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Trutrack Update


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3 hours ago, cliffy said:

In the new airline world its called "being an autopilot cripple"  Just look to the 777 in KSFO

If you can't click it off at any time and fly the airplane just as well as the AP, you ain't proficient. 

I'll go even further and say that if you can't fly an ILS to CAT III mins (50"), by hand, and keep the needles perfectly centered you ain't good enough yet!

Then 200 & 1/2 is a non-event. Almost like VFR. 

Is a standard ILS even precise enough to accurately do a 50' approach ( much less 50''!).  I mean if the instrument error (not just in the airplane but also the projected signal from the airport mounted radio devices) accurate enough to consider 50' (even for practice)?  Surely the airport itself is certified to cat III mins and correspondingly more accurate equipment (airplane instruments, airport radio instruments AND the human pilot AND the autopilot) to make that discussion reasonable.

I am certified to 200l and so is my airplane.

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2 hours ago, takair said:

Beyond testing for precision on approaches, one of the things cert authorities use to set minimum coupled altitude is hard-over recovery.  In other words, if the autopilot has a hardcover, and you insert a delay to recognize the issue (I think it is three long seconds) and then attempt to recover, will you still be at a safe altitude?  Not saying this is why they have the high minimum altitude on this autopilot, but pilots should be aware that this is one reason for the minimum coupled altitudes.  

Sure, and I think those are valuable tests for a new product. But the reality is that it is legal to fly approaches with a 60 year old autopilot that barely works on a good day and not a modern piece of high tech equipment that works perfectly day in and day out.

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37 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Sure, and I think those are valuable tests for a new product. But the reality is that it is legal to fly approaches with a 60 year old autopilot that barely works on a good day and not a modern piece of high tech equipment that works perfectly day in and day out.

It is ironic.

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OK lets get real here folks. I'm NOT suggesting to do 50' approaches in weather just practice to 50' with good weather

BTW, ALL CAT III approaches are required to be AP flown not hand flown in real life CAT III weather (with dual or triple redundant APs) but if you can easily do a hand flown 50' approach in good weather it might come in handy someday when the crap hits the fan. That's all I'm preaching. