Why do you need a gear warning ???
When you don know how what it means 
Sorry, I couldn’t resist to post this old famous video for this matter
They had the gear warning allright but they were apparently not familiar with the type and thought they were flying a Tiger Moth or some such… there are so many clues in a TB20 if the gear is up.
Archer-181 wrote:
What do people think? Do the Government make us safer or not ?
I have no doubt that many of the people I know who fly with either certified or uncertified equipment (and very often a mixture of both) aren’t impacted very much one way or the other by government in terms of aviation safety, because they know what they’re doing through knowledge and experience.
I think aircraft and avionics certification may make some people safer, if they choose that as part of their risk management strategy. The key issue is that it shouldn’t be mandatory, people should manage their own risk, and as is so often true when left to their own devices, they will do it well. There is a substatial price paid for making make us safer by force whenever another option exists, and mostly another option exists.
I can see it from both angles. I can see exactly what Peter is saying but I am swayed by Silvaire’s approach. As far as I can see, the Dynon EFIS D10 A for $2,200 USD is now allowed to be fitted in PA28 types in the United States. I am sure that won’t be allowed in EASA land.
I would prefer be allowed to make my decisions what I could fit and manage my own risk but I can definitely see the dangers of deregulation. One thing is 100% sure however, Garmin prices would drop!
Archer – 181
I think as usual there are more aspects to this topic.
I posted this before. One method is for the mfg to add the item to the Type Certificate. Then he literally can buy an item from anywhere, provided the traceability is sorted (which is just a sheet of A4 paper from the item mfg, accompanied by a 3x price hike to recover the massive cost of the laser printer toner used to print it) and he can certify it under his 145 authority. Half the bits on a TB20 are ex car parts, allegedly Renault or bits made by French car part mfgs e.g. Valeo, or parts made by French companies (who usually have negligible presence outside France, even in website language terms) who supply precisely identical parts to their UL/homebuilt market with no paperwork.
So what prevents widespread TC-based installations of uncertified avionics? I am sure there are very good reasons otherwise every airframe mfg would be installing the stuff. Much cheaper than a G1000 etc.
But I don’t think you can install an uncertified AI/PFD/etc as the primary or only display on a certified plane. Not even under the TC route. It is however true that the item has to meet TSO requirements; it doesn’t actually have to be TSOd. What this means in reality is a good question – see here. The advantage of meeting the requirements of an approval without actually getting the approval is a curious one… Looking at Dynon, it seems to mean the item will require an airframe type specific STC, just like autopilots seem to do. Nobody seems to know anything about this so I guess Dynon found some very subtle route.
Also some people in the USA have reported being able to (permanently) install a noncertified PFD type product on the RHS. That is also contrary to tradition (in FAA land, you can install more or less anything TSOd on the RHS, as a Minor mod, so long as there is no autopilot connection, no EFIS, and aren’t removing any TC-mandated instruments unless the replacement comes with a “primary replacement” STC) but is more easily understood. However most FSDOs will refuse such as a Field Approval.
There is an FAA-EASA treaty on mutual acceptance of data used to obtain an STC (not the STC itself – that would be political dynamite in Europe).
As regards the philosophical argument on personal freedoms, as an ex refugee from communist Czechoslovakia I am with Silvaire on this 
but IMHO most people buying uncertified kit are not in a position to evaluate the impaired aspects. If say you sold a kit plane which has non-monotonic control forces, most people would kill themselves on the first flight. Further down the scale, if you sold a 750kg fibreglass SEP with a Vs2 of 90kt then most people will kill themselves following an engine failure away from an airport. In avionics, there is a lot of interference which can render something useless – see e.g. here and this is with certified kit!
Peter wrote:
If say you sold a kit plane which has non-monotonic control forces, most people would kill themselves on the first flight.
That is a bit exaggerated. If something slightly out of the A4 C-172 behaviour would cause you to kill youself, then you probably should not be flying in the first place. One of the prerogatives of a PPL is to be able to fly all kinds of different contraptions without half a year of transition training. That is not to say that what we as PPL pilots lack in general, is flying skills (as opposed to operating skills), and to get appreciable amount of flying skills we need to fly different airplanes. For very different and special airplanes, transition training is not a bad idea. Things aren’t dangerous just because they are different, they are dangerous only if you are unprepared and unaware of the differences.
Anyway, that DME and VOR looks tempting. How much job is it to make one from those drawings, and what would the price be for the components?
A VOR receiver you could do for about £30 with a Raspberry PI and SDR – there’s little point in reinventing that wheel.
The DME is a more interesting challenge as you have to generate the interrogation pulses.
I had to google on SDR which means many things… a software defined radio presumably in this case.
The bigger point is that anybody can build anything that receives signals but doesn’t transmit anything.
When you start transmitting you open a whole can of worms.
Actually making a DME is not too bad – as this guy demonstrates. Probably €100-200 in parts. If you open up a GTX330, GNS430, a KLN94, etc, you see parts worth maybe $200… so the gross margins these firms make are massive. They have massive fixed costs too to recover, however.
Peter wrote:
When you start transmitting you open a whole can of worms.
Do you really with DME? From what I gather (from Wikipedia), the DME station will dismiss all transmissions (from an airplane) that is not according to specification. Either you are sending signals within specs, and the DME will work, or your signals are out of spec, and the DME will not work.
LeSving wrote:
Do you really with DME? From what I gather (from Wikipedia), the DME station will dismiss all transmissions (from an airplane) that is not according to specification. Either you are sending signals within specs, and the DME will work, or your signals are out of spec, and the DME will not work.
What wikipedia article are you referring to?
