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Voice command for gear and stall


nels

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I've been considereing one of these warning systems. Am I in the minority thinking it may save my plane or my life? Any suggestions as to a particular one to purchase, or is the feature possibly included in some other piece of gear I might end up buying in the future?

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8 minutes ago, Yetti said:

gear is just a money event in the Mooney.   Stall you should already be reacting at the first beep.  It's a high performance plane stay ahead of it.

I guess I should have mentioned that I'm worried I may not hear the horn and the voice through the headset would be hard to miss.

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I had that system in my first Mooney. The last work Russell Stallings ever did on my plane was to remove it. I hated it. We sold it to some other gentlemen on the field who had gear up'd their Mooney three times. Last time I talked to them, they were complaining about it. 

On one hand you have the problem of "crying wolf" and other the other, being startled by a very infrequent alarm that might alarm too late.

1. Stay coordinated and stay ahead of the airplane.

2. GUMPS

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I had the "Bitching Betty" system in my C. It definitely got your attention.  I usually would brief inexperienced passengers so it wouldn't scare them when the lady would loudly repeate "stall, stall, stall" when in the flare. 

My new plane doesn't have the system. The gear horn can hardly be heard over the engine.  That wasn't the case with Betty. She let you know you didn't have the gear down.

i don't think I will spend the $ to add the system to my current plane, but I did like having it.

cheers,

Dan

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13 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

I had that system in my first Mooney. The last work Russell Stallings ever did on my plane was to remove it. I hated it. We sold it to some other gentlemen on the field who had gear up'd their Mooney three times. Last time I talked to them, they were complaining about it. 

On one hand you have the problem of "crying wolf" and other the other, being startled by a very infrequent alarm that might alarm too late.

1. Stay coordinated and stay ahead of the airplane.

2. GUMPS

what system did you have that you hated?

I love my P2 Audio Advisory system - really no such thing as a false alarm. I would pull the breaker practicing slow flight with the gear up, otherwise never an issue.

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8 minutes ago, Mooney_Mike said:

I have one of those systems and I am very happy with it. I get a verbal STALL or CHECK LANDING GEAR warning through the headset and loudspeaker. It works very well and is a vast improvement over a simple horn. The check landing gear uses a microwave transmitter to sense ground proximity to warn of gear not down / still has MP switch as well.

 

 

I didn't know there was a system that detected the distance to ground! What kind do you have and what was the price?

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21 minutes ago, kortopates said:

what system did you have that you hated?

I love my P2 Audio Advisory system - really no such thing as a false alarm. I would pull the breaker practicing slow flight with the gear up, otherwise never an issue.

I think it was the same one @DanM20C has. It would yell Stall, Stall, Stall on every one of my best landings. I hated it.

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I have the (relatively) cheap one that is activated by the existing gear warning and stall warning apparatus. I think it is one of the best investments I have made for the plane. When one hears a horn, the first thought is "what was that". When Betty says "stall, stall, stall" or "check landing gear", you know instantly what the problem is. Maybe I'm just slower than most folks.

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We have an EI AV-17 voice annunciator in the airplane, and I consider it a great investment.  Inexpensive and easy to install.  It's not a fancy model with extra sensors or custom programmable warnings.  It just has a number of input lines that trigger fixed messages, which you can connect to existing warning systems.  We have it wired to the gear, stall horn, ram air warning, engine monitor, and vacuum.

In my opinion, the value of a voice annunciator is both to get your attention for a warning you might have otherwise missed, as well as to clarify exactly what the issue is.  For example, any of us on the forum for a while have seen multiple posts asking about the subtle difference between the stall and gear warning sonalerts in vintage models.  Both emit the same note, just one is a continuous and the other an intermittent beeping.  If you don't always remember which is which, that's a good argument for augmenting with a voice annunciator.

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If someone out there wants to get rid of theirs let me know, I'd be interested. 

I see these for sale from $400 for uncertified, certified $800 up to $2k plus for the kind Kortopates has in his plane. That $2k plus version is probably too pricey for me.

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2 minutes ago, nels said:

I see these for sale from $400 for uncertified, certified $800 up to $2k plus for the kind Kortopates has in his plane. That $2k plus version is probably too pricey for me.

The EI AV-17 is $250 at Aircraft Spruce: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/av17voiceannunciator.php

You'll need a couple of $20 AVI-1 inverters unless you want to roll your own solution for the "high true" logic in a couple of the Mooney systems.  With the addition of tax, that gets you up a shade above $300.  But still very inexpensive in aviation dollars.

We did the installation ourselves, our A&P signed it off as a "minor alteration".  I'd be disappointed in any A&P who wouldn't do so on a part 91 piston aircraft.

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5 minutes ago, Vance Harral said:

The EI AV-17 is $250 at Aircraft Spruce: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/av17voiceannunciator.php

You'll need a couple of $20 AVI-1 inverters unless you want to roll your own solution for the "high true" logic in a couple of the Mooney systems.  With the addition of tax, that gets you up a shade above $300.  But still very inexpensive in aviation dollars.

We did the installation ourselves, our A&P signed it off as a "minor alteration".  I'd be disappointed in any A&P who wouldn't do so on a part 91 piston aircraft.

I just looked your system up at Aircraft Spruce. I didn't realize  they were that reasonable. i may end up biting on that one.

