Picking up a pimped out Cirrus

Had the great privilege of helping out a fellow Cirrus owner by picking up and flying his aircraft home after getting some work done. The plane N60034, a 2003 Cirrus SR22 G1 was just completely pimped out to look better than a new Cirrus. The owner had the plane painted, interior completely redone and had a new four-blade MT propeller installed.

Midwest Aircraft Refinishing strip and repaint the entire aircraft. The quality of the paint job is like nothing I have ever seen before. It has numerous fades and color variations and all the colors have a little metal fleck in them, which really looks sharp. All stripping and numbers are painted (no cheap vinyl here) and then a final clear coat is applied to make the entire plane look wet. TRULY AMAZING! It’s not to say it’s perfect, but the flaws are few are unnoticeable unless you really look for them. Regardless, this paint job is better than any new Cirrus I have ever seen and better than any aircraft paint job I have ever seen! I would love to do this to my Cirrus!

SCS Custom Interiors in Duluth (the same manufacturer that does the factory Cirrus interior) replaced all the seat covers and foam as well as added new leather armrests and leather wrapped yokes and renovated the old plastic to look new and colored it black. The seat covers were custom designed to the owners specifications and were reshaped to look like the new G3 version and had suede inserts added to the design.  The plane also received a new suede headliner and a Cirrus G3 bolster and center console panel was installed.

Finally Midwest Aircraft Refinishing also installed a new MT four-blade composite propellor to round out the package. This was a great add-on not only for looking amazing, but for also being 27 pounds lighter, it helps increase the useful load of the aircraft. This propeller also makes the plane a little quieter and takes out some of the vibration. Performance wise, the plane seemed to climb a bit better and also aided in slowing the plane down a bit if you chopped the throttle. Not really beta, but kind of like that when at speed.

Prior to having all this work done, the owner also upgraded all the G430 com/navs with the new Garmin GTN650s and is looking at getting a DFC90 installed next month. With all the work he has done to this aircraft, you have to wonder why anyone would want to buy a new aircraft. This aircraft looks, smells and performs just as good as a new 2012 Cirrus and is every bit as capable, yet total cost is a quarter of a new one! I had a great time picking it up and flying it home from Wisconsin and I’m guessing this will be the closest I will ever come to actually flying a “new” aircraft.  Thanks for the opportunity Justin!

Size Does Matter

The new Apple iPad Mini

After a couple of weeks of flying cross country in some good IMC, I am completely sold on the new Mini. Although technically there really isn’t much different about it other than being smaller and the LTE cellular connectivity; size does matter. I have been using an iPad for flying (mainly as a backup) for almost two years and it has completely changed how I do preflight, flight plan, navigate, and maintain situational awareness while flying. The more I use the iPad and Foreflight, the more I like it because it’s just such a great tool for pilots. The new Mini just seems to make it that much better because the size is more convenient for the cockpit. It’s basically the size of a typical kneeboard and doesn’t clutter up your lap/cockpit as bad as the full size iPad. I haven’t had any issues with reading approach plates, sectionals or IFR charts. I put it through its paces several times when ATC would give me reroutes and I would have to figure out my clearances with Foreflight before programming the navigators and it all works great. Like I said, there really isn’t anything new about it other than size, but the size just seems to work better (at least for me) in the cockpit.

I used the iPad Mini on several flights without any case and I love how thin and tiny it is, but quickly realized that it does need to be in a case to protect it just in case it slides off the lap onto the floor. I researched cases at all the major electronic stores as well as on line and found that once again, Otter Box had the best case. I purchased my Otterbox Defender case on Amazon for $45.33 with free shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/OtterBox-Defender-Series-Hybrid-Case/dp/B009WU5XUG/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1354423762&sr=8-5&keywords=ipad+mini+case

This was $20 cheaper than anybody else and the case is awesome. The overall dimensions are still pretty small, but the rubber silicone outer shell keeps the iPad Mini from sliding around. The case really protects the Mini well and definitely worth the money!

If you are looking at purchasing an iPad for flying, I would look very hard at the Mini. I use it all day for surfing the web, e-mails, Facebook, book reading, etc and love it. It’s easy to carry around and fits in the coat pocket. Once again, thanks Apple for another great product!

My mini is here!!!

