Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I took the day off from work and went with my friends Jeff and Keith to the Northwest EAA Fly-in at Arlington. It was drizzly and the first day of the fly-in, so it was fairly quiet. However, that’s the best time to talk with vendors. I picked up a couple of tools (a chip chaser, and a narrow bucking bar) from Clear Air Tools. Clear Air is also making their own adjustable set for squeezers that looks 300% better than the current standard for amount the same price. Too bad I’m almost done squeezing rivets.

I talked with Mahlon Russel from Mattituck for a while. They had a TMX-360 on display that looked very cool. I excited about getting the engine delivered later in the year.

I also checked out Aircraft Extras exhaust systems. The 4-into-1 exhaust looks really slick and claims to increase power by 4-5 hp. I think it was about $1200. Compared to the Van’s crossover exahust for $800, I’m not sure it’s worth that much extra expense.

The highlight of the show was seeing the first public appearance of Dynon’s new big screen flight instrument. They’ll be making a big splash with it at Osh Kosh, taking orders in a few weeks, and delivering soon after that. These guys take a great product and make it even better. It’s the same basic display as the smaller cousin, but everything is spread out more and the text is even more clear. I didn’t measure the unit, but it’s at least twice as big in a wider format. The depth of the unit is also much, much less than the original–maybe 4 inches. It won’t be available at first delivery, but eventually the software will be updated to be able to bring over the engine monitoring information onto 1/3 of the flight display. They are also working on a wide-screen version of the engine monitor. They also have thoughts about adding some GPS-based information, such as ground track but nothing like a moving map. Overall the unit looks awesome.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2005 at 8:24 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.