claycookiemonster
Well Known Member
New installation.
Any reasons to choose Artex or ACK or another beyond things like weight and size?
Any reasons to choose Artex or ACK or another beyond things like weight and size?
First decision is whether or not you have a GPS source (for the 406 freq) that you can connect to your ELT. If you do not, my choice would be the Kannad Integra (will be going in my C-150). If you do, my choice would be the Artex ELT 345 (will be going in my RV-9A). I most definitely would not recommend ACK. LOTS of comments here about false activations, and poor workmanship and poor factory support.
Just one data point but here it is:
First flight with wife post-Phase One an out and in to a nice country airport in the mountains.
Something set off my ACK ELT and if my alert LED was lit I didn't see it. Ground control at the destination advised me that my ELT was active. I had been using flight following the whole leg, but destination field ground was the first to pass me the heads up. I responded with apology and moving the switch from the arm to the off position. If this ever happens to you just get ready for the consequences.
To assuage the arm chair quarterbacks: I don't move the switch as part of preflight. Once armed it stays armed until the next routine test, or long period of hangering. We didn't manually turn it 'on' before flight.
The ELT network system latency and follow up phone calls will tell you it is still going off long after you shut it down, pulled the battery, wrapped it in foil....
Then there are the aggrieved Emergency POCs that were told you went down.
Home field FBO may also get called and they may be tracking you down with whatever diligence is at hand. In my case they launched a truck to go search the local hills.
You may even be so lucky as to have a helicopter out looking for you....
In short, it's a hot mess.
Took the unit back to AKC (I live in the same town) and their answer was that what seemed to have happened simply wasn't possible. They were nice enough to replace the G-switch panel at no cost, and it hasn't happened since.
We fly with a 70 lb dog in baggage. This is where the ELT is located. I suspect the dog jostled the ELT enough to set it off. ACK thought this wasn't possible, but again something did set it off that day. According to the ELT monitoring network it appeared to go off a few times on that flight. I have since installed padding around the ELT and again, no recurrence.
Nice to have an ELT, not nice to deal with a random activation.