On a very quick look, it is some sort of voltage booster for Slick mags.
had plug fowling problems
What kind of fowl went through the engine? Colour of the feathers?
Exactly Peter !
The slickstart will get an engine running with less than optimum conditions, they quote a 300% increase of power at the spark plug over the power produced by the magnetos during start.
My experience with three rental aircraft operated by a flying club is that the slickstart put an end to all my starting problems due to engine mis handling and consequently extended starter motor and battery life.
As you say Peter, dark ages technology but until the magnito gets replaced this is making the best of a bad job.
I emailed p-mag recently asking how far off they were from certification. Nothing specific in their reply apart from a long way off. However they are aiming for certification for dual p-mags from day one.
Despite the very good reputation of P-Mag’s within the home build world I don’t think you will see certification, however there is another option from Electroair that is already flying and has FAA certification with some flying on UK registered aircraft. EASA certification is based on the FAA STC and so currently only available for aircraft with an FAA TC.
I am told that an EASA STC is on the way and expected early next year first for the six cylinder engines with the four cylinder Lycoming following shortly after.
I’m thinking of installing a SlickStart in my G-reg 172 but can’t find an EASA STC. Is there one?
I can now answer my own question, which may be of interest to others. I contacted Champion and this was their reply:
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the inquiry. You do not need an EASA STC for the install as the FAA STC is grandfathered by EASA. Here is communication we received directly from EASA regarding this:
“FAA STC SA593CH is not EASA validated. However, it falls under the grandfathered rights as it was validated by an EASA Member State before the creation of EASA.”
I wonder which member state it was?
Any national CAA approval existing in 2003 was grandfathered into an all-EU approval when EASA took over certification in 2003. For many years that was the only good thing EASA did
So e.g. everything here should be usable, although that database is an absolute pig to search usefully.