Upgrading to an EFIS

nice! t-28?

 

And all for about $3K plus cost of installation!

As my orthopedic surgeon said today after looking at the disaster that is my right knee - ain't technology grand.

 

Roy, I had both knees replaced 1.5 years ago and I'm walking 2 miles every other day without a problem. I had the Oxford procedure and it was a piece of cake even getting both done at the same time. Maybe you should look at it.
Nothing like a new landing gear.
Switches

 

Russ, that looks like a wonderful addition to your bird but it reminds me of the time when I got caught in a bad situation in my old clunk and went IMC when there wasn't a way out. I had airspeed, altimeter, skid ball, and compass as I entered a torrential blinding downpour while climbing up the Sacramento River canyon towards Dunsmuir, Ca. near Mt. Shasta. I locked in a slight climb, a compass heading, and watched any changes in the airspeed or heading and skid ball as we went into a whiteout that deteriorated into a greyout. I tried to hold everything in place as I appeared to be flying inside a pillow. After sitting there for what seemed like hours I gradually broke out into muted sunshine but no ground contact. A little more flight in frozen position finally brought us out into a drizzle where I could faintly make out some ground reference that showed that I had the right wing down and was drifting to the right even though I was trying like hell to keep everything centered. The compass never showed the change in heading probably because we were bouncing around quite a bit and flying near due north. That was a real exercise in using an absolutely limited panel.
Great looking panel without the new stuff.
Switches

 

I agree - best get it done sooner rather than later - get used to it along with the rest of the airplane.

 

with the HSI; i believe/ it looks like you will be IFR capable. Is that the main reason for the installation?

 

I am not proud of that experience. I should never have started up the canyon from Redding in marginal weather because it deteriorated as we went further up the canyon until we were at a point where we had to work it through. I had to make it work because my wife was in the back seat and I had her folding sectionals and repacking stuff and doing everything but vacuuming the cockpit. I kept partial contact with the sides of the canyon and some of the power lines on the way up and finally relaxed when we got to Yreaka. Fun trip.
Switches

 

Yeah, so he can fly up to the EAA Fly-in at NAS Arlington, Washington and run with the other three that Cascade Warbirds shows up with.

 

RUSS!! WHEN WILL YOU GET HOME?

 

Would it be possible to move the EFIS up a bit, maybe even building it a sort of 'bump out' sub panel in some of the space above the current panel but underneath the overhang?

 

Gosh Russ, I wish you had said something! I have a real nice old compass out of my sail boat. It is in a nice mahogany mount on a board that should fit in the cockpit behind the stick okay. It is even on a gimbal.
Switches

 

Switches may be onto something. Check out this rig
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As always, your guess is spot on. (and in good taste)


I can't resist quoting Budd Davisson on the Tiger Moth

"After I got out of Jerry's Tiger Moth, he fired it up and taxied out to head back to his Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, home base. I watched as he took off, or rather, ' lifted-off', the Gypsy Major doing its best to sound ferocious, the Moth doing its best to be graceful. And it was. In its own helpless way, the Moth has grace, the same grace as the early straight-axled Bugattis, blown 8-liter Bentleys and other machines of that era. It, for no reason I can think, of, reminds me of the lace doillies and mohair couch at my grandmother's house, almost Victorian in manner and out of place in today's world. But, it functions. The Tiger Moth does what it is supposed to do, but in an easier, somehow more civilized manner than we do it today. Maybe we've forgotten what flight really is and blindly follow our Continentals and Lycomings around thinking that we are the ones that are truly flying. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe sitting at the stick of a Tiger Moth really is flying. Is it I, the one using current. definitions for a long gone emotion, that is wrong? Yes, I think the Tiger Moth is right. It knows flight. We don't. "

 

Thanks for posting the Bud Davidson article on what basic flying is all about. I have flown most of the early birds and tried to embrace the modern cockpit. I can do most of the magic panel stuff but the less of it the better, for me at least. I never flew a Tiger Moth but I have done some time in other birds of the same ilk and I cherish sound of the wind in the wires, the sound of the un-muffled engine barking its song , the smell of the exhaust, and the total freedom to do what I must to stay aloft.
Switches

 

My pleasure, Switches. If anyone out there is interested in reading the whole review, it can be found at:

http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepTigermoth.html


(The main site is full of great pilot reports)

 

Hmmmm.....
but what's it do when yer knife edged??

Not a comedian, but I slept at a .................

Charlie