Finally my iPad Mini came today!  I preordered this back when they were announced and they just released the cellular version and mine came today.  I am a huge fan of the iPad and absolutely LOVE having it in the cockpit when I fly.  It just makes cockpit managment so much easier and cleaner and now with a smaller iPad, I think it will be even better yet.  With it's smaller size, it shouldn't take up so much lap space and it is significantly lighter as well.  I'm not sure if there is a RAM mount for it yet, but that might also be nice for the iPad mini as well.  The size appears to be just right for reading approach plates, but I guess I'll just have to go up and burn few holes in the sky and test it out.  I'll post more once I get a chance to play with it a bit!

No iPad - So Lost!

Last Saturday I had a last minute to fly to Atlanta.  I have made this trip many times before and it’s only an hour flight, so it’s not an insane trip.  I had to fly to Falcon Field (KFFC) for a quick stop and then over to Peachtree Dekalb (KPDK), which is on the other side of Atlanta.  The weather was scattered clouds, so there was a little IMC, and it was mainly VMC for most of the flight.  I filed my IFR flight plan on the iPad and then did my preflight and jumped into the plane.  I tuned in the G430s, checked the ATIS, picked up my clearance and departed.   As I was climbing out I then realized that I forgot to put the iPad in the plane and had left it in the car!  CRAP!!!  This was the first time I had done that and at that point felt very lost since I no longer had that quick ability to use my iPad to reference airport diagrams, NOTAMS, or my IFR Low Charts.  It was amazing how reliant I had become on that iPad.  Luckily for me I had my paper charts in the plane, so I was legal, but it’s just not the same as the iPad.  The Cirrus has pretty much all the data a pilot could ever need, so it’s not like I was in any danger, but the point is that I had become so accustomed to having Foreflight at my fingertips, that it really through me for a loop.  For trips to Atlanta, it’s pretty much GPS direct and vectors to the ILS.  Now if this had been a trip to the north east around New York, Philadelphia or Washington DC area, it would have been a totally different story and I would have turned back!  I love my iPad and it really has changed flying, but I guess I need to work on my preflight a bit to ensure I don’t do that again.  Maybe the new iPad Mini I purchased will help me to not forget it! ;-)

We made the 2013 poster!

Last week I received a Facebook post and an e-mail stating that one of my picture submissions was selected to be in the 2013 Cirrus Aircraft poster!  SWEET!  I'm excited to see how it comes out.  Here is the picture that was selected.


Morning Fog - Sherman Army Airfield, Fort Leavenworth, KS



No Baggage Fees!

Thank god that Stack Air doesn’t charge for luggage, because it would cost me a fortune!  For our flight to Minnesota, we took quite a bit of stuff to make it through a nine-day vacation.  Believe it or not, we were well within weight and balance specifications with no problems.  This pictures shows all the stuff we took with us AND I carried 77 gallons of fuel as well! 

The family and "stuff" on the ramp at Brainerd.  This all came out of the Cirrus!

What was really funny about this trip, was that once we arrived in Brainerd we found out that our rental car (Ford Fiesta four door) was WAY too small and couldn’t carry all of our stuff you see in this picture.  Thankfully my father was there waiting for us and helped my wife take everything to the airport, while I departed for a short trip to Wisconsin.  There are very few planes out there that will allow you to carry the load that we did safely, and the Cirrus is one of those planes!  LOVE MY CIRRUS!

Midwest Aircraft Refinishing

I flew up to Hibbing, MN yesterday to visit with an old friend of mine that just bought a house and some acreage up there.  I flew into the KHIB and he picked me up at the GA side of the terminal.  As we were driving out, I noticed a sign that stated Midwest Aircraft Refinishing.  I wasn’t expecting this, even though I knew they were someplace in northern Minnesota.  After spending some time with my buddy, he dropped me off for my flight home and I stopped by Midwest Aircraft Refinishing to check it out. 

Sitting in their main hanger was several Cirrus aircraft all in different stages of getting repainted.  One aircraft in particular was almost complete and will be on display in Duluth for Migration 10.  I can very easily explain what I saw with one word – AMAZING!  GORGEOUS, PERFECTION, UNBELIEVABLE, just to say a few more in case I didn’t get the point across.  I have never seen paint jobs as nice as theirs on anything!  The paint is done to perfection and they apply a clear coat on top which makes the plane look wet.  There are no bumps or ridges between the lines, just simply perfect.  The pictures below really don’t do the plane justice, but you can get a feeling for it if nothing else.  A full-blown paint job will run $17-18K with no vinyl stripes.  If you want vinyl stripes, the price is around $15K.  These are really just ball park figures, so consult them for actual quotes.

