Navigation and Instruments.

[Ultralights]

Navigation and Instruments

 

Having come from a GA background, all my Nav training was done the same way as the RAA, but with the addition of the use of VOR, DME and ADF. my question is, is there a cheaper Non certified version of the same instruments available for use in experimental built and homebuilt aircraft?? i would feel more comfortable on long inland trips with the use of VOR and ADF.

 

as i intend to install at least an ADF and VOR receiver... but unfortunately these items are very expensive.. do the digital combined flight displays available also provide a VOR? apart from the usual moving map GPS display and HSI?

 

one option im looking at is registering VH and finishing my gaining my PIFR rating and getting NVFR.

 

I would love to be able to fly at night and in marginal weather. as flying at night on a warm summers night under a full moon is something every pilot must experience...

 

Ultralights

 

 

[Captain]

Rob,

 

Here is an excerpt from a section of Dynon's website.

 

As you can see on the initial feature, it perhaps would allow you to go partway, thru the VOR.

 

But these aren't exactly cheap either.

 

Does that help at all?

 

Regards Geoff

 

New Features for All Products

 

October 27, 2006

 

[ATTACH]1205[/ATTACH]

 

After much hard work by the programmers and beta testers, Dynon is proud to release new firmware for all of our currently shipping products, including the EFIS-D100, EFIS-D10A, EMS-D120, EMS-D10, and FlightDEK-D180. With this free, in-field firmware update, Dynon continues to enhance our products' functionality while maintaining the stability and ease of use that you have come to expect from us.

 

Major Features

 

Here's what we've added in this release:

 

HSI with Glide Slope from SL30 Radio

 

An HSI overlay on the DG screen. If you have an SL30 radio, you can hook the serial output of that to your Dynon EFIS product and display the CDI, Glide Slope, VOR frequency and VOR ID as an EHSI display. This display will even show you bearing pointers to your active and standby VOR frequencies.

 

HSI with CDI from GPS

 

Another way to get an HSI display is by hooking up a GPS to your EFIS. This will allow the EFIS to display a CDI needle on the DG display for a virtual HSI. The screen will also show information from the GPS such as ground track, and distance to waypoint.

 

Winds Aloft with Cross Wind Info

 

With a GPS connection, the HSI screen will also show you real-time winds, including a relative wind arrow and an absolute display of wind direction and velocity. We also display the crosswind component of the wind vector so you can glance at an EFIS on final and see if you're comfortable with the crosswind.

 

Fuel at Waypoint, MPG, Range Data

 

On the EMS side of things, the GPS connection also gives us some exciting data. EMS products' fuel computer page will now show you fuel economy (MPG in English units), how much fuel you will have onboard when you reach your waypoint, and will constantly tell you what the ground range of your aircraft is in the current configuration. These tools should make efficient cross country flying much easier. If you need to get as far as possible, just pull back the power and lean out until the economy number peaks out.

 

Aircraft Trim & Flap Indication

 

You can now configure info items on EMS products to display trim and/or flap indicators by hooking up to the GP inputs.

 

Shock Cooling & Span Alarms

 

Alarms on EMS products can be configured to warn you if your CHTs are cooling too fast or your CHTs or EGTs have too much span between cylinders.

 

Captain

 

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

The trouble is that for any primary flight display to have a VOR display or ADF, it will need a radio receiver. As a result it will be bigger and more expensive. For remote flying VOR's simply don't have the range that you need, although they are accurate. VOR's are being slowly phased out over time anyway with ADSB and GPS being the way of the future.

 

For night flying in experimental you are going to need a certified (TSO'ed) primary nav device such as ADF, VOR or GPS. You don't need anything else to be TSO'ed other than the Radio gear, so in fact all Radio gear including VHF must be TSO'ed. Same for IFR, although the other gear must be too, such as the ASI / ALT etc, so no Dynon Dash's unless they are used only as a secondary VFR only reference device.

 

It is frustrating that the Garmin 296 / 396 as an example has the full blown VOR capability with graphical display which is identical to the Cirrus SR2X series Avidyne MFD, however because it's not certified it can't be used to make an aircraft legal for NVFR operations. This is because the definition of VOR is "VHF Omnidirectional Radio Beacon" and as such a GPS is not a "VHF" device. That being said, the VOR componentry is based on GPS anyway, in this case. In the case of the Cirrus SR2X the PFD (Primary Flight Display) is hooked up to the Garmin GNS430 and shows a computer simultated image of the Garmin IFR approved GPS. It is interesting to note that the right hand pane, shown below in pic in the Cirrus is not approved for IFR operations, however the pathetically small screen on the GNS430 is approved for IFR, even though it's simply displaying the input that the GPS provides...

