Aero/Friedrichshafen 2013

Also beware of LSZR bizzare lunchtime closure.

I have definitely cancelled the TB20 flight and will be going by airline.

If somebody wants my slot, from memory sometime after 1200UTC Friday, IFR, and they are willing to make the phone call, they are welcome to it

There is a single room available as a result here:

Hotel Weinberg
Mr. Aldo Gostner
Hauptstrasse 34
88709 Hagnau
Telefon: 00497532-807323

I have cancelled it. Give them a call if you want it.

Just got back.

Much the same as last year.

As always before, most of the show was microlights and related classes. I suspect most of what was exhibited will never enter production; it was being shown to see if there is interest.

Certified aircraft... nothing new of relevance.

The Pipistrel Panthera is progressing, and flew to the show. It drew loads of interest - unsuprisingly. Certification scheduled for 2017, I think. The rumoured price of €450k+ is on the high side though, especially as no ice protection is planned.

Extra 500 still at the same stage.

Garmin had a huge stand (Avidyne just a tiny one) but no new avionics. It could be a Europe-only thing but maybe this shows the real situation in the marketplace.

Oxyfly were showing the same oxygen concentrator as last time but this time I had a good look at it. As expected it uses the same Zeolite nitrogen absorption method as all the others, but to get its 20k ceiling (much higher than most others) it uses a variable speed compressor whose speed is controlled according to the cockpit altitude. It is however a bit pricey, bulky and heavy for light GA use, though OK in terms of power consumption (c. 15A at 28V). With sufficient velcro you could mount it in the luggage compartment

Disappointingly low calibre of show staff in many cases...

I noticed Avidyne had a Shadin fuel totaliser on their stand so I asked if the IFD540 (scheduled to be available Dec 2013 BTW) would accept the fuel data from it, to display the Landing FOB. Guess what the reply was? You've got it! "Not in the initial release". What are these people smoking?

They were however very busy (as for the past few years) in making the point that if you pay them your deposit now you will lock in the price, whereas if you wait till they can actually deliver it, the price could be "anything". Vern Raburn would be proud

Then I asked Garmin, re the GTN650/750. Same answer. "Not in the initial release". Either the show staff are totally clueless about one of the most important functions of the product, or ... what are these people smoking?

Avidyne were sharing a stand with somebody showing the Shadin Digidata and presenting leaflets on it. I told him it was discontinued a year ago. Was he interested? Not really.

I asked the Avidyne man to show me the VFR mapping on the IFD540 (to see if e.g. they had European VRPs); he could not. One of the main gripes with the IFR Garmins is their near-useless maps for European VFR, which is causing people to mount Ipads and such on all kinds of weird cockpit mounts. Indeed RAM Mounts were doing a roaring trade.

Cirrus were unable to discuss aircraft performance, at all. The POH is online, apparently.

Jeppesen's new VFR product is actually vector maps, with very limited coverage currently, not a product which can run their VFR/GPS Raster Charts. I told them the old FliteMap product could run them; they had never heard of it. I asked about FliteStar being discontinued; they knew nothing about that.

Lycoming said their 24/4/2013 UL91 approval list is almost the end of that process. They expect maybe 2 more engines and that will be it. No turbo engines.

He said the reason even TN (turbonormalised) engines are not being approved despite having no more HP or no higher CR than already approved NA models was because the turbo heats up the air and pushes the engine closer to detonation. Sounds plausible but I am reliably informed it does not reflect reality from, ahem, certain flights done with a TIO-something on car petrol.

Their electronic ignition has not progressed and remains uncertified. They were showing the same engine with it as last 2-3 years. But it looks nice, and is fully dual redundant, does not require any external power (so no Diamond-style forced landing after X minutes following the loss of aircraft power) and does not use a magneto for half the plugs.

Honeywell and Bendix/King remain under same ownership but B/K will get more resources than they had for past 10 years (zero).

KFC225 will be manufactured again and Honeywell say they want to fix the issues, and certify it for more aircraft. This is actually good news because it is an excellent autopilot, when the servos are not making smoke. And there are a few k planes which are effectively stuck with it.

KFD840 is dead and buried, totally. The subcontractor who made it has dropped it. KSN770 is now worked on by Aspen; the show demo one looked half functional. Now has a touch screen, which worked marginally better than the one on my RNS-510 VW satnav (which is crap).

As usual the best value was meeting up with friends

I went by airline. The flight UK-EDNY would have been difficult on the way out, with tops ~ FL200 and plenty of icing for the first 1/3 of the route. On the way back, tops ~ FL200 also but less convective activity, so the MSLP charts from 3-4 days back did look worse than reality, and even today's MSLP looks much worse than reality.