Oh.  Well, in that case, I'll have to own up to the most egregious characteristic of all.  I have an attitude indicator and a directional gyro that are actually vacuum powered!  No electric backup!  A single battery bus!  I know this strikes fear in the hearts of insurers, as I received a written notice from Cessna warning me of the danger of my Cessna 150 which was thusly equipped, as was every single Cessna and Piper ASEL certified and delivered to that date.

 

Colyn, I'm pulling your leg here.  In real terms, the vacuum system may actually be the most dangerous feature of my airplane in the eyes of the insurers, and yet it has been delivered in hundreds of thousands of single engine airplanes.  So how bad can it be?  I know the insurers look at forums like this, but I hope that fear of insurers does not stifle innovation in experimental aviation.  After all, the affordable "electronic gyro" display (Dynon D-10), the electronic ignition (Lightspeed, Jeff Rose, maybe others), synthetic vision (Sierra Flight Systems) were hatched in the experimental market and were probably considered highly dangerous by insurers because they deviated from the certified norm.  However, these products and their progeny are the very products that we look to for improving flight safety today.

 

Nevertheless, there are characteristics in most of our airplanes that deviate from the certified norm.  Dangerous?  Some might be, some might not be.  I hope we feel comfortable discussing them in this forum and learning from our more knowledgeable brethren where the pitfalls might realy be, so that we can implement safe versions of our innovative ideas.

 

- Rob Wolf (obviously with too much time on my hands today...)