Around the Patch: New attitude

Evan and I were on our first leg of a very long day of flying. We had switched from the tower frequency at Frederick, Maryland, on a chilly October morning in 2014 and were on an IFR flight plan. Final destination: Manhattan, Kansas. Evan instructs with a company that conducts advanced and accelerated courses from its Kansas headquarters. By the end of our three days together, I expected to fly back home to Maryland with a completed instrument proficiency check (IPC) in my logbook. Evan was with me so I could legally file IFR and get comfortable in the system again before our IPC work began.

I had tried for a few years to get instrument current, but it wasn’t happening. The three-day refresher was a chance to get away from home and work and immerse myself in instrument flying. We completed the 896-nautical-mile journey in three legs over one very long day—something I could not have accomplished if Evan hadn’t been there to do some of the flying.

Pounding out GPS approaches over Manhattan that first day of the refresher, we noticed the Cherokee’s attitude indicator (AI) seemed to be a little off—not wrong, exactly, but not right, either. In the afternoon it rolled over during a climb. Recalling a bit of wisdom from aviation writer Ralph Butcher, I fished a dollar bill out of my pocket and used it as an instrument cover, and we pushed on.

Next, Evan pointed at the turn coordinator. “Has it always been like that?” he asked. The miniature airplane moved excessively and exaggeratedly, vibrating with the engine. I might as well have been using a dashboard hula dancer to decipher turns under the hood. But I managed.

Those are important instruments for flying IFR. Back in Maryland, I worked to keep current on instruments, but only under the hood in visual meteorological conditions. The attitude indicator continued to misbehave, taking longer than usual to spool up, until I made a date with an avionics shop.

Nothing related to instruments is cheap to repair or replace, and so I waited to hear the diagnosis with foreboding. Instruments can be repaired, overhauled, or replaced. It’s progressively more expensive to go from repair to full replacement.

The AI was old enough that it made sense to exchange it for an overhauled unit—one that has been disassembled, cleaned, inspected, repaired, and tested and certified to be within specific service limits, as laid out in FAR 43.2. But the turn coordinator couldn’t be salvaged. It was so old that the company no longer made parts for it, and no overhauled units were available. So my airplane now has a new turn coordinator.

Flash forward to the 2016 Sun ’n Fun International Airshow and Fly-In at Lakeland, Florida. The Experimental Aircraft Association announced it has obtained a supplemental type certificate that will allow owners of certain Cessna and Piper aircraft to replace their old, vacuum-pump-driven primary attitude indicators with a Dynon EFIS-D10A. This unit is more than an AI—its four-inch display shows airspeed, altimeter, vertical speed, compass heading, turn rate, and a lot more—and it runs off the electrical system instead of a vacuum pump.

This is exciting news for owners of legacy airplanes like mine. It means we can upgrade our failing attitude indicators with high-quality equipment previously permitted to be installed only on Experimental and Light Sport aircraft. And, while the STC covers just the Dynon EFIS at this writing, it’s a foot in the door. The Dynon STC came too late for me, but I hope we’ll soon see STCs covering other manufacturers and other types of safety equipment: autopilot, engine monitors—who knows? It’s cliché to say the sky’s the limit, but for once this actually might be true.

Email Technical Editor Jill Tallman at [email protected]; Twitter: @jtallman1959.