>>>I thought a few may be able to learn from my experience
Many thanks for sharing that Steve - made the right impression on me. I have been on a surfing frenzy since the December break - looking at home built airplanes. The one thing that constantly amazes me is the lack of primary flight instruments in home built birds. I appreciate that these birds are mostly intended for day VFR, but situations like yours arise all too often and you know how easy it was to get caught. I have heard it said that the presence of IF instruments will tempt us to use them - if the pilot has bad discipline, nothing will change that. In 28 years of non-professional flying, an AH has saved my bacon a few times, I don't ever want to be without it. I can however see that size and weight are an issue, not to forget cost. I recently saw something that really impressed me - this is the perfect solution to our needs: Imagine a full out glass cockpit in your KR for $2000, including: = Airspeed Indicator = Altimeter = Attitude Indicator (Horizon) = Compass Heading (real time DI) = Vertical Speed Indicator = Turn Coordinator/Ball = G-Meter = Clock/Timer = Voltmeter = Angle of Attack Indicator?? = Auto pilot inputs available = GPS inputs available All of this for less weight than any one of the primary instruments and less panel space that your open hand. No vacuum pump required - all solid state (no moving parts) gyros. Even with a spare, spare 12v Gel cell, you are saving loads of weight and, I suspect, money as well because you need to buy half of them as analogue instruments anyway. They are self illuminating, so even total vacuum /electrical failure; at night will leave you with full instrumentation. http://www.dynondevelopment.com/index.html My ideal situation would be to have two of these units mounted one above the other. That way there would be total systems duplication (redundancy) of all the above functions - Plus, one could reduce the clutter on each unit by splitting the functions between the two displays. If one failed, you could bring up all the functions you need on the good one. It gets better, similar panels are available that provide all the engine instruments (and I mean ALL engine instruments) including engine analyzer at a fraction of the cost. If you are interested, I will find the URL's and pass on. What engine /prop are you running? >>>At this point I am flying the ball on my electric turn and bank trying to keep right side up. >>>>I scan my panel and realize I never turned on my electric T&B. You mean that ... Well done Mr. Glover, must have presented a reasonable pucker factor, but I guess staying calm and working at it made the difference. Regards Steve J
