Glasair III owner here - intoduction

FORANE said:
Todd

Just a note regarding Garmins position on backup instrumentation:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showpost.php?p=731147&postcount=17
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Yep,

Mine is my iPhone or iPad receiving information from a GDL393D. I figure I have less chance of failure with my dual system with battery backup and ipad with it's own battery and 393D with it's own battery than a failure of an Aspen and a backup. This is also why I left a space between the #2 comm and the autopilot controller. A dynon unit could go there. I will see how reliable the G3X system is first.
 
toddsanderson said:
Just about done. Initial power up did good with all previous electrical items (gear, lights, pumps, etc) all working and avionics powering up with no errors. Will program V-Speeds, level plane to set ADAHARS, and set up engine instruments temp and pressure information along with autopilot torque values tomorrow. Should be flying soon. New prop also going on tomorrow.
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Looks great! Can't wait for the flight report.
 
Going good so far. The only problem up to this point was the fact that the GDU units had different software versions causing an ADAHARS error that was fixed by the software update. They verified all the engine probes were working by putting a heat gun to them and tested everything except the RPM and oil pressure which they will do today when they start the engine and take the plane outside to calibrate the entire system. They can also compete the autopilot calibration once the compass is set.

It really is a neat system. I like the idea that I can simply set any parameter in the system from autopilot torque to engine temperature limits, etc. simply by entering the input mode on the touch screen and changing the function I want. This system should be allowed in any GA plane regardless of certification.
 
The new prop is on and avionics are done. Went to fire up the engine and the bendix decided to stay in place instead of engage. Will clean it up today and hopefully get it running so we can calibrate the G3x, autopilot, and then drain the fuel to calibrate gauges and reweigh the plane.
 

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toddsanderson said:
The new prop is on and avionics are done. Went to fire up the engine and the bendix decided to stay in place instead of engage. Will clean it up today and hopefully get it running so we can calibrate the G3x, autopilot, and then drain the fuel to calibrate gauges and reweigh the plane.
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Nice plane.....:yes::yes::yes:...

Hard to believe you can sink 6 figures in the first 3 feet of a plane...:yikes::hairraise:..:redface:
 
Thank you. Yes, that is easy to do. In the turbine world it can be seven figures in the same distance, so mine is a bargain:D
 
All buttoned back up. Everything fired up the way it should. Only thing left to do is calibrate fuel gauges, adjust autopilot torque values, and fix the magneto that is not firing - most likely due to wiring it back up incorrectly. The electronic ignition is working just fine. I like the look of the prop now that the cowling is back on.
 

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Lightspeed Plasma III on the top plugs of all cylinders. Slick mag on the bottoms.
 
Henning said:
I don't get why having 2 independent and complete G3x systems wit proper electric supply and buss wouldn't suffice?:dunno:
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The way I understand it is because they technically are tied together and supposedly if one went down it could possibly corrupt the other. I also believe that they require pitot/static to come up with a full attitude indication, so in the event of a pitot failure you could have degraded or worse attitude information.

So, adding a Dynon would make it separate from the G3x; however, it also requires pitot/static for a full attitude solution, so if that systems fails you are in the same boat.

That is why I will stick with my GDL393d for an emergency only solution which gives a decent attitude and GPS generated speed that is close enough to get me on the ground.
 
Henning said:
Curious why you chose that. My initial thought would be opposite unless the Slick mag puts out the hotter spark.
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According to Lightspeed - their spark is about 8x more energy and the duration is 500% longer than the mag. You can turn off your mag completely and the entire cylinder will run clean as it does not need both systems for proper and full combustion. They like it all on top if only doing a single ignition so that the leads are shorter for best spark and everything is visible for quick inspection.

I can personally testify that turning off a mag in flight or on the ground makes zero difference in RPM or EGT. Shutting off the electronic ignition makes a 175 RPM difference and huge EGT difference.
 
Henning said:
I don't get why having 2 independent and complete G3x systems wit proper electric supply and buss wouldn't suffice?:dunno:
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I have experienced an EFIS roll inverted just 50 feet AGL on takeoff in IMC. It was not fun. Without backup instruments it likely would have been fatal. I have heard from others who have had modern generation dual EFIS units with 2 ADAHRS roll at the same time. Because of this the Large EFIS bells and whistles pretty glossy screen has lost some of its allure for me.
 
