Summary of news and happenings at the 2019 Oshkosh AirVenture …
BendixKing buys TruTrak
Honeywell, parent company of BendixKing, has purchased TruTrak, which gives BendixKing a bevy of new products in the autopilot arena.
The AeroCruze 100 is certified and helps owners of Cessna 172, 175, 177, and Piper PA-28 aircraft upgrade to a newer autopilot system. Prices haven’t been announced yet. The deal closed early last week.
Learn more here. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/honeywell-to-acquire-trutrak-flight-systems-300890090.html
TQ Avionics now certified
German company TQ Aircraft Electronics, which offers experimental products for legacy aircraft, is starting to pile up STCs and TSOs and is ready to impact the U.S. certified market. The company announced two new products for the aviation market during AirVenture — the KRT2 family of radios, and a KTX2 ADS-B transponder. We’ll cover this company extensively in future issues of the magazine.
BendixKing announces newly STC’d products
BendixKing announced that its KI300 AeroFlight attitude indicator, KFC230 AeroCruze autopilot, and AeroVue Touch PFD are now approved through STC for use in certified aircraft. The AeroVue Touch is approved for more than 300 aircraft types and includes Honeywell’s SmartView synthetic vision, terrain awareness, a moving map, vertical situation display, charts, and weather and traffic.
Learn more here.
Lycoming introduces new EIS
Lycoming Engines announced on July 22 its new Lycoming Electronic Ignition System, a drop-in capable replacement for magnetos. The EIS uses a solid-state design with no moving parts, is designed to go to TBO, and has no scheduled maintenance requirements. The EIS is currently available for all Lycoming experimental engines and the company is working on approval for OEM through STC. Textron Aviation is working with Lycoming to integrate the EIS into all new Cessna aircraft.
Learn more here.
Piper Aircraft using 3D printing for parts production
Piper Aircraft announced that it created its first production part using 3D printing technology. The part, a piece of the environmental ducting for the Piper M600 is a step toward the company’s goal of reducing costs and saving time by using 3D printing for a variety of non-flight critical parts across product lines.
Learn more here.
Great Weather, Good Crowds
The general feeling among those who have attended many AirVentures was that this one ranked among the most populous. Several Cessna Owner Association staffers said it was the best show in terms of attendance and enthusiasm in memory, and COO set a record for member signup.
Feedback from members
Patrick Colwell, Cessna 182: “The most-interesting thing I saw were the safety seminars.”
Brian Jones, Cessna 182N
Single Most-Important Thing You Learned: “Urban Air Mobility and electric propulsion systems are very hot topics. Quite interested to see how they look when the dust settles.”
Most Interesting Thing You Saw: “One of the Canadian Snowbird CT 114 Tutors camping in Vintage. After the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds flew by for their visits, the Snowbirds one-upped them by camping at the show.”
Scott McLain, Cessna 150J, summarizing what he learned: “We are all just keepers of the keys in a snapshot of time on these magnificent flying machines.”
We are all just keepers of the keys in a snapshot of time on these magnificent flying machines.”
Scott McLain
William Fitch, Cessna 172M, on his 49th AirVenture (yes, 49): ” Weather was great and we were there for the week. Trams and shuttle buses were run more often, they added shower houses, etc. A good running operation just got better.” What was the most interesting thing you saw during the week? Fitch replied, “You expect me to name just one?”
