The plane is a Remos GX manufactured in late 2008. Includes D100 w D10A, a D120 and HS34.
While practicing steep turns for an upcoming checkride, I noticed that the compass stops functioning properly somewhere around 45 degrees of bank. Sometimes it stops indicating any change in direction (i.e. indicates a constant heading). Sometimes the indicated heading will change, but is obviously grossly in error. Upon returning to level flight with a constant heading, the compass indication on the D100 will rapidly move from the wrong heading to the proper heading. This takes about 3 seconds or so and then the heading indication appears to be normal.
The plane is a low time demonstrator which has never been in a training environment so it's possible that it's never been banked to 45 degrees before.
The EDC D10A in these planes is mounted on a bracket directly behind (towards the front of the plane) the D100 unit. There are two other Remos GX planes located at a flight school where my airplane is located and the operator says that neither demonstrates this behavior. One of the guys who flies those planes a lot told me that he had been in one of them recently and they had been doing turns at banks as high as 60 degrees and did not see a problem with the heading indication on the D100.
I suspect that the mounting location in the Remos GX is not ideal, but that's where Remos puts them, apparently with decent results.
I haven't checked the firmware version of the D100, D120, and HS34, but assume that it needs to be updated; which I plan to do if I can figure out how. The EDC D10A compass indication seems to be normally correct, but I have not done a rigorous calibration. Something I also intend to do. But, I don't see how either the firmware version or the calibration could cause something like this.
Is it likely that the EDC D10A itself is malfunctioning? Is there any procedure for testing it other than replacing it?
While practicing steep turns for an upcoming checkride, I noticed that the compass stops functioning properly somewhere around 45 degrees of bank. Sometimes it stops indicating any change in direction (i.e. indicates a constant heading). Sometimes the indicated heading will change, but is obviously grossly in error. Upon returning to level flight with a constant heading, the compass indication on the D100 will rapidly move from the wrong heading to the proper heading. This takes about 3 seconds or so and then the heading indication appears to be normal.
The plane is a low time demonstrator which has never been in a training environment so it's possible that it's never been banked to 45 degrees before.
The EDC D10A in these planes is mounted on a bracket directly behind (towards the front of the plane) the D100 unit. There are two other Remos GX planes located at a flight school where my airplane is located and the operator says that neither demonstrates this behavior. One of the guys who flies those planes a lot told me that he had been in one of them recently and they had been doing turns at banks as high as 60 degrees and did not see a problem with the heading indication on the D100.
I suspect that the mounting location in the Remos GX is not ideal, but that's where Remos puts them, apparently with decent results.
I haven't checked the firmware version of the D100, D120, and HS34, but assume that it needs to be updated; which I plan to do if I can figure out how. The EDC D10A compass indication seems to be normally correct, but I have not done a rigorous calibration. Something I also intend to do. But, I don't see how either the firmware version or the calibration could cause something like this.
Is it likely that the EDC D10A itself is malfunctioning? Is there any procedure for testing it other than replacing it?