On this particular aircraft (which was a white 2004 SR22 GTS like mine), the interior was completely redone by SCS interiors and the owner has also upgraded his G430s to GTN 650s as well as a DFC90 autopilot.  This is really better than a new Cirrus now!  GORGEOUS!!

The Convenience of GA

There have been numerous articles written about how convenient General Aviation (GA) is and how it has helped many businesses flourish by allowing pilots/businessmen to travel to places quickly, when Commercial Airlines take too much time, aren’t convenient, and are plain painful.  I actually had an opportunity to use the convenience in my current job and here is my story.

As an officer in the Army, I am often tasked to attend numerous meetings around the country.  Typically things usually lay out in a fashion that allows me to space them out in a way that won’t allow me to be away from the family for long periods of time, or in a way that they are easy to attend, without having to be gone for long continuous stretches with back to back meetings.

For about three months now, I had scheduled a planning conference in Sedalia, MO to gather information to build a training exercise for the Army aviation unit there.  The plan was to fly there on Thursday 26 April and return on the 27^th.  However since this was so close to our old home of Kansas City, I decided that I would bring my family along and we would stay for the weekend.  This is allowable according to Army Regulations and since I was flying my own aircraft, there was no additional costs.  The only real catch was that they would have to stay in the hotel while I did my meeting, but once done, we could depart for KC and enjoy the weekend.  My wife and oldest son were extremely excited about this trip and were really looking forward to it.

On Friday the 20^th, I find out that I need to attend a conference at FORSCOM on the 24^th and 25^th.  Since I would fly this trip in the Cirrus also, the stars align and the trip is doable pending any bad weather.  If I was to fly this commercially, it would have been impossible since no flights were available on such short notice in/out of Fayetteville and because of the timing of the conference, I would most likely have had to fly there the day prior and also leave the following day.  This would of course screw up the trip to Missouri and I would have had to have flown straight from Fayetteville, NC to Kansas City, MO and then drive two hours to Sedalia to make the next meeting.  This option would not have been fun and my family would have been very disappointed since they were looking forward to going to KC.

So what happened…  I got up early on the 24^th and flew the Cirrus to Fayetteville, NC a mere 2:25 hour trip.  I attended my conference on the 24^th and 25^th and once completed, hopped back in the Cirrus and flew back home in 2:40.  The day was long, but I ensure that I had plenty of sleep the night prior and I got back into Dothan just before 9PM.

The next day I slept in and then loaded up the family in the Cirrus and departed for Missouri at 11:42am.  We flew to William Whitehurst Field (M08) and stopped for fuel and lunch.  Flight time was just under an hour at 1:59.  The manager took me into town and I brought back some food and we departed for Sedalia (KDMO) 1:54.  We arrived in Sedalia at 5:23pm and checked into the hotel. 

The only issue we had was the following evening.  After my meeting was complete, we were not able to fly to KC because high winds since a low pressure system had come into the area.  It was all still flyable, however Mandi isn’t too keen on turbulence and didn’t want to make the short flight (20 minutes).  Instead we elected to stay another night and let the kids play in the pool at the hotel.  The next morning we departed on a very nice flight to Kansas City Downtown Airport (KMKC) and enjoyed one of our favorite cities. 

On Sunday Evening we departed KMKC at 5:22pm and flew to West Memphis (KAWM), 1:59 flight time and stopped for dinner.  Unfortunately NOTHING was open at the airport, so we sat on the ramp and ate some snacks before departing for Dothan.   The last leg to KDHN was 2:04 and we arrived at 10:41pm.

Mandi and I hanging out on the ramp at West Memphis

Total flight time for the week roughly 13.2 hours

Total NM flown for the week 2,100 NM

Total fuel costs for the week $845 (approx 170 gallons, $4.99/gallon average)

Cost to fly the family commercial to KC ONLY $604/per person total cost $1,812.00.  Also probably another $150 for bags as well.

