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Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:12 pm
by jprhode
Mike - PM sent.
cheers
Jason

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 7:47 pm
by TomC
Hello everyone, I wanted to introduce myself as a new DA62 owner out of Morristown, NJ (KMMU). I recently purchased N62VV, which was previously owned by forum member Jason Rhode who as it turns out is a fantastic guy and was a complete gentleman through the entire transaction. Have fun with the TBM Jason!

I am a 1350 hour commercial rated pilot and came out of a SR22. I completed my multi check ride in my flight school's 42 just last week, the DPE shortage is a real issue here in the Northeast. I waited nearly 2 months for my check ride!! With that behind me, I spent the better part of the past two days flying around with my instructor in 62VV to meet the 15 hours of dual required for insurance. We hit some challenging conditions, including moderate/heavy icing this am near Binghamton NY and a fun 90 degree direct crosswind landing back into KMMU, 13 gusting 30, +/- 15 knots wind shear. The 62 handled it all superbly!

A few early questions for the community, though I am sure I will have a thousand more:

1. I found the TKS system worked great in icing on the main wing, but the wing root between the engine and fuselage collected about a half inch that did not shed until landing. Have others experienced this? Oh, and that big long wing sure uses TKS fast!!

2. Any tips for adding TKS fluid? With the fill hole so high up I made a mess of myself this am lifting a 5 gal drum up and trying to pour into that little aperture. And I'm 6'7, I imaging shorter pilots use a ladder?

3. My plane does not have a sun visor which was brutal on a 3 hour flight back from Bar Harbor ME late yesterday afternoon. Are there aftermarket solutions available?

4. 62VV has a G1000. Are there electronic checklists available, or does anyone know if there are plans to make them available?

5. Does anyone know if Garmin Flightstream is compatible yet with the Diamond G1000? I don't have a key pad, so would be nice to load flight plans via my iPad.

Thanks in advance to everyone for your advice, I hope to be an active member of the community. John Becker, an other forum member and new 62 owner, as been an amazing friend and resource so I am already reaping the benefits of the Diamond community.

Best to all,

Tom Callahan

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 9:15 pm
by CFIDave
Tom:

Congrats on your DA62!

As I'm sure you know, you own the first DA62 brought to North America -- flown around the US as a demonstrator (when it was still Austrian-registered) and featured in numerous articles/videos. It recall that it was re-engined before being sold to its first owner in PA. To answer your questions:

1. I found the TKS system worked great in icing on the main wing, but the wing root between the engine and fuselage collected about a half inch that did not shed until landing. Have others experienced this? Oh, and that big long wing sure uses TKS fast!!

Normal operation. The TKS system was FIKI certified with unprotected surfaces such as the inboard wing and outboard winglets accumulating ice.

2. Any tips for adding TKS fluid? With the fill hole so high up I made a mess of myself this am lifting a 5 gal drum up and trying to pour into that little aperture. And I'm 6'7, I imaging shorter pilots use a ladder?

I purchase TKS fluid in one-gallon plastic jugs, which also has the advantage of avoiding hazardous materials shipping charges associated with 5 gallon or larger containers. 1 gal containers are very easy to pour into the plane. https://store.dwdavies.com/content/tks-fluid

3. My plane does not have a sun visor which was brutal on a 3 hour flight back from Bar Harbor ME late yesterday afternoon. Are there aftermarket solutions available?

Diamond has a service bulletin that specifies addition of sun visors that now come standard on new DA62s:
http://support.diamond-air.at/fileadmin ... ncl-WI.pdf
Contact Diamond customer support to see if these can be retrofitted to your plane.

4. 62VV has a G1000. Are there electronic checklists available, or does anyone know if there are plans to make them available?

Electronic checklists are unavailable for both the original legacy G1000 that you have, as well as for newer DA62s like mine with G1000 NXi. There's a chance they might be added to the coming "Phase II" NXi software, but I'd be surprised if they'll become available on DA62 legacy G1000 aircraft. To be honest, I don't miss them (I had them on my DA42-VI and never used them.)

5. Does anyone know if Garmin Flightstream is compatible yet with the Diamond G1000? I don't have a key pad, so would be nice to load flight plans via my iPad.

The Garmin FlightStream 510 wireless SDCard will soon become available with the G1000 NXi "Phase II" software, but I doubt it will ever be supported with your DA62 legacy G1000. If you're willing to spend big $$$, it is possible to upgrade your DA62 legacy G1000 to NXi (Diamond Canada already did this for one of their demo DA62s), but it's a lot of effort because it also includes adding fuel gauges to the Aux tanks in the engine nacelles.

(P.S.: That's your plane right behind my gold DA62 in my signature photo.)

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 10:12 pm
by dselder1962
CFIDave wrote:Tom:



4. 62VV has a G1000. Are there electronic checklists available, or does anyone know if there are plans to make them available?

Electronic checklists are unavailable for both the original legacy G1000 that you have, as well as for newer DA62s like mine with G1000 NXi. There's a chance they might be added to the coming "Phase II" NXi software, but I'd be surprised if they'll become available on DA62 legacy G1000 aircraft. To be honest, I don't miss them (I had them on my DA42-VI and never used them.)