 

Where am I headed with this... after much discussion on a recent build of a Jabiru that I posted about earlier in the week, we needed the aircraft to be NVFR (IFR was going to cost too much), so we fitted it with the Dynon as you can see which is non-tso'ed and the Garmin 35X series IFR TSO'ed GPS which is a combined Nav Com device. So excluding the Dynon we have achieved a NVFR aircraft for something like $4k US for a factory reconditioned Garmin. Note that the Dynon is not mandatory however an AH, DG and Turn coordinator are, so the Dynon works out to be quite cost effective in this installation. The alternative would be a Vacuum AH, DG and Turn with split sources of power not required.

 

In summary... probably the cheapest way to achieve NVFR would be to set up the following as per this Jab with or without the Dynon. For IFR, the GPS is required plus TSO'ed AH, DG, Turn, ASI, Alt etc which is rather expensive! (You don't need dual instrument power sources for NVFR)

 

If you really needed a nice big GPS screen you could perhaps either buy a non certified Avmap or Garmin 296/396 or hook up an LCD to the Garmin 350/450.

 

Oh and the Garmin 296/396 is great fun with the VOR display as you can use it to intercept radials for straight-in approaches. It's good fun to try and nail the 5 mile mark right on the radial and great practice for your NVFR rating.

 

I do hope that I have made sense here!

 

 

[Captain]

You could always put a bid in for one of the aircraft on http://www.aigaviation.com/salvage/salvage_List.aspx

 

Many have been partially dismantled (by their owners) and there are all sorts of instruments available and some are pretty loose.

 

You can probably buy some of these complete aircraft for less than the suite of instruments that you want.

 

As an aside, it's fascinating how many are described as "Ran out of fuel, made emergency landing, hit XXXXXXX" Running out of fuel (or more correctly, poorplanning, is a real issue in this caper, isn't it?)

 

Regards

 

 

[Ultralights]

Thanks for all the info so far, very interesting..

 

is there an aircraft salvage mob here in Oz??

 

 

[Guest David C]

Ultralights ,

 

There is a salvage company at Bankstown . Don't know the name of the Co though , but they are near to Winyre Aviation on Marion St , Bankstown Airport . You can't miss them , there are usually a few sad looking aircraft outside .

 

Dave

 

 

[Ultralights]

next time i am down there i might drop in and see what they have got, hope they will sell some TSOed stuff fairly cheap....

 

 

[Student Pilot]

There are some KR87 King ADF's around now fairly cheep (@$2000). Compared to a GPS they are pretty basic but for NVFR you need an "approved" aid. The cheapest TSO'd GPS would be at least $5000 fitted. It's no good buying old cheap crap that is no good for anymore than 10 mile and just adds weight. The KR87's will indicate 200 miles out in flat country and 60 or so in mountains. After the NDB's are decommissioned (coming soon to a town near you) the ADF's are still usable with commercial radio stations.

 

I have found the mob at Bankstown VERY expensive andhard to deal with. If your buying TSO'd secondhand stuff make sure it's tagged and tested, it's easy to get caught with a dud.

 

 

[Guest danda]

Excuse my ignorant however I went with brother in a piper and he set this nav aid that picked up the NDB what do they call that and what would one cost?

 

Don

 

 

[Ultralights]

from what i know, only what i was taught in my training was the ADF reciever picks up a signal from and NDB. ADF is Auto direction finder and the NDB is the Non directional beacon,

 

the NDB transmits a signal that is recieved by the ADF and the ADF needle will point to the direction of the signal. the instrument looks like a directional gyro with compass headings all around and 1 arrow shaped needle.

 

the VOR is a VHF Omnidirectional Radio, and transmits a signal on all 360 degrees of heading, a different signal for every degree.

 

the VOR instrument looks similar to the directional gyro but with a needle that swings side to side with 3 or 4 dots either side of centre. you tune the VOR on your nav/radio to the frequency of the VOR transmitter then turn the heading bug on the instrument till the needle becomes vertical. this means you have tuned in the exact heading to or from the transmitter..

 

hope this makes sence. i am am going off memory at the moment.

 

say your flying along happily on a heading of 360 overheadsay Tumut, and you wish to track to a VOR station at Wagga. the card on the VOR should be at 360 as well.

 

you tune the VOR to the frequency at Wagga, then turn the card till the needle lines up vertical. the heading on the card should read the heading to fly to get to wagga. this is called the Radial. so if wagga was due west, you will be on the090 Radial TO wagga. once you turn onto 270, you are now tracking to wagga. if you drift off the heading the needle will deflect to whichever side you are drifting, and the dots on the guage represent the degrees you are drifting.