Endstate – I got to take my family with me on a work trip that turned into a mini-vacation for a fraction of the cost and none of the TSA/Commercial hassles.  Since this trip was for work and it was cheaper to fly my Cirrus vs. an airline ticket, the fuel costs were covered by the gov’t.  The only costs I had were the extra nights and a rental car for those nights and I also got another 13 hours of flight time!  More than likely I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish my mission with the tightness of the two meetings and if I was flying Commercially, I would most likely have had to leave the family at home.  Thanks GA!

**On an additional note, if the government starts to charge GA for ATC usage (currently they are only proposing to charge turboprop and jets $100/usage, not small piston aircraft), this trip would have cost me an additional $700!!!!

Traffic Down

I have had intermittent traffic failures now for the past six months.  Originally after about 10 minutes of flight, it would periodically fail and flash on the MFD.  Sometimes I could pull the circuit breaker, let it sit a few minutes, then restart it and all would be fine.  After searching COPA forums, I discovered that this is very common with the L3 Skywatch traffic systems.  Typically, most avionics shops will tell you up front that they won’t even do anything with it other than pull it, send it to L3 and make the owner payout $3-4K.  Before doing this, there are several things to check that could save a ton of money.

The first fix is to look for loose fittings and clean all connectors.  Even though my Cirrus is only eight years old, like any airplane vibrations loosen things over time.  I checked the box below the copilot seat and all is tight.  No change, still intermittent.
The second fix is to take it to an avionics shop that is competent and have them recalibrate it.  I flew the plane up to Gardner Avionics by Atlanta and they recalibrated the system.  This seemed to have fixed it and all was well again. 

Fast forward five months and the Skywatch has died again.  This time the breaker trick doesn’t seem to work and after about two minutes of flight, it fails and never comes back on.  After reviewing more COPA posts, I find another owner who has had some luck fixing issues like mine.  He was a mechanical engineer for Boeing, so he’s pretty competent to say the least.  The issue he found was in the antenna.  First off, he said to take the bolts off the antenna from the inside, but don’t remove the antenna.  Take a wire brush and clean up the bolts and washers, then Deoxite them.  These washers are supposed to help ground the antenna and over time they get corroded and don’t ground well anymore.  Grounding on an all composite plane obviously poses some issues and you can see in the picture the "metal tape" on the outside of the composite that is used to solve this issue. 

The next step is to buy some more washers and cover up the ½” of exposed thread, so that the proper current is maintained.  For some reason, Cirrus missed this and put too long of bolts in the antenna mount.  Ensure that the connections clean and tight and reassemble.

Left rear bolt has more washer, but I still need more. Right shows factory exposed thread.

To get at the antenna, all you have to do is pull the black door seal off, which slips outward and the headliner padding comes apart.  SUPER easy.  This is a really good design by Cirrus!  The first thing I found is that one of the three cables that goes into the antenna was loose.  I also found that a ground wire that was attached to the right rear mount was also loose.  I cleaned it all up and put it back together, but no joy.  I talked with a Service Center in Tampa and they told me that once you find loose cables, you need to recalibrate it again to get it to work.  I had my local shop do this, but once again no joy.  The system came up with numerous fail codes and L3 said it needs to come back to them.  They charge a flat fee of $2925 to fix it!  OUCH!!!!  I wonder if this is the reason Cirrus went away from L3 and went to Garmin for all future traffic systems???    To be continued…

DFC90 Update #2

Just prior to dropping the plane off for annual, I flew it to Gardner Avionics to get the DFC90 swapped out.  This is the third unit to be installed and I was hoping that this one would work as advertised.  Due to crappy weather, I could only fly it home and didn’t get to put it though any real testing.  It seemed to be tracking well and flew with no issues.  I stopped for fuel at Enterprise and as I held short of the runway to depart, the PFD completely blanked out!  After a couple of minutes it came back on, so I carefully flew it home and put the plane away for the night.  The next day I flew it to its annual and all seem to be working.  During annual, the mechanics said it failed three times on them as well.  During this annual, I also had the mechanics completely re-rig the aircraft to make sure that it was set up properly since this might also have an effect on the autopilot.  All of this PFD failures has me thinking that the PFD has been the issue all along and not the DFC90s.

