This is an extract from a private-site flyer, from an account by a PA46 Malibu pilot who apparently got his pitot frozen up
I am surprised at SD showing IAS. The only ways to do that would be
I don’t know what avionics the aircraft had but perhaps not a lot, given the lack of a fuel totaliser which is one of the cheapest things:
I’ve never seen IAS displayed from SD, only GS. Not sure where he would have viewed IAS.
Peter wrote:
have a connection to the aircraft airdata (not heard of such a product)
It exists, but I’m not aware of any that have a link to SkyDemon specifically showing IAS. See https://shop.levil.com/products/bom for the first that came to my mind, the same manufacturer makes others such as https://shop.levil.com/products/ilevil-3-aw
These are able to show IAS on their own app and on Aerovie, FlyWise EFIS, Naviator, Sky-Map, Xavion, Avare and WingX Pro. See https://shop.levil.com/pages/support-manuals
Also, if your normal (heated) pitot is frozen, I doubt these will be of any help.
It doesn’t sound like the described aircraft would have one of those.
He has the Levil BOM in PA46?
Maybe he was looking at his FPL in SD?
Something truly weird was going on in this case. Either he has a piece of IT hardware which we don’t know about, or the pilot is totally clueless about IAS, TAS, and avionics in general.
the pilot is totally clueless about IAS, TAS, and avionics in general
well, that would one helluva surprise, wouldn’t it
It would be a surprise for a PA46 owner
But then a PA46 owner who thinks a fuel totaliser is “very expensive” has entirely wrong priorities.
The only qualification that might set apart a PA-46 owner from any other pilot might be money. Surely not airmanship or deep understanding of his systems.
The “avoid flights longer than 4 hrs.” statement does not qualify for the deep understanding: Most Malibus have between 6 and 10 hrs. of endurance. To drain your tanks in 4 hrs. you need to fly all levers firewall for the entire flight. (at least in a piston).
Having said that: While the most Malibus have only one Pitot, some have 2 (e.g. at least for some time a second pitot was a requirement for the JetProp STC). In a PA-46 with two pitot, one could imagine an unlikely case where the one which is connected to the PFD is frozen, while the second one (connected to a second ADC) is still good and an iPad is connected to this ADC.
As said: Possible but very unlikely esp. for someone who calls a totalizer very expensive
SkyDemon gets all its data from GPS, it only knows GS and GPS-altitude.