Originally Posted by Aaron Novak
I've heard a lot about the ROTAX 912is lately. It has an Engine Management sytem to keep things simple and a redundant fuel injection system for reliability. Maintenance shoud be simpler too w/o the dual carbs. Fuel consumption is about one GPH less and that tranlates to about 15 to 20% more range in the same airframe. Kit makers are offering it for about $3,000 more.
Bob
Joe, you are right about the F-86, one jet airplane that actually looks good. I am told by folks that know like Steve Hinton and Bob Hoover that they fly really well also. I have never flown one, not sure I have even sat in one. I did see a fatal accident in an 86 once that colors my thinking somewhat. I have had only one small jet flight once in a Soko, another nice looking plane.
Isn't it magnificent the advances all these smart young guys come up with these days. like Fadec automatic mixture control.
Wow, that is a heck of a major step forward. I wonder if they thought it up on their own, or just copied the system that Supermarine had on the Rolls Royce Merlin in Spitfires and I assume other Merlin engines planes in 1936.
I have flown behind a Rotax, several of them. None of the ones then had Fadec.
I have flown behind a Merlin, several of them.
The Rotax was satisfactory, the Merlin was impressive, inspiring, and memorable.
The Merlin did have another type of engine managment system also; it's called a pilot.
Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 07-22-2013 at 11:55 AM.
With all of the portable electronic equipment, even if a high tech plane like a Cirrus or the above DA42 loses its avionics, having something like the I-Fly 720, a portable radio and Dynon's diminutive D1 Pocket panel (it shows attitude, altitude and ground speed), a pilot should be able to fly to the nearest airport with little problem assuming that the pilot can live without an autopilot. The Dynon is about $1400, the I-Fly is about $700 and a portable radio is around $300. Seems to me that would be cheap insurance to have in one's flight bag.
David
Bob,
I have spent more than a few hours on the development side of "modern" automotive type EFI and DFI engine management systems at an engine OEM. That being said....I do not trust them for aviation use. The more you become involved with the components on a detailed level, the less appealing they get for an application where failure is not a nice option. A system properly developed, manufactured, and controlled would be beyond the cost scope for most of the GA world, especially homebuilts.
I can't help but add a couple of comments to this thread. Let me say up front that I'm hardly a technology challenged pilot. I'm an electrical engineer, now retired, and love new technology and what it will do for me. My wife and I have owned a '73 Baron for 24 years and it's still steam gauges and King digital avionics that we installed when we bought the airplane. Would I like to have the latest Garmin stuff in the panel? Of course. Would I like to have FADEC controls for the engines? Yep, if it were available. My problem with all this is that it would buy me very little, if any, utility for the airplane or fun in flying it. Yeah, I could do the LPV approach to RWY 15 at home base (FNL), but, when the weather is bad, the wind is almost never out of the south, so the ILS will do just fine, thank you, which I still fly to ATP standards. Would FADEC make my 40 year old airplane go any faster? Probably not.
I love flying the airplane. Yes, read that hand flying the airplane, even with a nice autopilot with flight director. So, if Cirrus and the others want to try to extract something just short of a million bucks from me, well, don't bother. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't. None of this admittedly neat stuff significantly improves the utility of the airplane or how much fun it is to fly. And isn't the fun of flying why most of us are here?
Bill
N222AB
Fort Collins, CO
Well...there are two kinds of people who fly airplanes: Those who like the challenge of flying, and those who look on them as transportation.
I like to think of myself in the former category...which I think, most of us in EAA do. Mind you, most folks are hybrids of some sort or another...else we'd all be flying ultralights.
However, I think looking at airplanes are purely transportation is a perfectly valid attitude. If someone does, then they're actually looking at ways to *reduce* the challenges of flight; ways that technology can make their aircraft more likely to complete a trip safely. And in this day-and-age, that means *technology*.
Face it, small aircraft controls have hardly changed since the Wright brothers. We're still coordinating turns with rudder, we're still hauling back on the stick while turning to maintain altitude, we're still pushing our luck on fuel. The average smart phone has probably ten times the smarts needed to fly an airplane.