On April 2^nd, I went to pick up the plane from annual.  I did my preflight and all was well.  About five minutes after start-up while doing my checks, the PFD failed again.  Since the weather was severe clear (VFR), I carefully flew it home and called Avidyne.  The following week they sent my old PFD back (now upgraded) and the avionics shop at Dothan swapped it out.  Fingers Crossed!

Saturday April 14^thit was a beautiful day with no wind, so I took the plane up and ran it though all the autopilot testing.  Overbank, stalls, envelope protection, ILS approaches coupled, and just with flight director, all went wonderfully.  Things seemed to be working great! 

Today (April 20^th) I finally got to get the plane up and put it through some more testing to make sure the DFC90 is working.  I flew my father over to 06A (Tuskegee Field).  It was a nice day, but a little windy and a little bumpy.   The autopilot failed repeatedly blowing through heading bug settings, “servo limit” warnings constantly, unable to hold a coarse and no trim annunciation.  I did the Cirrus trim test and the plane still turned to the right like a P51 and to the left like a B747.  CRAP! 

This really puzzled us and since I just had the plane re-rigged, two different PFDs and three DFC90 boxes, I figured it would only be one of two things.  It was either my trim tabs were not adjusted correctly and were overwhelming the servos (unlikely), or a servo(s) was bad and causing the problem.  When we were about to go, I bent the right aileron trim tab down quite a bit to see if that made any difference.  Since the day I bought it, it had always been severely bent up and numerous mechanics had made mention that it seemed excessive.  Here is what I bent it to:

After touring the museum at Tuskegee Field we departed to fly home and found that the autopilot had gotten even worse.  Now regardless of what we did, the “servo limit” came on instantly every time I engaged the autopilot and now I had zero trim control to the left.  The plane would peel off to the right like a P51, but wouldn’t even bank left when I held the trim hat over to the left. 

Well the only change was the trim tab, so we landed at Dothan and I bent it back to its original high angle setting:

After a quick test flight the autopilot tracked almost perfectly and not once did I get the “servo limit” warning and it tracked every heading change perfectly.  What is baffling us both now is that we both felt that bending the tab upwards would have had the opposite effect on the aircraft, but for some reason, it fixed the issue.  Apparently having the tab bend down somehow overpowered the trim servo and wouldn’t allow it to work properly. 

After only one flight, it seems to work great now, but I’ll have to test it some more next week.  It might even need a little more bending upward, but so far it seems to be working.  Fingers crossed!!

2012 Annual

So this year I had to take my aircraft to a new mechanic to get the annual inspection completed.  Unfortunately this guy doesn’t allow owner assisted annuals, but he and his crew are very familiar with Cirrus and he seems to be pretty smart about the aircraft and prices are good.   He’s not the most expensive, but he isn’t the cheapest either.  Flat rate annual for a normally aspirated SR22 w/TKS is $1800 for just the inspection.  Any squawks are on top of that. 

 I knew that he was he was going to be very thorough, which is a good thing, but we started off on a bit of a rough start.  I dropped the plane off on Friday and on Monday he calls and states that the plane would not be done by Friday because I have a cracked cylinder.  My first question was, “did you do a dye penetration test to determine if it was really cracked?”  The response I received was a typical one, “I have been working on planes for years and this is definitely a crack.”  My compression in that cylinder was a 20/80, so there was definitely something wrong, but it’s a bit unnerving that the mechanics didn’t trouble shoot and assumed the worst!  For those not familiar with this type of issue, Continental IO-550s (especially Cirrus) sometimes show what looks like a crack, but in reality they are nothing more than a “dent” or imperfection in the casting that fills with fuel and dirt and looks like a crack.  If a mechanic would clean it up and use magnafux on it, they would see that it ISN’T A CRACK!  From my understanding, many a cylinder have been replaced over the years because of mechanics inability to troubleshoot and just jump to conclusions.  I guess some people have super deep pockets and just don’t care, or more than likely they use these types of expenses as a tax write off.  Regardless, I don’t/can’t work that way!  I learned about this once again from COPA, which in this case saved me $2500-$3000! 

Here is a picture of my cylinder with the "crack" circled in red:

Here are four more pictures of other “cracks” that turned out to NOT be cracks – see any similarities?

