|
A lot of well reasoned pilots have
opined that putting the flaps on the Infinity grip is a bad idea. I am not
one of them.
I put the flap toggles on my grips and have been
flying with them for four and a half years now. With the benefit of those
years and now pushing four hundred flight hours, I'd do it again in a
heartbeat.
Here are some of the advantages I've found in having
the switch on my stick:
1) First, to address one concern, by using a
relay to allow only one stick's inputs at a time to be fed to it's various
components, there are no accidental activations by the passenger. That's
what I have and I have NEVER had an inadvertant activation of anything on the
passenger's stick grip.
2) Having the toggle on the stick allows me to
control the flaps without having to look down into the cockpit unless I want to
look at my flap position indicator. When I'm turning to base or final, I
don't want to have to take my eyes off traffic or where I'm headed to add
flaps.
3) Since my thumb is normally around the stick and not
unnaturally up on the toggle, inadvertant activations are rare to
non-existant. The only accidental bumping of the switch I can recall is
bumping it up, which is immediately noticed and it takes a fraction of a second
to reverse the switch with my thumb and move the flaps back to where I want
them. In four years, this has happened once or twice and it was a
non-event.
4) One thing I hate to admit is that I have, on
rare occasions, missed extending takeoff flaps my before takeoff
checklist. When I rotate, this becomes immediately apparent when the plane
doesn't want to fly. Having the flap switch on the stick allows me
to put them down with a quick flip of the thumb without having to go
heads down during liftoff.
Bottom line here is that this
is a matter of personal preference. I personally know many builders
who have this switch on their Infinity grips, including one who liked mine so
much, he changed his grips to my configuration. J.D. Newman, who makes the
grips, sells them in whatever switch configuration you want and I know a great
deal of his customers building of all sorts of experimentals have this
arrangement. Ultimately, it's up to each builder to decide for himself
what he wants on his plane. If you're worried about a passenger hitting
the switch from the other seat, either use a relay like I did or don't hook
up the passenger's switch!
I don't criticize anyone for not having the
toggle switches and with my experience in my plane having validated my decision
to install them, I pay little attention to builders who criticize anyone who
does. And oh, by the way, while my ES doesn't have speed brakes EVERY
tactical jet I ever flew in the Navy had them and they were all
activated by a switch on the throttle (left hand). If I DID have them,
on my plane, you can bet I'd have the control for them on the
stick.
Skip Slater
N540ES
Flame me at will!
|