Ideally, an aircraft operator (I won't use the term "pilot") should just have three controls: A control that lets they select the direction to fly, another that selects the altitude, and a "mode switch" that lets the operator designate what he or she wants the airplane to do (take off, cruise, land, loiter, etc.). The onboard computer would take these inputs and convert them into the proper motions for the aerodynamic controls and the engine settings. No stalls, system doesn't let the operator fly further than available fuel permits, GPS ensures it stays above terrain, etc. Problem? System automatically deploys the CAPs.
Call it the "AirBus-tification" of GA.
With that, though, there'd still be room for manually-flown GA. Sailboats didn't disappear with the invention of the steam engine.
Ron Wanttaja
Ron's right on the button, as usual, if one looks past the fact that the Wright flyer had no rudder controls (they were linked to the ailerons) and it was weight shifted for roll (do I get the Pedantic Device for my Spring Butt medal?).
The more interesting question is whether the technology is appropriate for the needs of GA aircraft.
In the personal computing world I've got a pretty beefy system at the house because I'm a combat flight sim geek, and moving virtual SPADs and Nieuports around takes a lot of ones and zeros at one time to make happen. My sister looked to me for computer advice when her incredibly ancient Pentium III system gave up the ghost.
"Anything in a big box with all the stuff included that's five hundred bucks or less," I advised, "or a new laptop on clearance."
Why? Because she looks at email once in awhile and does some casual web surfing. She doesn't need a lot of high end gear for that.
The key, I think, is to have only as much technology as is required for the mission parameters of the aircraft. My aircraft, for the troglodyte example, has no position or landing light on it. It's daytime VFR only, just like its pilot. Putting them on would have no real advantage, especially considering the additional need for generating power for them.
Another example is the Space Shuttle. Right up to its last flight the whole thing was run on some dreadful computer specs - Pentium III and IV's, RAM measured in megabytes, etc. They didn't upgrade them for a very simple reason - it worked just fine the way it was. Sure, they could have justified replacing whole systems in a few paragraphs (it's a multi-billion dollar space craft), but the truth is that it wouldn't have improved the safety or operations of it one iota.
So for me the question is what is the true benefit of expanded technology for the GA pilot (who usually is alone under daytime VFR conditions), especially when one does the cost analysis against it?
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
I am suprised that the diesel engines have not gained in popularity despite their large price tag. A more efficient fuel burn and the ability to use jet A instead of avgas are pretty compelling reasons in my book. If they gained in popularity then the concerns of parts availability and maintenance knowlege would diminish. As it is the few I've come across have had very positive reviews and company/customer support has been reportedly great. If there was a FADEC system that had a backup system that would allow you to continue a flight with no interuption after a system or component failure then I could see no reason other than cost as to why it wouldn't become mainstream. I too have a lot of experience with automotive computer systems (ignition, fuel management, and variable valve timing) and if we could begin developing these systems for our aircraft there would be a possibility that we could solve many of our issues with the phase out of the leaded avgas. There is only so much tuning one can do with an engine that was designed in the 1930's and is running a fixed magneto and a rudimentary fuel injection system or worse yet a carburetor.
I just spent my weekend at a threshing show(think old tractors and farm equipment) and I realized while working on a 1917 tractor that it wasnt much different than my Lycoming o-320. Simple carburetor, big pistons, magneto and by todays standards low power to weight weight ratio. Let's face it, modern standards in engineering and technology have not been adapted to our GA fleet and we are paying the price. Think of what it would be like to travel to a destination 300 nm away in two hours or less burning less than 8 gallons in a type certified airplane. It may sound outragous but if you look at the advances in the auto industry from the 1940's-50's to today, you would also think similar advances would have happened in the aviation world but they haven't.
Last edited by mustangbuilder; 07-22-2013 at 10:53 PM.
I see that Continental just bought Thielert Aircraft Engines. Diesels just might gain a bit more popularity.
David
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