We?re having a full week of rain in the Houston area ? the mornings seem sort of OK, then deteriorate into either Thunderstorms or steady drenchers once the atmosphere wakes up. Quite a change from the great drought of 2011, but it makes it hard to enjoy a little flying. One benefit, however, is that the air is very smooth before the rains set in, and this morning I was up in Tsam, playing around with a few maneuvers and watching on the XM as some rain showers slowly crept in from the south. Now that we have over a hundred hours on the airframe and have worked out most of the kinks, I have been trying to take part of each flight to gain more experience and do some testing with the G3X/GXPilot/GNS 430W system. We plan on using the airplane for instrument flight (hence all that equipment), but I like to go slow getting there with a new airplane.
Today, with no traffic and smooth air, it looked like a good opportunity to try for a fully-coupled, complete approach at our local ILS runway. I wanted to see the system do the whole thing, horizontal and vertical, including the full procedure turn. I was about 20 miles southeast of KLBX at 3,000? when I got started ? brought up the approach on the 430W and activated it, then punched up ?External? on the G3X flight planning page. This immediately populated the G3X flight plan with the waypoints for the approach, and told the G3X we were going into approach mode ? the 430W was driving. I engaged the G3X with the stick trigger, and this brought it up already integrated to the EFIS in pitch and roll hold. The next thing was to get it descending and headed to the IAF, so I dialed in 2500?, a 500 fpm descent, and punched it into ?Nav? mode. Tsam obeyed immediately with a turn in the proper direction and a little dip of the nose. From here on out, all I was going to do was work the throttle and cross-check the airplane?s flying.
Coming up on FREEP (the IAF and FAF), the 430W was in GPS mode and counting down to the start of an anticipation turn to join the localizer outbound. It executed this perfectly, just as we reached 2500?, and the G3X echoed the Tru Trak?s call for a little nose-up trim. Once we were stabilized outbound, I dialed in another descent to 2100? and pulled back a little on the power, just as we came up to the procedure turn ? which Tsam executed just like she knew what she was doing. The ?Stay within this circle? circle was on the chart and we stayed tucked nicely inside ? the course reversal was crisp at a bank angle for a two-minute turn. I had the Waypoint page set up to look at the approach plate (with the little purple airplane displayed in the correct position) with a single click of the knob on the MFD. As we swung around the far side of the procedure turn, the 430W clicked into VLOC mode and this was reflected on the PFD as the ILS bars came up, along with the Highway in the Sky boxes. I stilled hadn?t touched anything but the throttle and trim, and now took off a little more power to get us down to 120 knots. Tsam bobbed appropriately to stay on the glide slope as we slowed ? the smooth air made it feel like I was flying a desktop simulator, and we were on rails.
I watched the GS diamond crawl down the scale and when it hit the center, the nose bobbed again, and down we went ? I flicked on the fuel pump, pushed the mixture forward, and checked the lights. I?d get flaps and the prop on short final. The Velocity Vector was pegged right in the middle of the boxes on the PFD, and nailed to the numbers on the virtual runway. Pulling back on the throttle pitched us up ever so slightly as we slowed a little more. Tsam was in a happy place with the G3X and Tru Trak making nary a wiggle all the way from the FAF to the runway. I finally disengaged at 200?, pulled the power smoothly back as I raised the nose and thumbed the flaps out. Prop in, then flared to land. Wow ? so that?s what the stick feels like! I hadn?t touched it since the last series of loops and rolls ten minutes earlier.
Although I have been involved in the development and testing of advanced avionics in flying machines my whole career, it still amazes me what our experimental avionics can do. From ?take me to an airport? to touchdown, I had used the stick only once ? and the button-pushing itself was pretty minimal. I could spend my time heads-up, checking the maps and altitudes, making sure that Tsam was on the straight and narrow ? not using a third of my own CPU to fly it myself. I still love to hand fly, and have flown numerous practice approaches that way in the airplane already. But especially in a single-seater, with no other human to share the load ? the coupled approach capability is certainly a safety enhancement and load reliever. I think even Lieutenant Doolittle would be proud?.
Paul
Today, with no traffic and smooth air, it looked like a good opportunity to try for a fully-coupled, complete approach at our local ILS runway. I wanted to see the system do the whole thing, horizontal and vertical, including the full procedure turn. I was about 20 miles southeast of KLBX at 3,000? when I got started ? brought up the approach on the 430W and activated it, then punched up ?External? on the G3X flight planning page. This immediately populated the G3X flight plan with the waypoints for the approach, and told the G3X we were going into approach mode ? the 430W was driving. I engaged the G3X with the stick trigger, and this brought it up already integrated to the EFIS in pitch and roll hold. The next thing was to get it descending and headed to the IAF, so I dialed in 2500?, a 500 fpm descent, and punched it into ?Nav? mode. Tsam obeyed immediately with a turn in the proper direction and a little dip of the nose. From here on out, all I was going to do was work the throttle and cross-check the airplane?s flying.
Coming up on FREEP (the IAF and FAF), the 430W was in GPS mode and counting down to the start of an anticipation turn to join the localizer outbound. It executed this perfectly, just as we reached 2500?, and the G3X echoed the Tru Trak?s call for a little nose-up trim. Once we were stabilized outbound, I dialed in another descent to 2100? and pulled back a little on the power, just as we came up to the procedure turn ? which Tsam executed just like she knew what she was doing. The ?Stay within this circle? circle was on the chart and we stayed tucked nicely inside ? the course reversal was crisp at a bank angle for a two-minute turn. I had the Waypoint page set up to look at the approach plate (with the little purple airplane displayed in the correct position) with a single click of the knob on the MFD. As we swung around the far side of the procedure turn, the 430W clicked into VLOC mode and this was reflected on the PFD as the ILS bars came up, along with the Highway in the Sky boxes. I stilled hadn?t touched anything but the throttle and trim, and now took off a little more power to get us down to 120 knots. Tsam bobbed appropriately to stay on the glide slope as we slowed ? the smooth air made it feel like I was flying a desktop simulator, and we were on rails.
I watched the GS diamond crawl down the scale and when it hit the center, the nose bobbed again, and down we went ? I flicked on the fuel pump, pushed the mixture forward, and checked the lights. I?d get flaps and the prop on short final. The Velocity Vector was pegged right in the middle of the boxes on the PFD, and nailed to the numbers on the virtual runway. Pulling back on the throttle pitched us up ever so slightly as we slowed a little more. Tsam was in a happy place with the G3X and Tru Trak making nary a wiggle all the way from the FAF to the runway. I finally disengaged at 200?, pulled the power smoothly back as I raised the nose and thumbed the flaps out. Prop in, then flared to land. Wow ? so that?s what the stick feels like! I hadn?t touched it since the last series of loops and rolls ten minutes earlier.
Although I have been involved in the development and testing of advanced avionics in flying machines my whole career, it still amazes me what our experimental avionics can do. From ?take me to an airport? to touchdown, I had used the stick only once ? and the button-pushing itself was pretty minimal. I could spend my time heads-up, checking the maps and altitudes, making sure that Tsam was on the straight and narrow ? not using a third of my own CPU to fly it myself. I still love to hand fly, and have flown numerous practice approaches that way in the airplane already. But especially in a single-seater, with no other human to share the load ? the coupled approach capability is certainly a safety enhancement and load reliever. I think even Lieutenant Doolittle would be proud?.
Paul
