This morning dawned a beautiful clear blue sky, much too nice a Sunday to waste on the ground, even at minus 11C. So out to the airport to plug in the preheat and scrape the light skiff of snow that arrived yesterday way from the hangar. One of the things that is unique about my Cherokee is the
turn coordinator. In the more common form of the instrument the pictorial representation of the airplane moves in response to bank and roll motion of the airplane. The turn coordinator in my airplane the airplane remains fixed the schematic horizon moves.
The first picture (on the left), taken on the ground, shows a close up view of the instrument. I've only seen one other like it in an avionics repair shop, although this configuration seems to be growing in popularity and new ones are available on
the market.
The next picture is in flight, almost in a rate one turn to the right. The picture is a little blurry from vibration, but you can clearly see that the horizon line on the turn coordinator (bottom centre) closely matches the horizon line of the
artificial horizon (top right). Personally I find this a more intuitive display with coordinated movement, though other pilots who've flown the plane are not as enthused. The other reason I prefer the this display is that while on the gauges there is only one place to focus attention for rate of turn information. With the common format the index marks are near the left side for left turns and the right side for right turns.
Whatever your preferences for instrument displays, it was a very good day to be in the air.
The first picture (on the left), taken on the ground, shows a close up view of the instrument. I've only seen one other like it in an avionics repair shop, although this configuration seems to be growing in popularity and new ones are available on the market.
The next picture is in flight, almost in a rate one turn to the right. The picture is a little blurry from vibration, but you can clearly see that the horizon line on the turn coordinator (bottom centre) closely matches the horizon line of the artificial horizon (top right). Personally I find this a more intuitive display with coordinated movement, though other pilots who've flown the plane are not as enthused. The other reason I prefer the this display is that while on the gauges there is only one place to focus attention for rate of turn information. With the common format the index marks are near the left side for left turns and the right side for right turns.
Whatever your preferences for instrument displays, it was a very good day to be in the air.
2 comments:
That is a neat little TC you have there. I am sure you would appreciate the simple little design after having a attitude indicator failure as a quick glance would give you better situational awareness. If it showed pitch then it would be truely amazing and a great backup :)
Cheers and safe flying !
Thanks. Not a patch on the PC-12 though. If it was modern it would have "No Pitch Information" scrawled across it. I guess in 1968 you were supposed to know that stuff. I would like a non-tumbling electric AI, and a GNC430... but those two things installed would be worth more than the rest of the plane.
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