KCRV Flying / Data Logging / Garmin 496

The weather here in the midwest has been pretty crazy. Hail, tornado's, wind, snow, sunshine. Snowing while the sun is shining and wind.

I have a new addition to the airplane.... a Garmin 496! Looking forward to using it this flying season. I mounted it on the glareshield to fly with today but concluded after flying that is a horrible place for it. It really blocks your view. It will have to come off and get mounted elsewhere.

The weather improved enough today to get a few of the local RV crew out and about. I spent some time this morning wiring up a new data logger gadget (see below) and then headed to K34 to meet up with Ray. He was just doing his run-up as I entered the downwind, so I peeled off and waited for him to depart with Brian (RV-7A builder) as a passenger. We met up and did a little straight and level formation flying of sorts. (Neither of us have done any formation work.) I had my camera so I took a little bit of video. (MOV Format) We then hooked up with Paul and Chuck Stratman and 4-shipped it into K81 for breakfast. Just as we were getting up to leave, Vic Syracuse showed up in his RV-10. We all were wondering how they got from Georgia to podunk Miami County Airport in the middle of nowhere and it turns out his brother-in-law lives in Paola. Small world some times. Done with breakfast, Ray and I headed back to K34 to update my data logger and do some testing and then an uneventful short trip back home where I had a 15knot direct crosswind landing that came out great.

Ray in his RV-10

Update: Here is a visual of the flying we did. The red line starts in the upper left shows me departing OWI, then up to K34 while I waited for Ray to take off. Then we flew formation south and then back up and landed at K81 for breakfast. The green line departing K81 up to K34 where Ray updated my data logger. Finally the blue line is departing K34 for home where I did a couple of passess over Doug's house and then over our house.

Google Earth Map

Data Logger: Ray is a EE and microprocessor guru. He made his own flap/trim controller for his RV-9A and the RV-10. Most recently he has developed a 4-port 'data logger'. It will take up to 4 serial inputs (2 outputs) and log the data to a SD flash disk. You can capture your engine data/GPS data or whatever spits out serial and log it. Right now I have the KLN-89B, EIS 4000 engine monitor and the TruTrack ADI hooked up and will eventually get the Garmin 496 wired in. Long term I'll probably only log the Garmin 496 and EIS-4000 data. Ray has the Dynon EFIS and Engine monitor he is logging as well as the Garmin 430. If this is something someone might be interested in, let me know as he'll be going to market with this unit sometime this summer.