Yes, I looked on Aircraftspruce before posting, and found one unit for 800 $, this one is even more expensive at 1100 $.
The reason I’m asking was a discussion of a recent Bonanza fatal on COPA, where the (supposedly quite experienced) pilot had declared an emergency as he had lost his vacuum pump in IMC. He then flew on partial panel for a while, then came back stating he had lost some more instruments, and that was basically his last transmission before an in-flight break-up of the plane. audio Very chilling.
In the discussion, someone stated that you should have one of these gadgets in case everything else fails. Others stated you should get better training for the money. While I can see how a backup AHRS may have helped this pilot, I can’t see myself spending 1.000 $+ on another box that’s going to clutter up the cockpit, needs charging and where the main functionality (ADS-B in and weather) are practically useless in Europe. People at my aeroclub already constantly make fun of me for possessing a CO detector and a PCAS.
Hi Rwy20, yes that also made the rounds among the Mooney community….tragic and very sobering. Lots of unanswered questions regarding his actions and seeming intention to carry on to his destination, it appeared that he was initially VMC on top and then entered IMC on partial panel. It seems like he was struggling to hold a course and altitude and then stated he had lost some more instruments…which is possible I suppose but possibly he had got so far out of straight and level that the instruments were confusing to him…My initial thoughts were that it is a good idea to do an IPC at least once a year…but then I also had the same thoughts as you – a backup AI would probably have saved his life… I wouldn’t worry about what the people in your Aeroclub think…vacuum pumps fail and it will not care whether you are in VMC or IMC…I had a vaccum pump fail last year in a very similar situation to the Bonanza pilot – VMC on top of a fairly solid undercast….fortunately form me I could see that the clouds were broken up ahead of me and I continued VFR…but only a couple of months previously my electric TC had failed… I have sold my aircraft now, but a backup AI was top of my list!
Rwy20 wrote:
I can’t see myself spending 1.000 $+ on another box that’s going to clutter up the cockpit,
Wouldn’t it be more adequate to just use a mobile phone? Modern phones have all the required sensors (3 DOF each linear accelerometer, angular velocity and magnetic sensors). The only difficulty would be to attach the phone to the airframe.
tomjnx wrote:
Wouldn’t it be more adequate to just use a mobile phone?
I have been thinking about this. Would it work? I would like this to work without initialization on the ground, so when I need it in flight, I could open some app with a virtual AI that could get me down safely.
When you search for such apps, there is always a disclaimer such as for this app:
Please be aware that due to limitations of accelerometer data, this application is not suitable for primary flight use and is only for fun.
I reckon that my app use on the occasion of a vacuum failure in IMC wouldn’t exactly qualify to be “only for fun”.
Don’t the various EFB products available for Europe have what ForeFlight has in the US? It’s got an inbuilt synthetic viz (as add-on to the base subscription). While I’ve – luckily! – never had to try it in anger, it seems to work well. I switched it on during a recent flight over mountainous terrain: we were on top with only the peaks sticking out and I wanted to know where the valleys were below us. Great for SA in a case like that!
You might all laugh at me but I bought the Xavion app exactly because of these fears. Today its running on the Ipads internal sensor but they drift after a while and you have to recalibrate which takes 3 seconds. I would prefer an external AHRS though.
172driver wrote:
Don’t the various EFB products available for Europe have what ForeFlight has in the US? It’s got an inbuilt synthetic viz
Air Navigation Pro has such a mode, but since I had already stopped using it (too buggy, too slow), I didn’t want to buy the 3D data which you need in order to test this mode (it costs around 50 $ for Switzerland alone). Has anyone tried this feature, and can tell if it works reliably?
There must be a reason why nobody has done this with a phone.
You need a low drift gyro. The proper ones eg SG102, Aspen etc are in a temperature controlled oven. You also need a gravity vector sensor for a background erection process.
Peter wrote:
You need a low drift gyro.
Depends on what you want it to do. For “precision navigation”, maybe yes, for staying alive when the rest of the panel falls apart, no.
Peter wrote:
You also need a gravity vector sensor for a background erection process.
It’s called an accelerometer and pretty much all current smartphones do have one.
Peter wrote:
There must be a reason why nobody has done this with a phone.
Hmmmm. Interestingly ForeFlight doesn’t do it on the iPhone either, only on the iPad. Wonder why that’s the case, AFAIK the internal sensors are the same (in functionality).
