Securing Stratus

[TangoWhiskey]

At OSH, Sporty's was giving a free suction cup mount and device cradle as an incentive to purchase the otherwise not-discounted Stratus 2. The Stratus normally includes a gel sleeve with a non slip base in the box.

Chair-flying today, it occurred to me that if you are using the Stratus as a backup AHRS, you best have it securely mounted in the aircraft, not just sitting on your glareshield.

If you were to lose your primary instruments, and ended up in an unusual attitude, it is very possible the Stratus would end up somewhere else in the airplane, and no longer provide reliable attitude information.

Just throwing it out there for consideration!

 

[AggieMike88]

I have my Stratus 2 in the suction cup cradle on the RH windscreen of the C182.

As long as the suction cup and the windscreen are clean, it always did a good job adhering to the surface.

So now I have it as part of my pre-flight walk around to make sure the suction cup and surface are cleaned and then dry before mounting to the windscreen.

 

[J3 Driver]

We use the suction cup mount in the Kingair. So far I have yet to see it come loose. It's even hard to get it off when you release the suction part.

 

[rbridges]

I thought it had to be "flat" to give an accurate AHRS reading. Don't the suction mounts have it on its side?

 

[Juristo]

I thought it had to be "flat" to give an accurate AHRS reading. Don't the suction mounts have it on its side?

It doesn't need to be flat. It senses its orientation.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

It doesn't have to be flat, but it does have to be pointing forward... The lights towards the rear of the plane, and roughly aligned with the longitudinal axis. In ForeFlight, there is a Calibrate button you can use to make corrections in any axis or even say "THIS is straight and level" with a single button push, making the vertical orientation irrelevant.

 

[rbridges]

It doesn't have to be flat, but it does have to be pointing forward... The lights towards the rear of the plane, and roughly aligned with the longitudinal axis. In ForeFlight, there is a Calibrate button you can use to make corrections in any access or even say "THIS is straight and level" with a single button push, making the vertical orientation irrelevant.

Thanks, I just put it on top of my flight bag in the back seat since it gets a good GPS signal. Playing around with AHRS, it always had me at an angle.