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Thread: Instrumentation for the Pietenpol

  1. #11
    Dana's Avatar
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    I have to say I'm in the old school camp when it comes to open cockpit wood and fabric planes, steam gauges all the way (and yes, leather helmet and silk scarf!). That said, I do have a (wooden) cradle for my smartphone in my plane. The smartphone runs Avare, which I use for navigation and flight logging.

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    For my new plane, I made a kneeboard specifically to hold a 7" tablet. I have to fly the plane 1000 miles to get it home, and don't want to deal with paper charts in an open cockpit. The larger tablet will just make it easier; dealing with an unfamiliar plane over unfamiliar territory I want to focus on the plane, not the navigation.

  2. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    A man after my own heart. I just completed a 40-year career in the Space industries, participating in the design, construction, testing, or operation of about 17 satellites and ~25 upper stage rockets. Most of the time while flying a 1930's throwback airplane on the weekends. :-)

    The Pietenpol Facebook group recently posted a photo of a cover that fits over the instrument panel on the ground, and makes the panel look like a fancy EFIS system. You certainly could go the other way; build the tablet-based EFIS and have a more traditional-looking cover for it when you're parked at airshows.

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

    (edit: added Facebook link. Probably won't work for everyone)

    Ron Wanttaja

    That's too cool to hear. Yeah I just imagine the more traditional covering, over the modern technology just makes the theme seem a little more 'sneaky'. When I first came to WVU I studied landscape architecture and I was always fascinated by themes of the landscape taking back over the industrial setting, and thats kind of what I'm going for with the Piet. The classic taking overtaking the new.
    I'm jealous of what've been able to do for the past 40 years! I hope the space industry really explodes forward! The future is only as far away as we want it to be!

  3. #13
    Yes! The cradle for the phone is a perfect example of what I'm talking about! However that look would be throughout the entire dash.
    Quote Originally Posted by Dana View Post
    I have to say I'm in the old school camp when it comes to open cockpit wood and fabric planes, steam gauges all the way (and yes, leather helmet and silk scarf!). That said, I do have a (wooden) cradle for my smartphone in my plane. The smartphone runs Avare, which I use for navigation and flight logging.

    Name:  P6162290.jpg
Views: 1321
Size:  93.7 KB

    For my new plane, I made a kneeboard specifically to hold a 7" tablet. I have to fly the plane 1000 miles to get it home, and don't want to deal with paper charts in an open cockpit. The larger tablet will just make it easier; dealing with an unfamiliar plane over unfamiliar territory I want to focus on the plane, not the navigation.

  4. #14

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    Some of the WWI replica guys make a little wooden cover to put over modern instruments when it's on the ground.

    Personally, I'm thinking that I've got at least three instruments too many on my Nieuport 11 panel. I just don't look at tach, altimeter, or ASI in flight. I think I could dump the compass as well. I think the oil temp and oil pressure gauges would be plenty.
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  5. #15
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    I am not fond of the clashing look and would want to keep a vintage design looking vintage, but like Dana I am not averse to a little discreet technology on the side. An iPad Mini or a Android tablet on a kneeboard (with a real GPS receiver if needed, I have one of the little Bad Elf plug-in modules) is great for navigation and trip planning, but it stays with you, not the plane, and leaves the instrument panel uncluttered.
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  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Giger View Post
    Some of the WWI replica guys make a little wooden cover to put over modern instruments when it's on the ground.

    Personally, I'm thinking that I've got at least three instruments too many on my Nieuport 11 panel. I just don't look at tach, altimeter, or ASI in flight. I think I could dump the compass as well. I think the oil temp and oil pressure gauges would be plenty.
    Well, there is that pesky 91.205, but as someone pointed out recently, it specifies the required instruments for airplanes with STANDARD airworthiness. So unless your operating limitations require compliance with 91.205, you're probably off the hook. For a brand-new homebuilt, the DAR may balk at signing it off without the proper gauges, but seems to me one should be pretty free otherwise.

    Like Frank, I wouldn't drop any tears or cry Mayday if the tachometer, altitimeter, or ASI went AWOL in flight. However, I have a bit of a different opinion about eliminating them entirely.

    Since I'm a typical engineer and my engine has dual ignition, I'd probably keep the tach. It lets me do consistent runups, and to more-carefully track the differences in the mag drop. Since my airplane uses a $40 lawn-mower tach, this isn't a major impact.

    Chef de Ciel Giger may fly from the hinterlands of the deep south, but my home airport is tucked under the Sea-Tac Class B. I need to keep an altimeter to keep from bumping into the bottom of the Class B airspace.

    The only time I look at the compass is at Condition Inspection time, just to be sure the whiskey isn't too low and the deviation card is there. Otherwise, I've never used it.

    Anyone with an open cockpit, wire bracing, and decent hearing can get by without an airspeed indicator. However, there is a matter of "calibration." I can handle my Fly Baby without an airspeed indicator because I've been flying them for almost 30 years. But someone brand-new to the airplane would need a conventional indicator until they were accustomed to doing it by ear.

