ChrisK
En-Route
This thread by Hobobiker inspired me.
I decided to do some sim flying yesterday (I have a Saitek yoke, rudder pedals, Cessna TPM, and Cessna trim). I set X-Plane 10 up for non-precision IMC and tried to fly (using the really cool new 430 simulator) from LPR to Y47. As I was approaching cruise altitude, I remembered Hobo's thread and thought "hey - I'll turn on random failures!"
Not having any idea what I was really doing, I set up all of my instruments and electronics to have a MTBF of 60m. After about 20m of flying, my instruments went out.
One by one.
All of them.
It was awesome.
As I started to lose instruments, I found myself switching to backups. I was using ForeFlight, so that gave me pretty good altitude reference when I lost my static port. When the vacuum pump quit, I was able to maintain things reasonably well with the turn coordinator and the GPS altitude.
That, of course, is when I lost the electrical system.
It was an interesting feeling. I had no way of knowing which way was up and was flying totally blind. I knew where I was due to ForeFlight (somewhere out over the water) and I could at least see if I was turning or climbing / descending with some amount of lag, but that really wasn't enough to fly the airplane. That's when I remembered the "Attitude Indicator" button on ForeFlight.
Just like that, I was flying again.
I was able to more-or-less level off. I had altitude and groundspeed information, a laggy attitude indicator, and rate of climb. I used this to divert in the direction of ONZ. I knew that over the water I wasn't in danger of hitting much, so I tried to drop down over water in that direction. I broke out at about 700' AGL and was able to approach and land at Grosse Ile airport.
Because I rent aircraft that are well abused by students and sometimes fly in IMC, I like to have as many backups as I can afford. I am not ashamed to fly with an iPad on the yoke and a Sporty's SP-400 in my bag. These simulated failures taught me a few things:
So what do you folks think about the Stratus AHRS and the portable ADS-B out concept?
I decided to do some sim flying yesterday (I have a Saitek yoke, rudder pedals, Cessna TPM, and Cessna trim). I set X-Plane 10 up for non-precision IMC and tried to fly (using the really cool new 430 simulator) from LPR to Y47. As I was approaching cruise altitude, I remembered Hobo's thread and thought "hey - I'll turn on random failures!"
Not having any idea what I was really doing, I set up all of my instruments and electronics to have a MTBF of 60m. After about 20m of flying, my instruments went out.
One by one.
All of them.
It was awesome.
As I started to lose instruments, I found myself switching to backups. I was using ForeFlight, so that gave me pretty good altitude reference when I lost my static port. When the vacuum pump quit, I was able to maintain things reasonably well with the turn coordinator and the GPS altitude.
That, of course, is when I lost the electrical system.
It was an interesting feeling. I had no way of knowing which way was up and was flying totally blind. I knew where I was due to ForeFlight (somewhere out over the water) and I could at least see if I was turning or climbing / descending with some amount of lag, but that really wasn't enough to fly the airplane. That's when I remembered the "Attitude Indicator" button on ForeFlight.
Just like that, I was flying again.
I was able to more-or-less level off. I had altitude and groundspeed information, a laggy attitude indicator, and rate of climb. I used this to divert in the direction of ONZ. I knew that over the water I wasn't in danger of hitting much, so I tried to drop down over water in that direction. I broke out at about 700' AGL and was able to approach and land at Grosse Ile airport.
Because I rent aircraft that are well abused by students and sometimes fly in IMC, I like to have as many backups as I can afford. I am not ashamed to fly with an iPad on the yoke and a Sporty's SP-400 in my bag. These simulated failures taught me a few things:
- A backup AHRS is a GOOD idea. I am strongly considering buying a Stratus. I kinda feel like they're going to drop the price after Christmas and that they will release a new one at some point shortly here, but in an emergency and for flying in weather, I think it will be a smart purchase.
- I need to practice these "emergency" procedures. I've lost electrical and various instruments before. If I want to be at least sort of proficient on my backups, I have to practice in the plane with them, and see how bad they are (i.e. will my handheld work satisfactorily without an external antenna?)
- I'm thinking that portable ADS-B out would be nice to have, but I'm still fuzzy on what is legal and smart. It isn't the highest thing on my priority list, but it is certainly something I'm considering wasting money on.
So what do you folks think about the Stratus AHRS and the portable ADS-B out concept?
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