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15 minutes ago, steingar said:

I've had no trouble hearing either the gear or stall horn through noise cancelling headsets.  Like the boys said, stay ahead the airplane and do your gumps and you shouldn't ever have to hear either except that little chirp as you land.

I agree. The stock systems in my C are more than adequate to warn me if I'm too slow, or if my gear isn't down when the throttle is below 11". 

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13 minutes ago, N6758N said:

I agree. The stock systems in my C are more than adequate to warn me if I'm too slow, or if my gear isn't down when the throttle is below 11". 

You guys that have no problem hearing the horn are probably a lot younger than I or just have preserved your hearing well. I can hear the warnings with the NC headset but after putting the plugs in my ear plus the headset that horn starts to get pretty distant.

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Unfortunately, one of my transition students geared up his new to him manual gear C model practicing gusting cross wind landings recently. This is the first time any of my guys have done this, and he absolutely knew to gumps check.

So what happened?

Debriefing a few days later, he *probably* forgot to raise the gear on a T&G (yea, hear comes that debate again), and abeam the numbers, where his muscle memory kicks in to lower the gear, he put it up instead.

Ignoring the beep beep beep, his mind was singularly focused on nailing his speed and crab for the wind conditions. Would a "CHECK GEAR" yelling in his headset help? Ill bet so. He is going to get one for his next Mooney he is now searching for. While avionics weak, his C was a fine pristine plane and is going to be totaled.

Distractions are disastrous to your checklist. Practice and learn how to manage distractions.

 

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I've been considereing one of these warning systems. Am I in the minority thinking it may save my plane or my life? Any suggestions as to a particular one to purchase, or is the feature possibly included in some other piece of gear I might end up buying in the future?

 

Here's a video I did for the Garmin AoA, but you can hear the P2 system as well. I didn't install it, it came with the plane but it never falses nor is it annoying - only helpful.

 

 

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43 minutes ago, mike_elliott said:

Unfortunately, one of my transition students geared up his new to him manual gear C model practicing gusting cross wind landings recently. This is the first time any of my guys have done this, and he absolutely knew to gumps check.

So what happened?

Debriefing a few days later, he *probably* forgot to raise the gear on a T&G (yea, hear comes that debate again), and abeam the numbers, where his muscle memory kicks in to lower the gear, he put it up instead.

Ignoring the beep beep beep, his mind was singularly focused on nailing his speed and crab for the wind conditions. Would a "CHECK GEAR" yelling in his headset help? Ill bet so. He is going to get one for his next Mooney he is now searching for. While avionics weak, his C was a fine pristine plane and is going to be totaled.

Distractions are disastrous to your checklist. Practice and learn how to manage distractions.

 

Thanks for sharing. As we've discussed elsewhere, the vintage J bar Mooneys are no more immune to gear up landings than the electric gear.

Not that long ago, I had an older J bar student that was having problems getting used to the J bar . He was really beat up manipulating the gear after just 3 or 4 landings. Personally I was trying to convince him he needed to get his gear checked out because I think the last person adjusted the pre-loads without re-adjusting the initial locked position and that last little bit to get it locked seems much too hard to me - but that is another story. Anyway, he really wanted to practice landings without raising and lowering the gear and I insisted that he needed to practice the entire takeoff & landing procedures properly to build the right habits; otherwise it was a setup for exactly what this poor pilot experienced.

What do you others do with new J Bar pilots?  

But back to gear alert systems - I doubt there is any pilot that has ever geared up that didn't wish they had installed a gear alert or advisory system BEFORE the very bad day of gearing up! But as we read here, one needs to pick a system that does the job for them without being overly intrusive. Such as "STALL, STALL" on landing. (My P2 doesn't do that, it sounds a horn in the intercom instead).

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12 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

The EI AV-17 is $250 at Aircraft Spruce: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/av17voiceannunciator.php

You'll need a couple of $20 AVI-1 inverters unless you want to roll your own solution for the "high true" logic in a couple of the Mooney systems.  With the addition of tax, that gets you up a shade above $300.  But still very inexpensive in aviation dollars.

We did the installation ourselves, our A&P signed it off as a "minor alteration".  I'd be disappointed in any A&P who wouldn't do so on a part 91 piston aircraft.

The MVP 50 has that feature for experimental aircraft, it is still in the certified version just not listed as an option to replace your primary. When I installed my MVP-50 I had it hooked up as a secondary warning. 

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Above I stated my last airplane had the warning system an not my new airplane.  I wasn't planing on installing one but after reading through this tread and thinking about my past experiences, I will add one. 

Betty was so annoying with the "check landing gear" in my headset, I learned to always anticipate it and make sure I didn't have to listen to her nagging.  I don't think I would have ever forgot to put the gear down, but Betty definitely wouldn't let it happen.

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When transitioning to my C we flew to a number of nearby airports.  Doing night currency my plans got squashed by various and sundry factors and I would up doing three landings to a full stop.  I thought my arm was going to fall off.  Last time I did a go-around I just let the gear hang and watched my speed.

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I agree it was a great investment. The most common statement pilots make after forgetting the gear is "i thought that was the stall horn". (Mine doesn't say ""stall"  it says "check airspeed")

mine probably saved me. Alerted me to rising oil temps before engine failure "check engine monitor". A rod was separating and the oil wasn't making it through the engine. The heads up I turned toward the airport and got close enough to dead stick. Gave me almost 2 minutes heads up before totalfailure which was huge  How frequently do you scan the engine monitor because you only have seconds?

-Robert

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