So after some discussion on the COPA forum board, I respond to my mechanic in a very nice manner.  I told him that I wanted him to clean up the cylinder with scotch bright and then dye penetrate test the crack.  IF it turns out that it isn’t a crack, then I told him to start the plane up and warm it up real good and check the compressions again.  This time, stake the valve and see if that helps.  I also looked at my EMAX data that showed my exhaust valve (EGT) working normally for about 15 minutes on every flight and then cooling off significantly.  My last oil sample also showed a spike in nickel.  Nickel us used in the valve guides, so I was pretty sure I had a valve issue to start with.  I explained all of this to him and sent him back to work.  Sure enough, an hour later I get a call.  “It’s NOT a crack.”  He did the rest and the best he could get was a 25/80, but he did determine that the exhaust valve was leaking.  YEAH!!!  The bad news though is that the cylinder still has to come off to fix the valve, but that should be significantly cheaper than a new cylinder.

Here is a picture of the cylinder head and you can see the exhaust valve guides are gone and there is a ton of carbon build up.  They will have to lap in the valve and replace the valve guides to fix this.

Other than the cylinder, the aircraft had only minor issues and now is back in service.  After picking it up I determined two mechanical issues that will need to be looked at again.  The first is the intermittent tachometers.  These have come and gone now for six months.  It is obviously something loose, since whenever I hit turbulence they come on or go off.  They were supposed to fix this at annual and they said they did, but what they did, didn’t work.  The second issue is the nose wheel has a wicked shimmy upon touchdown.  The mechanic said that the nose wheel was over tightened to 75lbs, when it should be 25lbs.  This was done by a Cirrus Service Center because it was shaking all over.  The mechanic says that they put it back to 25 and now it is WAY TOO LOOSE!  To fix it, they are saying I have to buy four large washers and a Teflon washer –cost around $50.  For fricken washers!  I will need to look into this some more since this seems a bit extreme for washers. 

The last issue I have that came out of my annual is that the mechanics managed to bend my rear baffling wall behind the engine and now you can see the crease.  How this happened I have no clue, since it would take a lot to bend this wall of aluminum, but somehow they did.  Of course they deny it, but there is no way in hell that it was there prior.  It might not look like all that big of a deal, but I don't like my aircraft looking like it's not taken care of.  I'm guessing I will just have to live with it, but maybe they will surprise me and do the right thing and repair it. 

Overall the plane runs great now, so it’s time to get back at fixing the autopilot!

Autopilot Issue Videos

Here are two examples of blowing through the heading bug with the DFC90 autopilot.

DFC90 Update

So after flying the DFC90 a bit more, I have noticed a couple of pretty significant glitches.  The first one is that I keep getting an intermittent “Servo Limit” warning on the PFD.  It seems that when this happens, the AP seems to get stupid.  Typically it is when I try to fly the plane on the heading mode and then the aircraft will either fail to turn, turn slowly, or turn very aggressively and then blow through the heading bug setting.  This has also happened a few times in NAV mode as well.

The next issue is the uncoupled envelope protection.  I have stalled the aircraft, I have dived the aircraft and I have over banked the aircraft.  Only twice have I been able to get any warning.  One time was an overbank and the second time was while flying with the Flight Director and as I reached short final I got an “Underspeed” warning.

The last issue is the Flight Director itself.  It doesn’t work!  I have tried to hand fly three different ILS approaches and the Flight Director is so far off that I am not even legal if I tried to follow it.  Very disappointed!

I called Avidyne and Gardner Avionics and the answer they are giving me is that it’s the servos on the airplane, not the autopilot.

I posted this issue on COPA and Dave from Nexair told me to not swap anything out until someone that knew how to check the rigging flew the aircraft.  Then he said he was coming to Montgomery, so I fly up on Saturday and met him.  He has installed a bunch of these autopilots in Cirrus and knows the workings of them very well.  We took the aircraft for a test flight and he determined three things.  Servos are fine, Autopilot is bad and the rigging on the aircraft was WAY out of spec!  One of the tests he performed was the setting of the servo.  He would hold the trim all the way to the right, but keep the plane straight and level.  Then let go.  It is supposed to take 4-6 seconds to reach a standard rate turn.  My aircraft peeled off like a P-51 in three seconds to the right.  Next we did it to the left.  To the left my aircraft banked like it was on a Sunday stroll in about eight seconds.  You could also see it on the ground when he put in full deflection left and right that they weren’t even close to being set up the same.  Once we landed he called the VP of Avidyne and got them understanding the issue, so now all I have to do is get my avionics shop to call Avidyne and call Dave and get it fixed.  Fingers crossed!