 

once overhead wagga, and you continue on a heading of 270, you will now be tracking the 270 Radial FROM wagga.

 

The VOR guage has a little flag or arrow telling you if you are going TO or from the VOR station.

 

again i hope this makes sence, im sure somone could explain it better or find a link to the proper intructions,

 

VOR and ADF are very accurate for navigating at night or in cloud etc, and are primary for of navigation in IFR operations

 

so between good map reading, and obtaning confirmed fixes with the VOR and/or ADF, i should be theretically impossible to get lost or not know your exact position at any time..

 

there is a good explaination of both here

 

http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/vor-nav.htm

 

and the second part of the question, because both systems have to be TSO'ed for use in IFR or Night flying, both systems are VERY expensive, just the VOR system im looking at about $5000 US minimum or about $3000 for an ADF.

 

Flight sim is a great way to learn about IFR navigation, and i use it regularly to practice my nav techniques, buy thinking up obscure routes and flying them in flight sim at night and cloud using only VOR and ADF. though i havnt quie mastered the hand flown ILS approach and missed approaches. something i hope to learn when i go for my PIFR.. Ultralights

 

 

[Ben Longden]

NDBs are being switched off?????

 

Ben

 

 

[Guest danda]

Thank you very much Rob that was very Informative and after seeing the price it is no longer on my shoping list however Ben sad to hear that they are swiching them off, When I was with my brother thesimplicity struck methe GPShas outs and sometimes people get a little mixed up when navagating ad such a simple divice gives you peace of mind maybe I'm wrong however as we move forward with technologysome of the tried and true methods still have theirmerits oh well out off my ignorant I speak thank you both again.

 

Don

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Don something you will find is that the IFR GPS's are extremely simple to operate and have very little information on them. The Jab in the pic above or the Cirrus really only have a simple "goto" function. They don't have the ability to zoom ahead or terrain or other gucci features other than basic goto and routes.

 

It costs a lot to certify a GPS which is why the TSO'ed ones are so expensive. A good indication on why this is good for us in terms of safety is to look at the number of software updates on the Garmin 296. They are still riddled with software errors and there have been many updates in the last 2 or so years since they were released. If the 296 was certified right now as is, itwould probably eventually cause fatailities because all of it's features are not reliable enough.

 

At this point probably the most cost effective NVFR set-up for home builders would be a TSO'ed ICOM 200 VHF coupled with a King KR87, however they are hard to get hold of, are quite large and bulky (ie. not really suited for a Jab), so a GPS would be a tidy solution.

 

With ADSB and GPS so prevalent there won't be a requirement for NDB, VOR, ADF or DME and more - I'd give it a couple of years, perhaps 5 at the outside. With $5k say for a TSO'ed GPS and near the same price for a VOR I know what I'd be spending my hard earned cash on.

 

 

[Smokey]

Talking about the phasing out of some of the old nav systems in favour of GPS, something that probably not many people are aware of, as it's only just been identified, is the susceptibility of GPS signals to interference from solar flares. Logical when you think about it.

 

Last year 2 incidents were recorded at Aricebo which revealed a 40% drop in signal strength from the satellite for 70 seconds and 40 minutes later a 50% drop for 15 minutes.

 

The article (ref below) states that these drops were recorded at the receiver but does not state the impact on position accuracy. It does, however, indicate a concern for aircraft operating IFR with GPS as mandated by the US FAA.

 

The flare involved was apparently quite minor and larger flares could result in larger signal drops.

 

There is a prediction that during the next solar max (2011 - 2012) signal drop could be as much as 90% and lasting for several hours.

 

Fixes for this could include satellites with higher signal strength, which would require a redesign of the satellites or modifications to the receiver,

 

which would apparently compromise receiver design.

 

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0609/27gpsfailures/

 

Mark

 

Smokey

 

 

[Yenn]

You can get a VOR receiver by buying an Icom handheld. my Icom ICa22 has VOR capability andI have used it with no problems, but of course if it is your only radio you will only be able to use the VOR when outside of a CTAF® area. this will allow possibly 50nm. of use and if you are established on track when you need the radio you should be able to go the rest of the way without VOR.

 

Of course you cannot fly night VOR in an RAAus registered plane anyway. Another thing is that at night navigation is sometimes easier, especially outback because town lights are easier to see than the town in daylight.

 

 

[Guest danda]

Thanks for all the info I have learnt quite a bit and Yenn I have a hand held that is VOR enabled however thats my main raido and there is no way i am going to fly after dark anyway I think I will stick to the GPS maybe buy a small cheap Handheld as a backup.