That is interesting? Which EFIS? I have owned 4 planes with G600, fly a King Air With Honeywell and another with G1000 and have never experienced a failure on any of them. I had a "degraded attitude" once on an Aspen unit.
 
toddsanderson said:
The way I understand it is because they technically are tied together and supposedly if one went down it could possibly corrupt the other. I also believe that they require pitot/static to come up with a full attitude indication, so in the event of a pitot failure you could have degraded or worse attitude information.

So, adding a Dynon would make it separate from the G3x; however, it also requires pitot/static for a full attitude solution, so if that systems fails you are in the same boat.

That is why I will stick with my GDL393d for an emergency only solution which gives a decent attitude and GPS generated speed that is close enough to get me on the ground.
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Why is having a separate air data/ pitot static system an issue.:dunno:
 
toddsanderson said:
That is interesting? Which EFIS? I have owned 4 planes with G600, fly a King Air With Honeywell and another with G1000 and have never experienced a failure on any of them. I had a "degraded attitude" once on an Aspen unit.
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PM incoming
 
Some more panel porn. What do you all think of the round gauges. My favorite is the split screen with the round gauges. I'm waiting for the Garmin FLIR camera next to mount on the front of the plane so I can do 0/0 landings just like it was VMC.
 

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FORANE said:
I have experienced an EFIS roll inverted just 50 feet AGL on takeoff in IMC. It was not fun. Without backup instruments it likely would have been fatal. I have heard from others who have had modern generation dual EFIS units with 2 ADAHRS roll at the same time. Because of this the Large EFIS bells and whistles pretty glossy screen has lost some of its allure for me.
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I've seen a brand new Aspen do basically that within about the first 10 hours after it installed...occurred shortly after takeoff. I don't think it quite rolled inverted but it rolled way to the left, enough to cause a loss of control for sure if that's all you had. It did not display any warnings when this happened. Took about fifteen minutes before a warning showed up.
 
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My Aspen problem was similar to that except it happened during testing while I was putting it through ascending and descending 80 degrees turns for roughly 2 minutes. It turned out to be improper positioning of the RSM unit by the installer. I now have about 400 hours on the Aspen unit in a different plane. The Aspen is the least favorite of the EFIS for me.
 
Interesting that you prefer the round gauge presentation. Now that I have used the tape presentation on glass for 5 or 6 years I much prefer it. I believe my scan is quicker with the tape, but it just may be what I am used to.

NICE setup BTW.
 
jesse said:
I've seen a brand new Aspen do basically that within about the first 10 hours after it installed...occurred shortly after takeoff. I don't think it quite rolled inverted but it rolled way to the left, enough to cause a loss of control for sure if that's all you had. It did not display any warnings when this happened. Took about fifteen minutes before a warning showed up.
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:eek::eek::eek:

Doesn't make me want to fly behind an Aspen now. Ever.
 
narchee said:
:eek::eek::eek:

Doesn't make me want to fly behind an Aspen now. Ever.
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Well, I have to disagree there. I have experienced AH and turn coordinator failures in many airplanes. In one of them the attitude gyro started a slow roll to the left an started to pitch down - no warning flag and no vacuum problem. I was VMC, so it was not an issue. Had another one break it's caging while IMC and the autopilot connected. It was spinning so fast you could not even tell which way it was spinning. Of course, the autopilot tried to follow it and nearly rolled the plane 60 degrees before I caught it. Have had many turn coordinators either bounce around so bad they were unusable or simply stick in place - both of which makes them useless.

A backup is necessary for sure, but I want that backup to be reliable as possible also and I want to know when it fails.
 
narchee said:
:eek::eek::eek:

Doesn't make me want to fly behind an Aspen now. Ever.
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The installer fixed it and it hasn't been a problem since. I really do like the Aspens but like anything they can fail. Having absolutely no steam gauges isn't really something I'm a big fan of as a software engineer.

My larger disappointment was the fact that it didn't detect there was a major problem and flag things for a LONG TIME.

I still suggest people install Aspens and would buy one myself If I had a plane where such a thing would make sense.
 
I can handle glass avionics failing but when something fails in a way that is not obvious and does not alert you that is a totally unacceptable situation. I've flown in a couple of planes with a G1000 that failed at some point and you immediately know about it with red X's. Any software communicating with hardware needs to be able to detect an error if not then something has been designed incorrectly. I do know a little something about complex hardware and software systems design for mission critical situations so that is why I find this quite surprising. If my team produced something like this, you can be quite sure there would be some major ramifications including looking very carefully at the system architecture, at the development process and at V&V and asking how this could have been released as is. Good grief. There is no excuse for a properly designed software/hardware system to be incapable of detecting when the data is bad or some other error has occurred.
 
