Bill Putney
Active Member
Same problem with the Navion. I'm wondering if it's a matter of designing the servo brackets and control linkages and the idea of stocking those parts for 600-ish different types that slows Dynon down. Certainly the autopilots that Dynon currently produce fly in a wide variety of experimental aircraft and they only have bracket and linkage kits for a very few of them. Dynon has certified their servos and that is the hard to do side of the project.
I haven't spoken to Dynon about this problem. But, if brackets and linkage is the issue, the type clubs could certainly help out. It's quite common for some relatively low volume STCs to call out parts to be made rather than supplying a part with the STC. Frequently these parts are made by owners or under the owner produced parts rules by a mechanic but still under the control of the STC holder. If the type clubs or a group of owners collaborate to design the prototypes and work with the FAA ACOs to approve the data used to fabricate the parts, that could be licensed, at no cost, to Dynon to include in their STC.
If we have to wait until the limited engineering resources Dynon gets to develop 600 installation kits and stock them, it could be a while. Granted, Type B's are much further up the list than type N's the concept is the same. personally, I'd rather have the Dynon engineers working on upgrades and features than designing brackets. It's a resource vs. return for them. It's a functionality issue for us, no matter how low the volume of sales we might represent.
- Bill
I haven't spoken to Dynon about this problem. But, if brackets and linkage is the issue, the type clubs could certainly help out. It's quite common for some relatively low volume STCs to call out parts to be made rather than supplying a part with the STC. Frequently these parts are made by owners or under the owner produced parts rules by a mechanic but still under the control of the STC holder. If the type clubs or a group of owners collaborate to design the prototypes and work with the FAA ACOs to approve the data used to fabricate the parts, that could be licensed, at no cost, to Dynon to include in their STC.
If we have to wait until the limited engineering resources Dynon gets to develop 600 installation kits and stock them, it could be a while. Granted, Type B's are much further up the list than type N's the concept is the same. personally, I'd rather have the Dynon engineers working on upgrades and features than designing brackets. It's a resource vs. return for them. It's a functionality issue for us, no matter how low the volume of sales we might represent.
- Bill
To answer the original poster's question: I'm not sure, and will need to check with the certification team. An early guess was that some 33 series could be end up coming along with the A36 approval due to model similarity, but that was before we got into the nitty gritty of the autopilot installation. Now that we're further along, I'll check back in with the team.
We'll address the other post in the other thread about that topic.
Ricardo Godoy
Member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2019
- Messages
- 35
An Aussie has mounts design and CAD drawing for bonanza 33 servos. I already saw it once.
To follow up - our team is indeed taking extra time in the development of the model 36 installation to make the likelihood of a larger blanket approval as high as possible, but, we don't have a predicted model list at this point.
I guess the next question is the timeline. With competitor’s options now available and the ADSB deadline fast approaching and Dynon previously pushing out release dates, it a little worry some just relying on your Q4 release and no firm answers which models would actually be included.
Thanks for asking. We actually just updated our timeframe for the A36 - https://www.dynoncertified.com/aml.php. The short answer is that it won't make the end of the year (the Autopilot). We're still not certain about the other models.
Bill Putney
Active Member
It kind of looks like there might be 6 airplane types added in 2020. At that rate it will take another decade to get the the bottom of a 600 type list.
It would help a lot of us who fly types that don’t number in the 10’s of thousands to get an answer about what it is that makes this process go so slowly.
I understand it’s Dynon’s engineering bandwidth. But, it seems more likely that the root cause is that the Dynon engineers and DARs are being run through a regulatory maze that takes a lot of time and effort. That kind of rigor is justified in some instances, it can’t be supported based on the overwhelming data from Dynon’s experience with their autopilots in the experimental market.
It puzzles me that the FAA who always tells us that they are first and foremost about aviation safety, can’t see the benefits of having modern affordable autopilots in more GA types. There are many GA loss of control fatalities every year. The FAA sees this as a really important problem to solve. Everyone seems to agree that autopilots can help push this accident statistic down. There is no indication that autopilot failures in experimental aircraft have caused a lot of fatalities and many of those systems are installed by owner/builders with very little guidance.
Someone needs to do the math and decide if they want to “Do it the way we’ve always done it.” or save lives.
It would help a lot of us who fly types that don’t number in the 10’s of thousands to get an answer about what it is that makes this process go so slowly.
I understand it’s Dynon’s engineering bandwidth. But, it seems more likely that the root cause is that the Dynon engineers and DARs are being run through a regulatory maze that takes a lot of time and effort. That kind of rigor is justified in some instances, it can’t be supported based on the overwhelming data from Dynon’s experience with their autopilots in the experimental market.
It puzzles me that the FAA who always tells us that they are first and foremost about aviation safety, can’t see the benefits of having modern affordable autopilots in more GA types. There are many GA loss of control fatalities every year. The FAA sees this as a really important problem to solve. Everyone seems to agree that autopilots can help push this accident statistic down. There is no indication that autopilot failures in experimental aircraft have caused a lot of fatalities and many of those systems are installed by owner/builders with very little guidance.
Someone needs to do the math and decide if they want to “Do it the way we’ve always done it.” or save lives.