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Alex De Dominicis

RV4er

Well Known Member
I wanted to put a plug in for Alex De Dominicis. I did all of my transition training with him and found him to be a very professional and patient instructor.

Thanks Alex

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I thought everybody already knew that Alex is a really great guy :) I did my transition time with him too. I like that he isn't afraid to tell you that you can clearly do better. "Let's do it again.", as opposed to 'that is good enough'. He ain't no lazy instructor.
 
Alex is also an Excellent source for Tru-Trak stuff - he handled the trade-in of Louise's ADI for an ADI Pilot II autopilot, and got us a great deal with delivery exactly when we needed it!

Paul
 
Paul, I'll second that thought...Alex supplied my Trutrack and I'm expecting my new GRT (once they start shipping) from him soon. Excellent service at very good prices!
 
Five Hour Torture!

I had to suffer through five hours of transition training with Alex to satisfy the insurance gods! All I can say is I learned a lot and had a ton of fun! My building partner, Dave, and I arrived in Dallas last Monday at about 12:30 and were going to meet Alex at 3:30. The weather gods had other things planned though. Dave was the first victim finally at 5:30 for a short hour lesson which focused on the basic handling of the -10 and we did a few touch and goes. It amazes me the way the -10 can bleed off airspeed. Alex has very thorough knowledge of the -10 and has a great sense of humor. Even when we had to teach him how to adjust his Altimeter. Next day we were scheduled for 7:30 am but the FOG was thick. It didn't burn off until almost 12:30. We crammed almost five hours in on Tuesday afternoon. Luckily I have been flying a Tiger for the past three years so the transition wasn't too difficult. I did almost three hours straight with Alex on Tuesday afternoon and I was spent. Wednesday morning I got another two hours in. Alex really let us test the envelope and learn how to fly the plane and how to be careful and safe while flying the plane.
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Formation Training with our shadow:
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Taxing back after 8 hours of training in N110LV:
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Thanks for the great time Alex!
 
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Bobby,
The Tru-trak EFIS was very easy to use. I used the graph/bar representation for the speed and altitude. I liked the HSI displayed at an angle. I didn't have any problems seeing it in the daylight.
 
Any explanation as to why the EFIS horizon is not parallel with the actual horizon?
Doug
 
Any explanation as to why the EFIS horizon is not parallel with the actual horizon?
I suspect their EFIS uses a similar concept to the TruTrak ADI - i.e. it doesn't have a conventional attitude sensor, so it doesn't know what the attitude really is. The TruTrak ADI uses a turn rate sensor, and simply presents zero bank angle if the turn rate is zero, and a bank angle that is proportional to turn rate if it is not zero. Thus it is not surprising that the displayed bank angle in a turn (or a wings level yaw) would differ from the actual bank angle.

Or, I could be completely wrong, and they actually have a solid state attitude sensor, and it simply isn't working very well.
 
EFIS

At first glance the picture may appear to show a difference between the EFIS and the airplane, but in fact it's a bit deceptive. The camera angle, panel angle, attitude of the plane, and the timing of the photo have combined to create a slight deception to the eye in this 2D photo. At this moment in the flight, the airplane was in a turn during and engine out practice, and a good way to see that the airplane is banked relative to the EFIS is to have a look at the top of the photo. There is a lot more sky to one side of the pic, and a lot less on the other. If you use that reference you'll see that the horizon is relatively the same. The angles of the glareshield, panel, camera, plane and the ground have all conspired to create a small deception. It's hard to tell with a camera shot taken at a moment in time from a back seat the actual view the pilot and co-pilot saw. I was in the plane and have been flying behind the EFIS for awhile and would notice if such discrepancies were true.

I was in the airplane and having flown many hours behind many EFISes I am able to tell when something isn't right. This wasn't the case with this example. Technically, it's a complex discussion and if you'd like to converse about the details stop by the booth at SnF or OSH for as much detailed technical info!

Alex De Dominicis
 
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