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Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:57:46 -0400
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From: Tom Thibault <tthibaultsprint@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: Tom Thibault <tthibaultsprint@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Legacy Glass Panel Suggestions?
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Stan,

You wrote "I am an electrical engineer and worked for 8 years at Cessna as an instrumentation engineer".  You also said "I want to eliminate "steam gages" but want equivalent electronic redundancy."

Please elaborate on your reasoning for elimination of steam gauges.  It seems that current generation GA certified airplanes still include steam backup.  For example, the Corvalis TT and Mooney Ovation web sites still shows airspeed, attitude, altitude steam gauges right beside the G1000 equipped panels.

Are you planning VFR only, for example?

For me, who went through the same decision process for an IFR solution in a 360 model, the answer came out retain the steam.  The considerations also included a history of prior p-static upsets of electronics in the cockpit when flying IFR through rain.  Of course, 360s are mostly E-glass, so static wicks to drain the build up do not work, where they should on your Legacy.  Regardless, I believe in relying on multiple types of physics for flight instruments.  Pretty sure it was Brent Reagan who recommended that first here in the mail list.

In the event of p-static or lighting events, ALL the electronics could be taken out, no matter how isolated, redundant, or battery backed up they may be.  In that event, at least basic aircraft control info would still be available and a hand held comm/nav (not connected to any systems on the ship) could then be used to communicate and navigate out of the current instrument conditions.

Hopefully a reasoned, non-emotional, discussion will ensue.

Tom Thibault