adhars redundancy and changeover

grusa

New Member
Joined
May 8, 2011
Messages
14
Location
Pattaya Thailand
This weekend we flew to tweak the autopilot settings on our skyview system. Two pilots, two screens. We identified a number of issues:-
When we Ientered the in flight setup menu on screen 2, instead of Efis on screen one and a half screen ems on screen two, we had efis on screen one and a half screen efis on 2 - no EMS display! We tweaked the autopilot with no issues, and returned to normal mode. We then decided to experiment with switching off the screens in flight. Switching off screen 2 gave us an efis and ems on screen 1 - great. Switched 2 back on, still no problem. Now we switched off screen 1 - this disengaged the autopilot and lost all its bugs, before switching to efis and ems on 2. We switched screen one back on, displays returned to normal,but we noticed our airspeed was now indicating 83kts in cruise config, not 103 as before.
Once we decided it was the asi and not the aeroplane, we tried switching adhars - the second unit read normally, the primary unit read low.
It was my understanding that the adhars units switch automatically in the event of failure, but this did not happen. Subsequent startups default to the abnormal unit, not the good one, and there is no indication that I can see as to which unit is operating and that there is a fault or discrepancy.
The question now is what is causing the discrepancy, it may be a physical leak, blockage, etc in the pitot system, but at a software/firmware level, how should it behave? It seems too coincidental that the fault occured immediately after our experimentation, and did  not go away! Have we somhow upset the calibration of the adhars? that should not be possible in flight. Why does the system not recognise the discrepancies and at least warn the pilot if not automatically change over to the good unit?
Any comments? :eek:
 

dynonsupport

Dynon Technical Support
Staff member
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
13,226
There's a lot to unpack there. We'd love for you to call us at 425-402-0433 so we can give you some more personal attention to the issues you're having.

A few thoughts, though.

The in-flight setup menu always biases towards preserving the primary flight display when it can.

In the event of a fault - for example - when a display fails - the system is designed to handle it as best it can. But, this may not mean that the autopilot stays engaged in all circumstances as the system recovers and reconfigures itself. However, after the system has coped with the failure, the AP should be able to be reengaged.

SkyView does not currently have any automatic cross-comparison among multiple ADAHRS in the system, although this is coming in an update soon (not the next release, but soon thereafter). However, each ADAHRS in the system can be manually selected in the inflight setup menu. Nominally, the system will switch from one ADAHRS to the other if the active has completely failed.
 

dynonsupport

Dynon Technical Support
Staff member
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
13,226
grusa did call Tech Support, and we sorted things out.

He will talk to the aircraft manufacturer to get the screen display issues sorted out per the aircraft manufacturer's requirements.
 
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