I agree and the Aspen "failure" I had was immediately evident since it displayed "Degraded" right on the PFD. The other "failures" talked about here have been old Blue Mountain avionics units and other questionable experimental units. The Garmin G3X series has been built on the G1000 software and hardware platform. I have confidence in their system, but still will have the backup on my ipad and GDL39 3D.
 
Sorry about the video quality and rambling in this video. I was not expecting to take a video and did not feel like doing a 700MB upload for HQ video. Note, that the autopilot was not configured when we did the video. It took 5 minutes after we stopped recording to set the proper direction and torque of the servos all through the touchscreen. It was very cool. Some of the "humor" in the video was inside joke stuff - please disregard.

http://youtu.be/54PVWfbVYnM
 
Here is a video of it flying. The system is just plain awesome. The autopilot is rock solid - even on a cold and bumpy day. I will make a better video once I learn the system better, the weather is nicer, and I get the cold air cabin leak fixed:

http://youtu.be/8Pb8Y4jJ0_I
 
Now that your flying with the new prop, what kind of speed are you getting?
 
Not sure yet. I have only flown it an hour and it was in the bumps at 3k using 40-65%% power mostly ascending and descending trying out the new panel. The weather is terrible here. I would like to get it up to 12k and see what I can get.
 
toddsanderson said:
Not sure yet. I have only flown it an hour and it was in the bumps at 3k using 40-65%% power mostly ascending and descending trying out the new panel. The weather is terrible here. I would like to get it up to 12k and see what I can get.
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We are definitely interested in the results on the prop! Let us know when you have some numbers.
 
Will do. Was hoping to do it today, but the weather is not cooperating. I don't mind going IFR, but learning this new system takes some time and I am sure there is icing today also.
 
Well, I wish I had better news about the speed - but in short I am disappointed. The climb is spectacular with an honest 3k per minute through 5k ft and 1500 at 12k. Running an average of -12 degrees LOP using 11.8 GPH I was truing out at 198 knots at 12.5k. Running average 40 Degrees ROP using 13.5 GPH I was truing 208 knots.

I'm not sure what to think. The plane does climb better with this prop and maybe I was not as fast as I thought previously since I did not have an air data computer and was reading an old airspeed indicator and was estimating the temps due to no OAT device?

Also, I still have the same shake I did when I bought the plane. It tends to increase in intensity at higher power settings - not RPM. I'm wondering if I could have a bad valve (or valves) and am not making the power I should be. The engine monitor data looks clean with very consistent EGTs for each cylinder over a sampled time period.

If this is the best it gets the cylinders are coming off and I am going to at least 10.5:1 pistons to get some speed.
 

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toddsanderson said:
Well, I wish I had better news about the speed - but in short I am disappointed. The climb is spectacular with an honest 3k per minute through 5k ft and 1500 at 12k. Running an average of -12 degrees LOP using 11.8 GPH I was truing out at 198 knots at 12.5k. Running average 40 Degrees ROP using 13.5 GPH I was truing 208 knots.

I'm not sure what to think. The plane does climb better with this prop and maybe I was not as fast as I thought previously since I did not have an air data computer and was reading an old airspeed indicator and was estimating the temps due to no OAT device?

Also, I still have the same shake I did when I bought the plane. It tends to increase in intensity at higher power settings - not RPM. I'm wondering if I could have a bad valve (or valves) and am not making the power I should be. The engine monitor data looks clean with very consistent EGTs for each cylinder over a sampled time period.

If this is the best it gets the cylinders are coming off and I am going to at least 10.5:1 pistons to get some speed.
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If you have a balance issue with the motor I would see that as separate from a valve/cylinder issue. The later of which I would expect you to have some signs of. Who built the motor and has any major work been done to it since?
 
It was a new Engine from Lycoming in 2001. 300 hours TT.
 
How's the CG? If you are nose heavy that will slow you down. Beyond that, if the power is up to par the only thing that makes a slow Glasair 3 is wing incidence angle. Not much you can do about it if you have a higher angle of incedence (slower) It is extremely difficult to tell the exact angle when setting it during the build process and as little as 1 degree higher than the 2.5* will make for a slower albeit more stable Glasair. Investigation with very precise measurement has proven that Glasairs built with less than the factory designed 2.5* are faster and less stable, while those set higher are slower but more stable. That said, 200knots is still fast! I hope mine is right, won't know for a couple of months yet during test flying but I can tell you that it's very difficult to tell based on the procedure in the build manuals.
 
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