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An interesting explanation of various physical phenomena associated with entities traveling at or near the speed of sound.

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Some believe that todays young people are part of a “Lost Generation”.   Lets not be so quick to judge – there is hope!

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You better hit those books

By Larry Anglisano

When I was a kid two of the dreaded sentences to come out of my fathers mouth were “let’s go, it’s time to get that hair cut” and “you better hit those books”. A trooper-groomed rotor-head from the Army, he didn’t pull any punches in making sure my hair was buzzed to the scalp and my blood-shot eyes were glued to my school books.  Aside from the fact that my metal-head friends had hair past their shoulders, who the hell had time to read text books when there were airplane models to build and AC DC to listen to on vinyl?  I managed to get through kindergarten, grade school and college flying by the seat of my pants and certainly not by reading text books.  A stack of diplomas in hand, I vowed to refuse to read the instructions for the rest of my life.  For years it worked out as planned.  And then came all this fancy avionics gear. 

Here’s a deal for anyone who’s interested:  If you can prove to me that you can successfully operate every function, without stumbling and fumbling, in the hugely successful Aspen EFD1000Pro PFD system I’ll personally buy dinner and a round at your fly-in restaurant of choice.  There are some rules.  You must never have operated an Aspen before.  You must successfully and accurately fly the airplane on an RNAV approach through the missed procedure without busting an altitude, heading, or any published minimum.  Then, you’ll need to couple up the autopilot with the Aspen to fly the entire approach procedure.  Sound easy?  Well, it actually is as long as you read the damned pilots guide and associated manuals from cover to cover – no fewer than 20 times.  Then go try it in the real world – with book close at hand.  Then when back on the ground, hit the book again to see where you went wrong.

An extremely bright, accomplished and world-renown medical scientist friend who’s now the proud new owner of said equipment came calling to tell me the equipment I turned him loose with has manuals written by aliens.  While studying his new gear, he fell asleep in his easy chair after chapter one and thanked me for a good nights sleep.  Another pilot with thousands of hours higher than Chuck Yeager nearly smoked a hole through the NTSB reports after botching some button pushes on a low-weather departure.  In celebration of making it back to his easy chair, he pulled out all of those manuals that were thrown in the back of the airplane and vowed to never do that again until he studied.  What do these guys have in common?  They are now safely and confidently enjoying the benefits of that once seemingly-complicated new suite of avionics (lessening the stinging blow of the checks written to the avionics shop).  They also figured out that they need to actually study this stuff. 

An experienced ATP hit it right on the bulls eye when he said no pilot can expect to pick up their airplane after a major avionics retrofit and expect to be as competent and confident with it as they were when they dropped it off.  He was glassy-eyed when he picked up his Bonanza decked out with glass.  From years of people watching at work, I can tell you that you’ll absolutely positively need to study this stuff if you expect to master it. The mind plays interesting tricks and messes with your emotions when the instrument panel has a new and different look.   Medical scientist, ATP, statistician, stock broker, and independently wealthy-alike are all faced with the avionics training dilemma (I won’t go there – I’ll save the formal training thing for another time).  But where I will go is to warn you:  If you don’t study your new avionics by reading the manuals for starters you will be frustrated, unsafe and unhappy.  If you don’t understand what you read, ask for help.  Call the manufacturer, your installing shop and fellow airplane owners as many times as you can get away with.

For some reason, people think I’m some god of the avionics geeks – a walking natural dictionary of ARINC429, RS232, GPSS, PFD, MFD, GPSS, TIS,TAS, EGPWS, and any other silly but well-endowed abbreviation to throw around.  But this isn’t true.  I’m only as good as the pages in manuals I put my eyes on every day of the week.  And if I can’t find what I’m looking for, I have friends on speed-dial who can.

So for all you broke, brave soles with newly installed new avionics, you better hit those books.  And while you’re at it, get that hair cut.

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Aspen Avionics has announced that it will add Evolution Synthetic Vision to its Evolution 1000 Pro Primary Flight Display (PFD) in the 1st quarter of 2011…..

http://www.aspenavionics.com/index.php/news/detail/aspen_avionics_to_add_synthetic_vision_to_evolution_flight_displays/

FAA Announces Performance Standards for Critical NextGen Avionics

Aspen Avionics Announces Version 2.2 Evolution Software for Flight Displays

Free software upgrade includes charts, geo-referenced airport diagrams and expanded Nav Map panning functions….. 

http://www.aspenavionics.com/index.php/news/detail/aspen_avionics_announces_version_22_evolution_software_for_flight_displays/

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