December 18, 2003

What's New -- Products and Services

Each month, AVweb will bring you a quick survey of the latest products and services for pilots, mechanics and aircraft owners. This month we have a few books, a new GPS, handheld software and more. In some cases, AVweb has actually examined the product; in other cases, we are just letting you know it exists.

If you know of a new product or service other AVweb readers should hear about, please send us a note.

IFR: A Structured Approach

John Eckalbar, author of Flying the Beech Bonanza and Flying High Performance Singles and Twins, has a new book called IFR: A Structured Approach. John created the book to help pilots establish their own "Standard Operating Practices" to make single-pilot flying, as he puts it, "... much less haphazard and much more regimented, structured, and above all, safe."

The book contains chapters on checklists and flying "by the numbers" (power settings, pitch attitudes, and configurations for IFR flight in your own plane), and individual chapters on the different kinds of approaches. Many chapters include special emphasis on how to safely incorporate GPS operations into IFR flying.

The book is available here.

Lowrance AirMap 500

Lowrance Electronics has finally brought out an update to their aviation line of GPSs, the AirMap 500. This handheld GPS has a 12-channel GPS receiver and is WAAS-enabled. The display is 3" diagonally and contains 43,000 pixels, with backlighting and 16 levels of gray.

In addition to the usual aviation database of intersections, VORs, and so on, the AirMap 500 has a database with ground obstructions displayed in either AGL or MSL heights. You can also plug in an MMC or SD memory card and add custom, high-detail mapping, plus hotels, restaurants, services, etc.

You can create and save up to 1,000 waypoints (custom GPS locations), and 100 routes with up to 100 waypoints per route. As you fly, you can record a plot of your track (sometimes called a "bread-crumb trail") and then replay it later; in fact you can save up to 100 tracks, each with up to 10,000 points.

AVweb will have a full review of the AirMap 500 in the near future. Meanwhile, details are available on the Lowrance Web site. While there, you can also look at the larger AirMap 1000, which is not yet available for sale but will include a 5" (diagonal) display.

Music's Broken Wings

As we all know, the general media is quick to report aircraft accidents in the most negative light. They sell papers and up ratings, especially when the accident involves a celebrity. However, this sensational reporting does not always tell the real story.

Music's Broken Wings: Fifty Years of Aviation Accidents in the Music Industry answered my questions concerning accidents that I, as a 50+ person, felt a special connection with. The music of Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were a large part of my youth. Even being in the aviation industry during those times I never knew the real facts behind the news reports. Now, through Music's Broken Wings, I understand what really happened. For example, Ricky Nelson wasn't freebasing cocaine in that ill-fated DC-3. He and his troupe were keeping warm when a heater caused the disaster.

Reading through these historical accounts I found myself enthralled with Mr. Heitman's insights into the personal lives of these artists. However, not all accidents ended in tragedy. For example, Jane Froman, a singer and actress in the 1940s, was a survivor of a Pan American World Airways “Yankee Clipper” accident on February 22, 1943. She later married the flight crew’s First Officer from that flight.

Regarding Glen Miller's disappearance, actual pages from a navigator’s logbook on a British Lancaster bomber only adds to the mystery surrounding this still-missing aircraft. It's detailed documentation such as this that accompanies 34 additional accidents in the 540-page book, which covers the years 1935 through 1985. Essentially a history book, it also is an aviation safety text. Certainly it holds a few surprises for the reader.

Mr. Heitman doesn't just entertain and inform with Music's Broken Wings. As an active airline pilot, trained aviation accident investigator and CFI, he writes from a professional pilot’s perspective as to how these accidents could have been caused and prevented. For those of us who are pilots, it's an added bonus to a very entertaining and informative book.

Music's Broken Wings is available through the publisher, Dreamflyer.

King Electronic E6-B For Handhelds

First there was the traditional "whiz wheel" manual E6-B you struggled to understand long ago in ground school. Eventually the electronics industry caught up and produced calculator-type E6-Bs that took away some confusion but added bulk and the need to carry backup batteries.

But if you already carry some version of a handheld computer (running Palm OS or Pocket PC 2002 or greater) now you can have software that gives you E6-B functions on a bright screen (in color, if you have a color handheld), with buttons big enough to press with your fingers in flight rather than using the stylus.

King Schools E6-B has all the usual E6-B functions (airspeed and altitude calculations, ground speed, wind components, etc.), plus it can calculate and store the weight and balance for your airplane, and has handy graphics to display holding pattern entry and landing pattern entry.

AVweb will have a full review of the Electronic E6-B in the near future. Meanwhile, details are available on the King Schools Web site. You can purchase the software right on their Web site, download it straight to your PC, and then load it into your handheld.

Exhaust Fairing for Power Flow

Power Flow Systems has created an exhaust fairing for use with Cessna 172s equipped with the Power Flow Exhaust System.

The Power Flow Exhaust System is a complete exhaust replacement, all the way from the headers to the tip of the exhaust pipe, which is designed to improve engine and aircraft performance. It has been STC'd on more than 10 different engine/airframe combinations.

Now, for the C172, Power Flow has added a fairing to go around the exhaust exit. Power Flow claims it can reduce drag and increase cooling to the engine, in addition to improving the aesthetics.

Further information can be found on the Power Flow Web site.

Plane Talk

By Rod Machado

The master of aviation wit and wisdom, Rod Machado has just come out with a new collection of dozens of aviation articles and stories he's written over the past 15 years.

Those who've read Rod's writing in aviation magazines -- or better yet heard him give a talk (if you can call it that when the audience is rolling in the aisles from his jokes) -- know that Rod is an expert at teaching while entertaining. His stories and lessons always go down well as he pokes fun at himself and all of us pilots.

His latest compilation is over 450 pages long, covering a diverse range of topics from how to assess and manage risks, coping with temptation, helping first-time flyers and many more.

You can order his book, as well as look at several others he has written, on this Web site.