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garrys

Active Member
I hope to take my RV7A to the air in several months, but I'm intimidated by the users manuals for all my avionics. Stacked together they must be about 6 inches thick. I think I'm safe in saying that trying to learn how to use all the avionics during the first several flight hours, isn't a good idea. I should be flying the plane, not trying to push buttons and twiddle knobs. Unfortunately, my avionics manufacturers do not have any DVD's, Videos, or online training aids. Question.........how does one learn how to use all these fancy gizmos?

My panel is comprised of the following: Dual Grand Rapids EFIS and EIS screens with internal GPS, TrueTrac Digiflight II auto pilot, PMA8000B Audio Panel, Garmin SL30 Com, Garmin GTX 327 Transponder, and ICOM A-200.

What have others done? Are there any folks out there with similar setups who might be willing to fly with me and teach me how to use this stuff?

Garry Stout
RV7A N498WT Tampa Florida
[email protected]
 
If you are ever in the Atlanta area, I can take you up in my plane. VERY , VERY similar panel to yours (see my signature). The GRT stuff works very well and is pretty user intuitive. I'm happy with how it all integrates together.

The GRT talks to the SL-30 and autopilot (as well as my 2nd GPS, a Garmin 396).

Have you joined the Yahoo group ? A lot of your questions can be answered there as well.

I'll probably fly down to TPA area sometime this coming year but can't say for sure when. Got plenty of family and friends around there.

Good luck and Merry Christmas,
Scott
 
I'm sorry ... my last post somehow got applied under a different user name. Again I repeat what I, Scott, said above. See my signature, below, for my panel. Pretty much just like yours. I sure wish I went with your audio panel, though!
 
Learning your avionics

Hi Garry,

I believe you are on the right track - use a safety pilot. Even if the other person doesn't know the systems, having someone fly the plane and look for traffic while you are twisting knobs and pushing buttons will increase safety, and allow you to learn at a much faster pace. Of course, this doesn't help you during the test phase.

Our club pipers all have a GNS430, and even though it has a simulator, I'm happy to have a sidekick to watch for traffic when I'm playing with it in the air.

Not yet sure what I'll do when I start flying my RV8 with the GRT system. Probably by then GRT will have written a simulator, or perhaps a clever entrepreneur will develop one.
 
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Learning to use Equipment

"What have others done? Are there any folks out there with similar setups who might be willing to fly with me and teach me how to use this stuff?"
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Think of it as ground school, airline types upgrading from steam to glass probably take two or more weeks training including simulator time before their qualifying simulator ride.

So plug in a battery charger, sit in the airplane and play with the installed equipment while reading the manuals and pushing the actual buttons. Great way to pass those bad weather days!
 
first flight w/ GRT

FAA is pretty clear, so is common sense, that you or the test pilot should be solo on first flight. Most interpretations of FAA rules say solo for the entire phase one period. Many of the experimental community bend these rules, but FAA is not vague about it.

GRT alarms for first flight are maybe not a good idea. They are not required by the EFIS nor the EIS. Set them later unless they are something you are sure of. Be aware that you can set all the engine alarms on just the EIS. If you set them on both the EFIS and the EIS, both will respond when the limits are reached. That would mean twice as much required behavior from you to silence them.

GRT provides some files called "demoxxxx.log" that you can play back while on the ground. Good to do. Look in the manual. The new, improved user manual is now online at their site. It's a big improvement and easily downloaded as a pdf.

Many of us can probably provide such demo.log files, too, if you decide you want them. They can be renamed for convenience and run from the USB memory stick. The one they supplied did not work well in their unit, but all my other ones worked fine.

The PFD is pretty easy to use even if you are only used to round dials as I was. The ENG page is easy, too. You will want to keep an eye on the engine in all its measurements especially if you are flying a new engine on first flight. If you get a ride in some other airplane using GRT it will help, but it's not a critical resource IMHO.

You will probably want to verify before flight that the GRT is correctly sending altitude data to the transponder. Don't worry about the communication between the radio and the EFIS for now. Some may disagree, but I would set the GRT EFIS heading tape to heading and not track, for now. Be sure to perform magnetometer and altitude calibration per the manual. Airspeed correction may be needed later, but first you have to fly it and let it compare airspeed to GPS speed - a whole 'nother subject.

My advice is to leave the autopilot off for the first few flights. Since you have the internal GPS, you may want some nav info. It is very easy to swap screens on the GRT with a double click. Also, you can set it up so the first three buttons are single click to PFD, Map and ENG pages - optionally. If you play with it you will see that the split screen mode blanks out some critical engine information, but you can probably split the primary display to show PFD and Map and still keep it very useful. You will probably be staying within sight of the airport on first flight anyhow, right? The backup radio is a good idea, but be sure to have a headset adapter on it, ready to use. RV's are much louder than, for instance, a 150/172/Cherokee. You would not be able to use it without the headset unless at very reduced power.

