 psi) and your gross weight. If your tire pressure is low, forget it. And you really have to measure it because just looking at the tire won't do. You especially have to be careful when it's cold outside and the air contracts.

Your gross weight and CG location also will determine if you get a shimmy. A high gross weight and an aft CG will also contribute to a shimmy. Now I don't fly a full gross very often but when I do I try to keep my CG as close to center as I can.

So here's my set up after the new spring.

Not sure if you can tell but the angle is better and the end result is a LOT less shimmy. Now I still get an occasional shimmy with either a crappy landing or some stiff cross winds but in general I'm very happy with the results. Some owners say the angle causes more lateral motion in the spring and I tend to agree but I still think it's a better set up than my original.

I have to say that in a conventional geared aircraft, the tailwheel is really critical. It has to provide all the lateral stability at touchdown and does come under a lot of stress. Now maybe because I land on hard runways all the time or maybe my landings are not always picture perfect  but my tailwheel tread wears out quickly. If I get a year out on the tire I'm happy. I never concerned myself with the tire when the training wheel was in the front :)

And one more thing, if you really want to avoid the shimmy, just do a wheely landing and avoid the situation all together.

Airventure 2011

For the second year, I made it again to AirVenture. Last year I hooked up with the other Glastar and Sportsman guys the Sunday before the show but the weather didn't cooperate. There were storms and low ceiling along my route so I delayed my trip one day, the another then another. Finally I left on Tuesday the 26th. I would be making the trip solo for the first time and was excited and nervous about what I might expect especially arriving at the field.

My route was slightly different than the year before as I tried to go as direct as possible to shorten the trip. Traveled from KISP to KDUJ (Dubois Regional in Pennsylvania) in 3.2 hours and after a quick fill up direct to Valparaiso KVPZ Indiana in 2.9.

Since I arrived in Indiana at about 3 pm local time, I decided to wait an hour or so before making my final leg to Oshkosh. With the air show going on daily till 6 pm, I wanted time my arrival so that I didn't have to hold very long for the field to open. So while waiting at KVPZ, I was able to see the two of the planes from the Collins Foundation before the headed to Oshkosh.

Arriving at AirVenture was probably the most nerve wracking thing that happened the whole trip. My timing was good but there was a delay in opening the airport so I still had to do some loops around Rush Lake. When I was finally cleared to the field, I found myself on the base leg of 36L when a DC-3 was coming along on final in front of me. With no place to go and no one responding to my radio I decided to abort the landing and just turn final at 1000 feet, make a right turn out over the lake and rejoin 36R, (the taxiway) for a landing. I was so nervous because everywhere I looked there were planes landing and I had to find my spot in-between them. Whew…. that was hairy.

Had a great time over the next few days. Burt Rutan was honored and saw all of his classic designs.

 Or course there were the warbirds and some really beautiful kit planes and amphibians (the Grumman Widgeon is my dream plane).

Even saw a Sportsman on floats!

I left on the 30th with tons of pictures and a wonderful experience. Hope to be there again next year.