BurnieM

You also need to be a bit creative with BF. for example for a 912is the fuel pump upgrade kit with 2 pumps is about $900 whereas a single pump is $1400.

Anybody got documentation for the MARAP process ?

Que ? If it is expired on both hours and calender time how will you be (legally) flying it ?

Looks like the TB2 used Rotax 912is. Rotax stopped supplying them in October 2020. Bayraktar are talking about their own engine (BM100) for the TB2. Only 20 have been made but they are talking about ramping up to 250/annum next year. Bayraktar saying that they need 200 engines a year just for maintenance of the existing TB2 fleet plus however many new drones they produce. So what engine have they been using 2021 to 2024 ? While this means the existing supplier has lots of hours to test/upgrade their engine, it does not mean anything to us unless we get verifiable data.

Supplying engines to drone manufacturers is a good testing ground. It enables you to build volume and resolve problems and develop your models out of the public eye. I believe Rotax did something similar. Only problem is nobody knows about the volumes, problems resolved and expected (true) life of the engine. So now we are in the show me what you have got stage from a company most of us have never heard of.

While 1 death is 1 death too many, lets keep things in proportion; 12 deaths is an extremely small number. I used to work for an undertaker 20 years ago. Sydney metro area had 60 deaths a day, not the whole of NSW just Sydney metro. The number is larger now. Each summer we get stories about the number of children drowning in pools. Sad, but again, a very small number.

Is your iPad already connected to your home internet ? Think it will only auto connect to 1 network.

Chinese companies can produce western quality products if they want to. I trust western QA regardless of where the product is made. Zonshen is a Chinese company with very little western reputation. Yes, Chinese car quality is getting much better. Yes, Zonshen have produced millions of small motorcycle engines. Talking about cars manufactured in much bigger volumes does not tell you much about the reliability/quality of a small volume specialist engine. What was their testing regime ? What faults have occurred in production engines ? How did they fix it ? What proportion of total engines had this fault ? How many hours ran till this fault occurred ? I do not expect to get answers to any of these questions. So we fall back to my original "warm, fuzzy feeling" requirement; Do you have 200 or more engines with 500 hours or more running in the wild and what faults/number of faults have occurred ? (single model, we have 20 of this, 40 of that, 30 of this and 50 of that does not cut it)

I believe the SkyEcho is transmitting an SDA of 1 as opposed to an SDA of 3 for a panel mount transponder with ADS-B. Supposedly ATC will use a mode C or S transponder or ADS-B (SDA 3) location for separation but ADS-B (SDA 1) for information only, whatever that means. The only ADS-B (SDA 3) devices I have seen are also mode S transponders.

I think Skippy has already established that his Trig transponder is only transmitting mode S but not extended splitter (ADS-B)

Buy a power bank. These can be charged in the plane and then recharge the SkyEcho overnight. Also good for any other device (phone, camera etc) you need to charge away from mains power. Just work out the capacity you need.

A big advantage is the cost but it is a double edged sword. You absolutely do not want to present an engine range with a quality/reliability question as cheap

(Potential) customer perception; There is a big quality/reliability question Zonsen have way too many models Introductory or discount pricing is unwise. This works backwards with the number 1 perception problem You need to establish one or maybe 2 models as reliable I would pick the CA500 (912ULS) and maybe the CA550Ti (915). You need to get 10 of each model flying asap Maybe a factory loan deal with ongoing data logging - low or no cost to test group owners Common parts for models you support need to be always available in Australia, 2 day delivery All of this will cost you and the factory a significant amount but I do not see you succeeding any other way.

Problem is it does not have a reputation yet. I guess what I am looking for is "we have 200 of them flying with 500 hours or more and these are the failure numbers with these specific types of failures" Sorry but 1 or 10 or 50 with 100 hours does not cut it.

I have Garmin Pilot. If you have traffic on then an aerial box in the top left corner of the screen is displayed. If no information is received the box has a red 'X'. I am currently using it with 'AvTraffic' via phone hotspot to the internet.