FlightAware

www.flightaware.com - This is a pretty popular (and free) website where you can track airplane flights. It's usually delayed by 15mins or so and typically has only shown IFR flights. Tonight after I returned home from Moline, I had an email from guy here local who said he saw me on FA. Sure enough, my tracks up and back were there! You can see it here.

Coincidentally, I was at the airport tonight getting some stuff when I saw an RV practicing an engine out over the end of 17. On his rollout, I recogonized the paint scheme and the engine sound. It was Nate Larson in his Subie powered RV-9A. Nate also happens to be a supervisor at Kansas City Center. I mentioned my tracks on FA and he said that flight advisory flights would probably start showing up more.

Here is an interesting link that will allow you to see all flights of a certain type. You can type in "RV" and get all the RV flights. Tonight I found two RV-6's flying. http://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype

Gianna's first ride and the autopilot works!

A big strom blew through on Thursday evening, so I didn't get a chance to get up and go flying like I had hoped. This morning we got up and made it to the airport around 9am. The plane was still filthy from the dust at Oshkosh, so we washed it quick and then I headed over to K81 for gas and then off to MLI to pick up Gianna, our grand-daughter. Two hours from here to there gave me time to play with the auto-pilot. I tweaked the sensitivity settings and the torque settings a little and then it was doing its job darn near perfectly. Heading was dead on and altitude didn't vary by more then 10ft either way. Of course, this was in smooth air. All by myself, listening to Dave Matthew Band and letting the autopilot fly.

Once I arrived in MLI, took a break and then loaded Gianna in the plane. I didn't have time to rig up the car seat in the baggage area, so Sandi had to stay home so I could rig the car seat up front. This was her first airplane ride and we weren't sure how this would go. Fortunately, her parents had talked her up about the plane ride so she was ready to go. At first, she even was cool with the headset. Between the headset and the Wiggles DVD, she was pretty entertained for the first 45mins or so and then got restless and took off the headset. The airplane noise didn't bother her, so I didn't force it back on. About 30mins prior to landing, she fell asleep.

The trip home was much improved having the AP do the flying. Trying to keep track of her doin's and fly the plane at the same time would have been tough. The descent down into Ottawa got a big rough. The AP was doing an OK job. I might need to turn up the sensitivity some and maybe the torque.

Autopilot Install - Part IV

The post installation check is complete and the plane is ready to fly. The post install basically consists of powering up the unit and going through the settings pages (of which TT gives you little to no guidance). Then you engage the AP and tell it to turn you... and hope the aileron goes the right way. :-) It did... and same with altitude hold. So everything looks good. Tomorrow, Sandi and I are going to fly over to K81 to get some fuel and dinner and test the AP. On Friday, I'm headed to MLI, so I'll have a couple of hours x-country to see how well it performs.

I'm looking for input from anyone who has a TT AP in their RV-9 and what settings they are using.


PS - Next project is an APRS system.... all the rage with RV guys now.... stay tuned.