 

Don

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Unfortunately the VOR must be TSO'ed, so technically the handheld is not useful for anything, but that being said the VOR is a clever gadget. I have an old Bendix King handheld with VOR and I can reliably find my position using it. I tend to use it to demonstrate to passengers how I can use a radio to find exactly where I am on the map, however it's not going to be much good for anything else. I wouldn't like to trust my life on it at night, but then again that being said it does appear to work reliably especially when hooked up to the external VHF aerial.

 

For those that haven't flown at night before, as Ultralights says it can be very interesting and fun. It's very easy to misjudge distances and altitude so without some time under your belt it can be a little dangerous. Many a pilot have come unstuck when landing at night because they haven't realised how low they are.

 

I remember there was a Jabiru flying around at Narromine one night after dinner two years ago. When it landed everyone rushed over to see who the "crazy"pilot was flying at night, including someone from our organisation's executive, however upon arriving at the aircraft it was found to be GA registered

 

 

[Guest Guest]

What should be avoided here is relying on 'experts' who appear to know what they're talking about - after all it's not their money.

 

 

[Ross]

What is the effect of solar flares on magnetic compasses and electronic or digital compasses?

 

Regards

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

http://plasma.newcastle.edu.au/plasma/publicat/pubs.htm

 

I have a friend, Sean Ables, who is has a phd in this area, he works for The CentreforSpace Physics Research at Newcastle uni.

 

there are a collection of papers and thesis abstracts that may help explain the effects.

 

Some of the research is used to predict the effects/damage on communication satellites.

 

A few years ago we compared some bursts of magnectic influence on how much scalloping the VOR was doing on a trip form syd to bris in a twin otter. the one experiment showed the vor to be influencedBUT it needed much more research to show how muchdeflection was being caused by the amount of incoming interference. This would involve some real time information from the sensors that arelocated in the Antartic coupled to a series of VOR equipped aircraft flying the same routes. then it could be graphed out into something readable. the same could be done forother radio based instruments.

 

There are also some other outside influences on radio wave proiagation other than the sun or atmosphere conditions that need to be taken intoaccount here.ie absorbtion of waves on suface types ,water/land ect.

 

interesting stuff.

 

Ozzie

 

 

[Guest danda]

Clem I was quite interested to see that the water bombers all had Garmin GPS although things where quite hectic and I wasn’t able to have a conversation with them about the use I.E. strictly nav on flight from point a to point b or for fire fighting. At this point I have to say I was in awe of their skill thank GOD we have such skilled and dedicated pilots. Don

 

 

[Smokey]

I have a friend, Sean Ables, who is has a phd in thisarea, he works for The Centre for Space Physics Research at

Newcastle uni.

 

there are a collection of papers and thesis abstracts that may help explain the effects.

 

Some of the research is used to predict the effects/damage on communication satellites.

Ozzie

 

Afraid I have a pile of 'must read' on my coffee table about 2 foot hgh, and growing, rapidly. The pile in the study I don't want to think about.

 

These appear to be typically titled scientific papers where the relevance is not always immediately apparent. Do you have any recommendations which of these papers would be of most interest.

 

Mark

 

 

[Captain]

Thequestion was "Do you have any recommendations which of these papers would be of most interest?"

 

Mark ... It's always the one that is second from the bottom in the pile.

 

Regards Geoff

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Crop dusters and water bombers sometimes seem to have their own "special" form of naviation which "sometimes" involves navigation at 100-200ft... but that being said, that might only by our local guy. He seems to like to get from point a to b at 100ft above the trees.

 

The guy I'm thinking of navigates by talepathy I think but he does use one of those complex dusting GPS's which tells him where he's been. I don't know what brand it is but it looks expensive. Nowdays farmers are fitting them to tractors too.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Hi Mark, Iknow what you mean. i can hardly find my keyboard at times.

 

Dr Waters's publications cover a large area in radio wave propagation

 

Dr Morley's studies are more specific to"Cusp Ion Dispertions" in the boundary layer of the ionosphere that one in many results is affecting communications either physically, lower altitude satellites burning out or by EMF just distorting signals. (magnetic flux transfer rates)

 

Basically the study of solar flares and wind. But in the area of EMF affectting the Earths magnetic field and that ofthe interplanetary magnetic field.

 

Dr Sean Ables and a Chinese professor are studying a specific frequency within this area. It seems like a good lurk as Sean goes to the Antartic every second summer to reset hisinstruments.

 

It is interesting to see the results as data is being downloaded over a couple of home brews. How does it affect you and me?

 

no signal imput

 

ozzie