August 2005-
Every year in April, I set off to go to the annual EAA event in Lakeland, Fla., commonly known as Sun ‘n Fun.
Armed only with a press pass and a shopping list, I work my way around the show seeking out the specific products and services I have been contemplating to purchase. Sometimes I stumble across something I hadn’t planned on looking at and other times I find myself standing at the show booth, dealing with the disappointment that comes from finding that what you thought you really wanted isn’t really what you wanted.
This year, the weather was exceptionally nice, the flying demonstrations were great as always, and my son, who is not particularly aviation minded to start with, decided that it would be fun to hang out with Dad at an air show for a day. So off we went.
The following is what I found. What I would call the hits and the misses for me at Sun ‘n Fun 2005.
Hit: Lightspeed™ L-1 Headset – The super lightweight noise attenuating headset concept has intrigued me for some time. I have been flying turboprops and turbojets lately and the big bulky over-the-ear type headsets are overkill.
In the piston airplane world, the noise levels are higher and I was curious to see when or if someone would develop an “in the ear” (for lack of a better description) -type headset that would yield adequate noise attenuation for use in that environment. I had had some very good experiences with Lightspeed headsets before so I was eager to take a look at its new offering, the L-1.
This design utilizes foam earplugs inserted into your ears, a super lightweight headband to hold the microphone and a volume control with ANR electronics built into the same box that holds the batteries. I was impressed enough to buy it right at the booth.
I took it home and flew it in a piston single, a piston twin, a King air turboprop twin and a Citation 501 jet. I can tell you that the L-1 is without a doubt the most comfortable headset you will every wear. You may even forget that you have it on.
Lightspeed™ provides a series of different tips so you can find one that gives you the best fit in your ear. You compress the foam tip, insert it in your ear and then it expands to fit, just like the foam ear plugs that line crews wear.
Some of the competitive products require you to make a mold of your ear, send it to them and they send you a permanent ear piece for their headset, and I suspect that would yield a better fit. But the foam plug solution worked fine for me. The audio quality of the reception is crystal clear, and the controllers reported loud and clear response to the microphone with no unusual background noise.
In flight in my piston single, the noise attenuation was adequate, though not nearly as good as my Lightspeed G-3s or the Bose Xs both of which cover the entire ear. The comfort factor of the L-1 makes up for some of that, but on a strictly noise attenuation basis, the G-3 worked better in the piston single.
I experienced similar if slightly better results in my Seneca. Being a turbocharged twin, the ambient cabin noise is not as great, and of a different frequency (more wind noise, less engine noise) of that found in my single, and I would say that the difference in noise attenuation between my G-3s and the L-1 was negligible. That is to say I would be just as happy wearing either, though again the comfort factor of the L-1 would definitely tilt me in that direction.
In the King Air and especially the Citation, the L-1 is the way to go. The L-1, like the G-3 and other Lightspeed headsets, lets you jack in your cell phone so you can get a clearance on the ground (we do it frequently) and the batteries seem to last about 25 to 30 hours. I found that it took a while to figure out just exactly how to put the ear piece in your ear to get maximum noise attenuation, but once you figure it out they work well.
The comfort factor is the big seller here. When I fly a long day, even the G-3s, which are pretty lightweight to start with, want to meet in the middle after about five hours. In the jet I have been wearing Telex™ Airmen, which are also fairly lightweight, but the L-1 has no clamping pressure at all and is in my experience, superior in noise attenuation to the Telex Airmen. In my opinion, this product is a hit.
Another thing I went to the show in search of was a portable weather system. The technology has been around for a while and several companies offer packages that play on everything from a PDA to a laptop. Last year WxWorx ™ announced that they had partnered with XM Satellite Radio™ to bring continuous broadcast weather products to the cockpit and I felt that technology would significantly change the way we fly.
First in that market was Anywhere Map™. I saw their product run a few years ago on a satellite phone and although it was slowwwwww…. it worked. The incorporation of continuous satellite broadcast weather was the thing it needed to make it a useful tool.
Since that time several companies have gotten into the business, and after much searching I settled on Nav Air’s™ Air Gator product. It features wireless Bluetooth™ connections between the satellite receiver and PDA and the GPS and the PDA. While it isn’t entirely wireless, it is less wires than some of the hard wire hardware packages. All this runs on the new HP 4700 series PDA.
While the demo at the booth was impressive, and the promise of the technology was there, when I got it home and plugged it in, it just didn’t perform as advertised. Their system utilizes a power supply distribution block that uses RJ-11 type telephone jacks. Certainly cute, and probably cost effective, but not exactly aircraft-grade hardware.
The yoke mount for the PDA is made by an outside supplier and didn’t arrive with the rest of the equipment. When it finally did arrive it really didn’t fit my yoke very well. The XM radio requires a subscription and an activation process, which I accomplished by hooking it up in my car and letting it do its thing. It isn’t hard to do, and XM’s primary business is subscription radio, so they have the consumer thing down to a science.
Remember that I said I had bought this product to get weather in the cockpit. But the Nav Air software features a full-featured moving map complete with aircraft profiles, flight plan storage, and integrated approach plates just like a panel-mounted unit. In flight I found the system did not function well at all.
I’m not sure if it is a PDA issue or a software issue or what—but the PDA locked up (crashed) in just under 20 minutes and could not be reset in flight. I needed to hook it up to a PC and reload the PDA and start over. It locked up again 40 minutes into the next flight.
None of that made me happy, and after a full three days of playing with it I opted to return the product to the manufacturer, which they did take back. I was disappointed, but hey, for $2,500 this thing should run flawlessly.
There were some other issues with the system as well. The power distribution block got really hot, which I didn’t care for, and the antenna for the XM radio and the “wireless” GPS receiver need to be secured to the instrument panel somehow or they just dance around in anything more than light turbulence.
I never did get the GPS to talk to and play nice with the PDA. I don’t know if it was a Bluetooth problem or what, but again, for that kind of money, I really didn’t care.
The weather presentation is outstanding, (when working), overlaying Doppler radar images cloud tops and weather reporting station icons onto a full-color moving map. The icons are color coded to show VFR, MVFR and IFR conditions without having to open the METAR and actually read it.
Continuously updated, the access to this information in the cockpit is a true safety enhancement. To access current METARs and TAFs, just tap on one of the weather reporting sites and it displays the weather in standard ICAO code. (You all remember how to read encoded weather, right?)
Unfortunately, the system as I received it proved unreliable to take into real weather so I can’t tell you more, but I haven’t given up on it just yet. All in all, I’d have to call this a miss. The promise of the technology exceeds the ability of the current hardware to deliver it.
The last item, which I felt was another true “hit” was the EFIS displays manufactured by Dynon Avionics.
For a few thousand dollars, you can have an experimental version of a PFD (primary flight display) and an engine monitoring system that is every bit as sophisticated and supplies the same type of information you find on the fancy PFDs in certified aircraft. If these people decide to build a certified version I predict everybody I know will want one.
Go to www.dynonavionics.com, take a look and tell me you wouldn’t put that in your aircraft, especially if it could be done for even twice what the experimental product costs. Small and lightweight (less than two pounds) it would make an excellent standby/backup PFD. If not these folks then someone else will, but I am convinced that it is coming. It may not be certified as primary, but it is coming.
There was a lot more to see, but as usual, you can only get to do so much at one of these shows and that was all I had time for. Can’t wait for Oshkosh!
Michael Leighton is a 3,400-plus CFII MEI/ATP as well as an A&P mechanic and former FAA Accident Prevention Counselor. He operates an air charter company in South Florida. You can reach him via e-mail at av8tor0414@aol.com.
