New Owner - advice on configuration

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AndrewM
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by AndrewM »

Russ, from their web-site: Aviation specific DC – DC converter with cigarette lighter configuration (autosensing input 9-30VDC)
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Soareyes
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by Soareyes »

nworthin wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:51 am
Soareyes wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:12 am We have a couple of Inogen G5s and a portable bottle and an O2D2. Since getting the Inogens we haven't used the portable tank.
1. For Inogen, do you find you use it more often that you might if using bottled (on board or aux)?
2. Where do you "mount" the concentrators? Is it convenient?
3. Is the O2D2 just for the bottled O2? (I think probably but want to check).
4. Have you had any problems or serious inconveniences using the Inogen devices?

I would always use either one if going over 11,000 ft, my personal physiological limit. I am more likely to choose to fly higher now with the Inogen. When using the bottled oxygen, even with the excellent oxygen conserving O2D2, there is always that little anxiety that you have to conserve the limited resource. Yes, it is quick and easy to refill the tank using welder's oxygen but the tank is at home. A lot of the small airports we prefer don't have oxygen service. It is easy to recharge the batteries in the Inogen at home or at the hotel.

The double battery option keeps the the Inogen going for longer than full fuel tanks can take you. You can swap batteries on the fly if needed.

The DA42 cockpit is small. Since these days it is usually just my wife and I we use the other two seats for stuff. Strap the oxygen tank down with the seatbelt or put the Inogens on the floor behind the front seats. On the rare occasion we fill all four seats, we gain useful load by leaving the oxygen equipment at home and stay below 11,000 ft. In the DA62 you'll have more space, more useful load and may not have to compromise as much.

The Inogen units are on-demand pulse, just like the O2D2 so you don't need both. You do however want a separate Inogen for each person so that adds up. They sell a "Y" cannula for two people to share one unit but then you are limited to 14,000 ft. If you are carrying four or more on a regular basis a built-in oxygen system with a couple of O2D2 units is probably more practical.
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by CFIDave »

Norm: One last try on getting you to save nearly $20K:

I've now had a GTX345R installed in combination with the pre-existing Avidyne TAS system on my 2017 DA62 for about a year. In that entire time, I have only ONCE seen a real transponder-only target (that shows up as a diamond rather than an ADS-B triangle with vector).

However MANY TIMES, I've seen a TAS transponder-only diamond target that shows up temporarily, only until the GTX345R has had a chance to correlate it with a nearby (more accurate!) ADS-B target -- causing the TAS diamond target to disappear on PFD/MFD screens after about 5 seconds. If you had only the GTX345R (without TAS), you wouldn't see all these false targets.

The reality is that when flying around the US, the odds are now tiny (and decreasing) that any pilots are flying around with their transponder on, but no ADS-B Out installed or turned on. The Avidyne TAS option makes perfect sense if you were flying your DA62 in Europe, Asia, or other regions where there is no ADS-B mandate, but not in the US. For the last 2 years we've recommended that US customers not order TAS anymore. I personally would't get it if I were ordering my DA62 now instead of back in 2017.
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by Soareyes »

CFIDave wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:56 pm
For the last 2 years we've recommended that US customers not order TAS anymore. I personally would't get it if I were ordering my DA62 now instead of back in 2017.

I left off the TAS from my new 42. So far that seems to be a good decision, ADS-B traffic is working well.

Diamond twins are planes for the world. Any opinion about resale value for a plane without TAS active traffic? Easy to add later?
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by CFIDave »

It is possible to add TAS later, but it requires additional new antennas on both the top and bottom of the fuselage. You might pick up a knot or two by leaving TAS off.

TAS has little resale value in the US with ADS-B now widely available. As for the world resale market, right now more used Diamonds are being imported from Europe to the US (due to the stronger US economy) rather than in the other direction. (However the DA42-VI I used to own ended up in Australia.)
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by VickersPilot »

Anyone know the speed loss for each antenna type?
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by TimS »

Dave,

Norm mentioned in the other thread, he plans to use the plane to travel around the Caribbean a lot. That may make TCAS more interesting.

Tim
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by nworthin »

CFIDave wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:56 pm The reality is that when flying around the US, the odds are now tiny (and decreasing) that any pilots are flying around with their transponder on, but no ADS-B Out installed or turned on. The Avidyne TAS option makes perfect sense if you were flying your DA62 in Europe, Asia, or other regions where there is no ADS-B mandate, but not in the US. For the last 2 years we've recommended that US customers not order TAS anymore. I personally would't get it if I were ordering my DA62 now instead of back in 2017.
Dave, your position is logical and rational and I really appreciate you trying to prevent me from making what you believe to be a mistake.

I'm coming from the possibly irrational position of having had a few close calls in an aircraft without TAS installed. You showed, in your aircraft that only very rarely and then only for a few seconds does TAS detect anything that the ADBS system didn't. Others tell me that their ADSB system "works really well". To that I say, "how do you know?"

I think this probably also depends on where and how you fly. Since you need radar coverage and a nearby ground station for ADSB to work, at many remote, untowered airports (commonly used for practice by "unpracticed" pilots) I happen to think there's added risk. I'm about to spring for a $1.4m airplane which is a modern, safety oriented, twin so I can quiet that anxious voice in the back of my head as a fly over the Gulf Stream. Getting the TAS system, even if nearly entirely redundant (and becoming more so) helps me with the same sort of (irrational) problem.
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by haykinson »

nworthin wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:40 pm Since you need radar coverage and a nearby ground station for ADSB to work...
Is this accurate? The GTX345R has 1090 and 978 ADS-B In, so it should get ground-to-air as well as air-to-air reception, right?
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Re: New Owner - advice on configuration

Post by Rich »

nworthin wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:40 pm Since you need radar coverage and a nearby ground station for ADSB to work
This statement is not true. TAS will pick up aircraft that ADSB will not show you when all these are true:
1. The other aircraft does not have ADS-B out operating (If you have ADS-B installed by regulation it is always to be operating regardless of airspace).
2. The other aircraft does have an operating MODE C (which is NOT required to be operating even if installed, except in certain airspace).
3. You are not in range of both an ADS-B ground station and radar interrogations in the area.

You will pick up nothing on either, ever, for traffic that lack an operating transponder. An interesting quirk of ADS-B is that even if an aircraft uses 978 UAT as ADS-B out the regs are such that it still requires an operating transponder to function as regulations require.

Outside the US and flying at relatively low AGL, #2 & #3 can be encountered. But #1 is getting less common every day within the US. Here in the sticks the majority of aircraft already have ADS-B out and those that have Mode C are acquiring ADS-B at a steady pace. Mostly the ones not equipping are those lacking a transponder of any kind and most of that population have no electrical system. So TAS is useless for that population.
Last edited by Rich on Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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