RNAV (GPS) RW18 Dothan

Here is my first attempt at videoing an approach.  This was shot yesterday when I was testing the new DFC90 autopilot that I had just installed.  It is a very precise autopilot and even with pretty decent winds, it tracked the course very well.  Much better than the STec 55X!

DFC90 Flight Test

Today I took the plane up for 2.6 hours to do some flight testing of the new autopilot.  This autopilot is capable of many things; however here is the list of things I tested during this flight:

·         Take Off Settings – AP set armed but not active

·         Flight Director on and Vertical Speed set to 1000 FPM climb

·         Turn to assigned heading (070), switch to Indicated Air Speed Mode (IAS) (115 knots Indicated)

·         Straight and Level – Put aircraft into an unusual attitude and push S&L Button

·         Underspeed Protection  

§  Stall aircraft COUPLED – “Speed protection active” should engage

§  Stall aircraft UNCOUPLED – “Caution underspeed” should be announced

·         Overspeed Protection

§  Dive aircraft COUPLED - “Speed protection active” should engage

§  Dive aircraft UNCOUPLED – “Caution overspeed” ” should be announced

·         Test Bank Angle

§  Exceed bank limit – “Caution, excessive bank” should be announced

·         Course Intercept – Set up a 90 degree intercept (V-Airway).    Fly heading mode and GPSS steering should allow a smooth intercept of the navigation course line

·         Test automatic Baro Setting – Fly level AP COUPLED and change Baro settings.  Should automatically adjust altitude with pressure changes

·         IAS - Set 88 knots for best glide and cut power.  Aircraft should set up for 88 knots and stay there

·         RNAV (GPS) Approach with published miss and hold.

·         ILS Approach, both coupled and by hand with flight director.

Before I could even start my testing, the weather was quickly deteriorating.  At the time of take-off, Dothan’s weather was MVFR, 5-mile visibility with mist and a broken layer at 1800’, overcast at 11,000.  I departed in the rain and headed to the south east, where several airports were still showing VFR.  To the west a front was moving in and bringing with it lots of rain.  Just south of the field, the weather was VFR, so I did some maneuver work to test the S&L button and envelope protection.  All worked as advertised and the S&L button is a really amazing feature!  The one thing that didn’t work was the uncoupled envelope protection.  I tried this several times and even confirmed that my software was update, so it must be a setting that needs to be turned on.  Next I set up a flight plan and did some 90 degree interception work.  As advertised, the DFC90 interception and turned onto the course with no issues. 

After about an hour of flying, the DFC90 started to have some issues.  After two successful attempts to intercept a course, the heading feature stopped working or at best barely worked.  The PFD started to show a yellow message stating SERVO LIMIT and the plane would barely begin turning.  I disconnected the AP and tried to re-engage, but got similar results.  On a couple of attempts, it would slowly begin to turn and then completely overshoot the heading and just keep on turning.  I decided to change it up and try something else to see what it would do.  I changed my GPS to a close by airport and programmed in an RNAV approach.  The AP did as commanded and all seemed to be fine.  I’m not sure if something wasn’t programmed correctly or what, but from that point on, everything worked great.

Since the weather was quickly deteriorating, I called Cairns Approach and filed IFR and asked for the RNAV (GPS18) approach into Dothan with an initial fix of IKIQU.  This approach was done completely coupled and the DFC90 executed it perfectly!  I even tried the IAS mode set at 100 knots and it all worked great.  The approach was picture perfect with a breakout at minimums.  AWESOME!  After going missed, I flew to the hold and hoped that maybe my non-WAAS G430s would now be able to fly the hold, but unfortunately that is not the case.  I entered the hold in a teardrop fashion and flew the hold using the heading bug. 