5. Does anyone know if Garmin Flightstream is compatible yet with the Diamond G1000? I don't have a key pad, so would be nice to load flight plans via my iPad.

The Garmin FlightStream 510 wireless SDCard will soon become available with the G1000 NXi "Phase II" software, but I doubt it will ever be supported with your DA62 legacy G1000. If you're willing to spend big $$$, it is possible to upgrade your DA62 legacy G1000 to NXi (Diamond Canada already did this for one of their demo DA62s), but it's a lot of effort because it also includes adding fuel gauges to the Aux tanks in the engine nacelles.
Tom Congratulations! The 62 is a wonderful plane.
Dave
Thanks for that information.
Couple of questions if you don't mind: how did your 42-VI have the e-checklists? I tried importing them with no success then contact with Diamond told me no they don't work and we are working on them...(well over a year ago with no progress since).
And would you have an estimate of the Phase II software release? And any ideas on what it will include: perhaps visual procedures, surface watch, 510 etc.
Cheers
David

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 11:33 pm
by TomC
Thanks for all the extremely helpful information Dave, much appreciated.

One more important question: does anyone have a user guide for the GWX 70 Radar? I can't find one online. I've found a few academic discussions of how radar works, but so far I haven't found a good practical guide to how to use it in the cockpit in real weather scenarios.

Any tips appreciated, thanks again. Tom

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 11:50 pm
by rdrobson
Regarding TKS addition, I find that by dumping it into a 2.5 gallon container it is fairly easy to pour into the aircraft. I marked mine in 1 liter increments to measure out how much I'm going to dump in.

The pilot's guide on the radar is in the Garmin G1000 Pilot's guide under hazard avoidance. Or at least it is in the G1000 NXi guide. I think that is available for download from Garmin. But maybe you're looking for something more practical than that material.

Have a great time with your '62! I received mine in March and have loved every minute of it.

-Ron

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:40 am
by Paul
You need to read the Garmin manual on the GWX-70 which will tell you how to turn it on and adjust it. Other than that, the manual is useless for learning how to avoid weather. For that you need outside training. If you can go to a presentation given by Erik from http://www.rtiradar.com, that would be ideal. If not, I'm sure there is good content on his website.

Onboard radar takes both knowledge and a lot of experience. Fortunately for you, that GWX-70 is a fantastic radar. A huge improvement from the -68 and so the learning curve will be a little less steep.

One way to gain some experience is to fly with it on in good weather. In cruise, you can set the range to 40nm and tilt so the top third of the screen is ground returns. In the terminal area, you'll need to adjust tilt up. By getting a good sense of what it looks like in good weather, particularly near your home airport, you'll be able to recognize when the returns start to look different. Don't take this as advice on how to use it though. There's a lot to using onboard weather radar.

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:22 am
by ememic99
Electronic checklists are unavailable for both the original legacy G1000 that you have, as well as for newer DA62s like mine with G1000 NXi. There's a chance they might be added to the coming "Phase II" NXi software, but I'd be surprised if they'll become available on DA62 legacy G1000 aircraft.

The Garmin FlightStream 510 wireless SDCard will soon become available with the G1000 NXi "Phase II" software, but I doubt it will ever be supported with your DA62 legacy G1000. If you're willing to spend big $$$, it is possible to upgrade your DA62 legacy G1000 to NXi (Diamond Canada already did this for one of their demo DA62s), but it's a lot of effort because it also includes adding fuel gauges to the Aux tanks in the engine nacelles.
Tom, welcome to wonderful world of Diamond customer support. You own $1 mil aircraft but you can’t have such simple upgrade of software like electronic checklists. We’re not talking about rocket science here - it’s about someone’s lack of will to develop trivial piece of code to make owners happy. I can’t tell much of FlightStream but I know it existed when your DA62 was produced. However, nobody at Diamond bothered to fit it in because they somehow missed it. Sun visors I won’t comment at all.

So you can imagine the situation of old customers owners of DA42 stuck with some old software/hardware version of G1000 without any ability to upgrade anything due to fact that Diamond simply has no direct financial interest to support them. This clearly shows that nothing has changed in Diamond’s corporate culture since Mr. Dries left.

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 9:08 am
by dselder1962
TomC wrote:Thanks for all the extremely helpful information Dave, much appreciated.

One more important question: does anyone have a user guide for the GWX 70 Radar? I can't find one online. I've found a few academic discussions of how radar works, but so far I haven't found a good practical guide to how to use it in the cockpit in real weather scenarios.

Any tips appreciated, thanks again. Tom
Tom
Garmin actually has an "Aviation Weather Radar" on their aviation website with videos and some resources, which I found helpful. I had previously paid for their older version, but when I was looking for that so I could let you know the proper title I found that I have access to the new one, so have just spent the last hour going through it. It is better than the old version and goes through Phases of Flight and what you should set it at as well as some background on Nexrad etc.
Cheers
David

Re: New DA 62 Owners

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 12:38 pm
by jb642DA
WELCOME to DAN Tom!!!

Here's a link to a "radar thread" when David in Australia got his DA42V1 -
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6163&p=66482&hilit=radar#p66391

John