    One of the many post-retirement projects I've considered is a simplified EFIS. Use the Talon unit as a sensor, and use a small screen for a readout. Something like an older smart phone, with a ~2"x3" display. Make the display like the outdoor Time and Temperature displays...show the airspeed for two seconds, then display the altitude, then the RPM, etc. Use great big numbers so us old guys don't have to squint. Kinda like this:

    Play around with font, color, styles, etc. to help quickly differentiate the various pages.

    I kind of like this because it reminds me of the displays on the Pan Am Space Clipper in 2001.....

    You could even set it up so the "Idle" display is an airplane logo, or something...so it's not quite as obvious when the plane is just sitting at a Fly-In.

    Ron Wanttaja

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    One of the many post-retirement projects I've considered is a simplified EFIS. Use the Talon unit as a sensor, and use a small screen for a readout...
    What is the Talon unit you mentioned? My Google Fu has failed me.

    I am not sure about the display mode you suggest, as I think that the times that you really want and need those readings, like airspeed on final in gusty conditions, the few seconds delay until the page you want appears in the rotation will be disconcerting.

    Over on homebuiltairplanes.com there have been a number of threads on homebuilt EFIS but the cheapest and simplest option I have found for airspeed/altimeter/GPS are the Arduino-based BlueFly variometers and associated barometric/GPS shields from Australia linked by Bluetooth to a cheap phone or tablet.

    For navigation, I am still intrigued by the Gipsi unit, a GPS without a screen that uses a voice synthesizer to read off basis GPS info (airspeed, altitude, heading, direction/distance to waypoint). For navigation, I don't think the rotation delay is an issue, and the voice system keeps you looking outside not at a screen. He also has Gipsi apps for Android that present information very simply on a black background and actually include some of the voice-readout functionality if you choose it use it.

    I like the idea of whiskey compass as mechanical backup but, of course, you have to already know where you are and where you want to go since the compass itself doesn't answer those questions.
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  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by cluttonfred View Post
    What is the Talon unit you mentioned? My Google Fu has failed me.
    That's because I Fu'ed. Talos, not Talon.

    http://www.talosavionics.com/aeolus-sense/

    Quote Originally Posted by cluttonfred View Post
    I am not sure about the display mode you suggest, as I think that the times that you really want and need those readings, like airspeed on final in gusty conditions, the few seconds delay until the page you want appears in the rotation will be disconcerting.
    It's basically to cover the notional requirement for an airspeed indicator. My contention is that, with experience, one can aurally manage airspeed on an open-cockpit aircraft. And as far as gusty conditions, managing airspeed by ear doesn't have the lag that mecho/baro gauges have.

    Quote Originally Posted by cluttonfred View Post
    I like the idea of whiskey compass as mechanical backup but, of course, you have to already know where you are and where you want to go since the compass itself doesn't answer those questions.
    I don't think I've actually used a magnetic compass since my flight training days. These days, I'm either IFR (I Follow Roads) or use the Kilowatt Compass (power lines) or navigate by volcanos (a side benefit of flying in Western Washington).


    I will grant that the traditional whiskey compass is light and cheap enough to have no major objection to including one. Plus, you don't have to run power to it.

    Ron Wanttaja

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    I don't think I've actually used a magnetic compass since my flight training days. These days, I'm either IFR (I Follow Roads) or use the Kilowatt Compass (power lines) or navigate by volcanos (a side benefit of flying in Western Washington).
    We don't have a whole lot of volcanoes around Nebraska, or really anything else that sticks up and is good for orientation. And yet... I have not used a whiskey compass since I was a student pilot either. I haven't used a paper chart since I stopped flying the club plane, which had a panel from the late 70s. Any time I leave the immediate area I've got the Garmin 496 in the plane, and usually my tablet running Avare as well. In a pinch I've got an iPhone that knows where I am. Even if there is a GPS outage (pretty much unheard of around here) I've still got charts on the tablet so I could find my way to where I'm going. I don't want to be dependent on GPS... but buying paper charts "just in case" is a waste of money and trees.

    I'll probably go ahead and put a compass in the biplane, because as you noted they're cheap and don't affect panel space, power or weight much. My plan is for very basic instruments -- ASI, altimeter, compass, slip ball, tach. The Westach quad I have has oil pressure, oil temp, EGT & CHT. The gas gauge will likely be mechanical, either one of those nifty side-reading spiral action fuel gauges (like this) or a sight tube. I'll put the tablet on a knee board if I'm going somewhere cross country. I'll just have to fight the urge for a moving map EFIS and 3-axis autopilot. I will have to find a way to slip an espresso maker into the panel, though. One must keep one's priorities straight.

    But an EFIS would look as out of place as white tube socks with sandals, in my humble opinion.
    Measure twice, cut once...
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  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaleB View Post
    I will have to find a way to slip an espresso maker into the panel, though. One must keep one's priorities straight.
    I like the way you think! How about a minibar that folds out from the baggage compartment? Accessible only on the ground, naturally....
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