Large-scale events have been canceled or postponed around the world, EAA is still preparing for AirVenture to go ahead as planned in late July. EAA’s Dick Knapinski says that AirVenture “is going on as planned. We’re watching things and keeping in touch with health officials. But four months away it’s too far away to make a decision. I think anyone who thinks they know how this is going to go probably has some bad information. Nobody knows at this point.” The association’s Hops & Props event was canceled last week, and the Ford Tri-Motor tour has been suspended until at least mid-April.
Wait a minute. This pilot flew only 373 hours in seventeen years? That’s 22 hours per year, less than an oil change interval. There’s no way he was instrument proficient at that pace.
I’m all for redundancy, but it is difficult to match the redundancy of two separate systems (electric and vacuum). Just putting in multiple electric/electronic devices doesn’t cut it. You’d need two separate continuous power sources (two alternators/generators) and two batteries, and two electrical buses. By the time you do all that, you have exceeded both the weight and cost of a vacuum system.
In my experience, vacuum pumps last about a thousand hours. Yes, they can fail earlier and the interval with dry pumps can be unpredictable. I am in favor of having an electric gyro onboard. My turn coordinator is electric and it is more than adequate for me to keep the wings level. The altimeter and vertical speed are adequate for me to keep the nose level.
I’m all for redundancy, but you can only truly buy safety at the store that sells pilot training. This pilot, at this low usage rate … I don’t see the vacuum pump as the critical detail in the story. Equipment doesn’t make you safe. Equipment gives you capability. Pilot training makes you safe with whatever equipment you have. The more capability your plane has, the more pilot training (both initial and recurrent) a pilot needs to stay safe in that environment.
A venturi on the cabin side (forward of the door) or underneathe the front fuselage plus a tee pipe with cabin cock will provide enough urge to keep a wind driven gyro running. Q.E.D.
Plus points:-
a) It’s free (almost).
b) Even if the engine is stopped or the power supply fails it’ll work so long as the a/c is flying !
The vacuum pump had 373 hours of operation before the accident, presumably in the accident aircraft. I assumed that the airline transport pilot flew airplanes other than the accident aircraft.
I own a G1000 Cessna 172 with a backup attitude indicator running on a vacuum pump. The vacuum pump only exists to power the backup analog AI. I would like to replace it with an electrically driven attitude instrument. Although an electrically driven attitude instrument would run on the aircraft’s electrical system, such devices also have a 5-hour backup battery. However, Cessna and/or Garmin do not seem interested in allowing us to eliminate the vacuum pump and analog AI.
Another option that wasn’t mentioned in the article is a Standby Vacuum System. I lost a vacuum pump in my Cherokee while IFR on the way to OSH one year. I wasn’t in IMC and was able to maneuver around clouds and return home, upon which I ordered and installed a Precise Flight SVS system (now available from ‘The Vacuum Source’). This is the one that taps into your intake manifold to use vacuum from there to spin your gyro instruments, and runs about $650. There are a couple of caveats to using it: It works best when at partial throttle (manifold pressure is lower than atmospheric, therefore more vacuum is generated), and so doesn’t work very well, if at all, at full throttle. It also works best at low altitudes; high altitudes means there isn’t as much difference between manifold pressure and atmosphere. If you’re in a situation where you are at altitude and your gyros are spinning down you can reduce throttle for a period and ‘spin them up’ using this system, but the goal would be to get onto the ground, of course. But it works, and is probably cheaper than many other solutions.
Also, there is no indication that the pilot owned the airplane in the first place. Equating a given aircraft’s operation time with a pilot’s flying hours just doesn’t fly.
“easier access and departure from the AirVenture grounds"
This is what EAA says, and yet they’ve CLOSED the Blue Lot to all but the ‘special people’ that used to park perfectly well within the grounds. The Blue Lot is what I’ve used FOREVER; all you had to do was get up early enough and you were parked right next to the main gate. Then, if you needed to get back to your car to drop off something you purchased it was a quick walk. Now you have to spend 45 minutes to take a shuttle. And I hate to think how crowded that shuttle is going to be at the end of the airshow. How is that “easier access”?
I’m seriously considering never attending again.
(Sorry, I know this wasn’t the subject of this article, but I had to get this off my chest.)
Also, “reducing areas of vehicle/pedestrian conflict within the grounds”. I’ve written every year complaining about this and it only seems to get worse. Every “special” person does not need his own personal vehicle. I watched them regularly cross through Aeroshell square where it was clearly marked no vehicles. EAA and Airventure is clearly becoming an event for the elite. Apparently they no longer have an interest in us ordinary people. I will not be renewing my membership.
Guys, ground traffic at Airventure is a zero-sum game: people want to walk everywhere and take the shortest route to it. Meanwhile, trams shuttle millions of butts from one end of the field to the other, trucks make deliveries, volunteers are relocated to work assignments, aircraft are marshalled, managers get to problems, VIPs are escorted, toilets are nearby, the less-ambulatory (future-you) want benches and a hard surface for motorized chairs, and vendors want foot traffic.
This ain’t Disney World: EAA doesn’t own the land and can’t bury all the infrastructure underground or build parking lot monorails above it. (To be fair, EAA could build parking garages on the land it does own, but it is tough to amortize that expense when it is used one week a year.)
If you think that EAA folks are not acutely aware of the ground traffic issues and “no longer have an interest in us ordinary people”, I’ll be happy to put you in touch with a number of them who work on that problem year-round. Suffice it to say that they are dealing with a much more complex problem than your desire to have a quick place to drop off your purchases.
There is a limited amount of hard-surface roadway on the field, and it must be shared by pedestrian and vehicles. Most of the paved roads have pedestrian lanes painted along the edge. They are routinely ignored when foot traffic is high and congestion results. There is one simple thing that I think would go a long way toward relieving the arteriosclerotic condition of foot traffic during the show.
Paint large arrows on the pedestrian lanes to indicate the direction of foot-speed traffic.
This would have several benefits:
It would indicate that there is a preferred direction for pedestrian traffic, instead of state-fair Brownian motion.
Most (sadly, probably not all) of the pedestrians would walk on the same side of the roadway, instead of a mix of both directions on both sides.
The arrows would be pointing the opposite of American driving, so pedestrians would walk facing the vehicular traffic. (Isn’t that what your mother taught you?)
I’d be willing to join the painting crew on a Work Weekend if I could get TPTB to go along with the idea.
Put up all the signs and markings that you wish, and I’ll guarantee it won’t make enough difference to matter. People will see one person walking the wrong way, and instead of admonishing them, they’ll take that as approval to do the same.