Finally, good luck and be careful out there, but it's a great event and you will love it.
 
Learn the GRT EFIS

My advise is after you get the GRT EFIS system instralled in the panel and operational, hook up a battery charger to the battery, lite up the panel, get the manuel out and start setting up the EFIS pages the way you want them and learn what is displayed on your PFD, MAP, and Engine pages. While you are playing with the EFIS you can call GRT on your cell phone when you run into something that you can't figure out from the manuel. I have at least 10 hours of flying time behind my 3 screen GRT EFIS without the engine running.

In addition, if there is a flying GRT EFIS pilot nearby bribe him to come over and help you get your screen pages set up. It will save you hours, only wish I had some help.

Once you get to the stage of taxi testing, do the AHRS calibration so your heading indicator will be correct for your first flight.

On the first few flights don't worry about everything on the PFD, just concentrate on the airspeed, attitude, heading, and attitude indicator, everything else you can do without until later in the learning process. Set up your engine page and have a good idea of what you are willing to live with as to highest CHT and Oil Temp which you need to monitor pretty close on a new or overhauled engine.
 
All the posts above are great advice - especially firing it up on the ground with external power and just learning how to navigate through the pages. I look at "learning the GRT" in three categories:

1) Learning how to navigate through the pages and finding out what is available.
2) Learning how to read the information in flight (learning where to look, and how to fly the EFIS).
3) Learning how to use the navigation/flight planning features.

(1) Is best accomplished on the ground during construction and testing.

(2) If you have never flown with glass cockpit displays, and haven't practiced with tape-style ASI and Alt stuff, one thing you can do is fire up Microsoft Flight Simulator, choose a glass cockpit airplane, and fly it around. It's not a GRT, but learning how to read and fly these indications is the same. I also strongly endorse the idea that if you have backup ASI and Alt instruments, you can/should use them for your early flights, and not worry about reading the GRT while learning to fly the airplane.

(3) Best done with a safety pilot to look for traffic while you are heads-down. By this time, you should have gotten a basic idea of how the thing works from the previous steps, and will be learning details.

Anyone in the Houston area or environs need not worry about bribe payments - if you need help, I am always willing to look at other people's cool airplanes and do what I can to introduce you to this highly capable system! :D

Paul
 
Wow!

Since this thread posted the link to the GRT Yahoo site, I've had to approve 7 new members over there!! :rolleyes:

Paul
 
re: bench running avionics, battery chargers etc...

You can buy a 13.8V, 15Amp power supply from radio shack for $79. This is a pretty beefy supply at a very reasonable price. I use it to test my LED position lights and strobes but will be using it to "bench" run all the avionics both inside and outside of the plane. I won't have to mess with a battery at all until the last second.
 
Relax and fly the plane

garrys said:
My panel is comprised of the following: Dual Grand Rapids EFIS and EIS screens with internal GPS, TrueTrac Digiflight II auto pilot, PMA8000B Audio Panel, Garmin SL30 Com, Garmin GTX 327 Transponder, and ICOM A-200.

What have others done? Are there any folks out there with similar setups who might be willing to fly with me and teach me how to use this stuff?

Garry Stout RV7A N498WT Tampa Florida
Click to expand...
Garry, relax. Fly the plane first. Learn as much of the avionics as you can on the ground, but be ready to ignore the bells and whistles and fly the plane. As long as you have airspeed & altitude, the engine is making power (rpm/map), than fly the plane.

Plan on NOT touching the avionics on the first flight except the radio, which will require a freq change or two at most, right? The avionics should be fine with out lots of attention. You should know the Radio, EIS the best and understand your EFIS display.

The EIS may give you nuisance warnings if the limits are not set properly. If it squawks, be prepared to ignore it. Ideally you should recognize a EIS warning, understand it and hit the acknowledge button, with out taking your attention off the task at hand, flying. Fly the plane: airspeed, altitude, attitude, heading, power, configuration. If the EIS is blinking forget it until you are at safe altitude and stable. You may want to turn many if not all the limits off, or keep the limits higher. If you need help with programing, I or anyone can help.

I WOULD not fly with a safety pilot on your first flight's (Phase I) unless you get it approved from your FSDO. If they are "needed" crew than yes the FAR's allow it, but it's questionable you need two pilots in a single engine RV because the avionics are fancy. By all means be current in any plane with full work out (stalls, steep turns, slow flight, power off approach, T's&G's). Some RV stick time before your first flight would be nice.
 
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