Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2014-2015 - 48

INTEGRATING MISSION CAPABILITIES
Continued from page 47

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to Van's Aircraft, MacArthur said,
because "I don't care very much
for fiberglass ."
MacArthur refreshed his flying
skills by earning commercial,
instrument and instructor ratings,
the last so he can fulfill his wife's
pilot goal in their new RV-9, said
the shift supervisor at a Tacoma,
Wash ., refinery .
Homebuilt glass is a
"Pandora's box" of options whose
total price can rapidly spin out
of control, he said . And then
there is the frustration of making
sure the different components
will interface properly, "which
is the key to the panel, in my
eyes ." Jason Smith, experimental
division manager at Aerotronics,
"is a straight-shooter who
calmed me down ." Together,
they created a system that met
MacArthur's needs for instrument
flight rules flight with synthetic
vision and a coupled autopilot .
They talked at Oshkosh, and at
the shop in Billings, Montana,
which is on the way to Oshkosh,
where MacArthur is chairman of
KidVenture control-line model
flying .
The two-screen (one 8 .4
inches and the other 6 .5) Grand
Rapids Technology HX EFIS has
dual AHARS, engine monitoring
and synthetic vision . A Garmin
GTN 650 provides WAAS/GPS
navigation, and an SL 40 is the
second comm . The system drives
a TruTrak two-axis DigiFlight
II autopilot . Analog backup
instruments, an Advanced Flight
Systems angle of attack indicator,
406 megahertz ELT and carbon
monoxide indicator complete the
system .

- 48 -

He ordered the panel two
years before the airplane first flew
in May 2013 . They considered
ADS-B, but the solutions were
more fluid, so they decided to
wait . He went with TCAS instead,
and "I may regret that ." Still,
already flying the GTN 650,
all he'll need for ADS-B Out is
to step up to the GTX 330ES
transponder .
Ordering the panel early,
MacArthur explained, allowed him
to install wiring and components,
like autopilot servos, before
riveting the final pieces of skin
into place . Aerotronics provided
information and templates for the
necessary mounting structures,
and MacArthur added some of
his own, including a perfectly
level shelf behind the panel that
holds the two AHRS units . "I also
got carried away with the interior
lighting," he said . "I have a couple
of post lights and LEDs under the
glareshield ."
A Superior IO-320 with a
constant-speed Hartzell powers
the RV-9, and its avionics have
worked flawlessly, MacArthur
said . The real challenge has been
sorting out all of the possible
display options for an integrated
display of information in flight .
Al Dinardi - Van's RV-10
A pilot for 21 years, Al Dinardi's
life changed in 1997, when a
friend at the Medford, Oregon,
airport took him flying in his
Van's RV-4 . So taken by its flying
qualities, after a factory test flight,
he bought and built a tandem
two-seat RV-8, which earned
a Silver Lindy as the Reserve
Grand Champion kit-built airplane
at EAA AirVenture in 2000 .
When Van's introduced the
four-seat RV-10, "I started
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Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2014-2015

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