After a few turns, I asked for vectors to the ILS from the east.  This approach went very well also.  I allowed the DFC90 to fly it coupled and it intercepted the final approach coarse perfectly, as well as the glide slope and tracked it all the way down until we broke out of the clouds at 500’ AGL.  The next approach was vectors back to the RNAV (GPS18) again with similar results.  The final approach was for vectors from the west to the ILS RW14 and I hand flew this approach using only the Flight Director for guidance.  This approach didn’t go as well, since it seemed like the FD was slow to react, so I just followed the needles to get me though the clouds.  I’m not sure if it was the FD or if maybe I didn’t have something set up correctly, so I can’t say if the FD was having issues or not.  I guess I’ll have to go out and try that one again. 

Overall, I am extremely happy with the performance of the new DFC90.  I did have a few glitches, but I’m not sure that it is anything to worry about at this time.  I really like the preciseness of the unit as well as the envelope protection.  It just provides my Cirrus with even more safety features that make me love my Cirrus all that much more. 

DFC90 Autopilot Upgrade

One of my biggest gripes with my Cirrus, was the autopilots inability to track straight on any sort of navigational aide, especially an ILS.  Especially if it was windy or even gusty, the S-Tec 55X was incapable of accurately intercepting or tracking these signals and would wander back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  Now there is an option that will not only provide digital preciseness, but also add more safety to boot!

The Avidyne DFC90 was released a little over a year ago with the primary flight ship being the Cirrus SR2X.  They marketed this autopilot directly at the S-Tec 55X in hopes to lure a fairly large market of aircraft owners to upgrade to a far superior and safer autopilot.

The Avidyne DFC90 is an attitude based autopilot, whereas the S-Tec it replaces is rate based.  The DFC90 follows the attitude indicator and the AHRS.  Rate based autopilots like the S-Tec, use a turn coordinator for reference.  This makes the DFC90 extremely precise and far more accurate than the S-Tec.  Turns are exactly standard rate, intercepts are way more precise, level offs from climbs and descents are also much more smooth and right on target.  The DFC90 flies approaches beautifully, and extremely precise.  An ILS approach is flown straight and true all the way to minimums.  No more back and forth drunken sailor effect like the S-Tec did.   It now truly flies like it’s on rails!

In addition to the increase preciseness of the DFC90, Avidyne incorporated its “Envelope Protection.”  One of the major safety issues using the S-Tec, is that you could stall the aircraft with the autopilot.  There have been several accidents in the Cirrus fleet alone, where pilots get busy and aren’t monitoring the aircraft and the aircraft is set up to climb at a rate in which it cannot keep up with.  The end result is that the autopilot flies the plane into an autopilot induced stall.  The envelope protection of the DFC90 eliminates this issue.  If you command a climb that the aircraft is not capable of, the autopilot will allow the climb until the airspeed bleeds off and then the autopilot will hold a safe speed, not allowing a stall.  When this takes place, a voice will sound off in the headsets stating “Speed Protection Active.”  The same applies on the over speed side if you command a vertical decent that would result in exceeding Vne, the DFC90 will intervene and not allow an over speed to occur.  

Another one of the major improvements of this system is the “Straight and Level” button.  This is a great safety feature for a pilot who might be in IMC or flying at night and become disoriented and put the plane into an unusual attitude.  If the pilot becomes disoriented, all he has to do is push this button and it will bring the plane back to straight and level.

The DFC90 is a VAST improvement over the S-Tec 55X autopilot. This upgrade gives Garmin Perspective precision to your Avidyne Entegra plane at a significantly lower cost.  If you own an older S-Tec 55X autopilot, I highly recommend you upgrade to the DFC90.  It is the best money spent on an upgrade for your Cirrus!

CAPS Save!

On 7 JAN 2012, Richard McGlaughlin and his daughter were flying their 2004 Cirrus SR22 to the Bahamas, when they lost all oil pressure, completely seizing the engine at 9500’.  Richard declared an emergency with Miami Center and turned directly towards the closest land.  After configuring his aircraft for best glide, and at about 2-miles from Andros Island realized that he wasn’t going to make it.  At around 2300’ he pulled his aircraft parachute (CAPs or Cirrus Airframe Parachute System), which is standard equipment on every Cirrus aircraft.   Both Richard and his daughter survived without injury. 

It’s situations like this that make me happy to be flying a Cirrus!  If it wasn’t for the chute, the outcome most likely wouldn’t have been as good!

http://www.d7publicaffairs.com/go/doc/586/1270987/

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/2100-full.html#205996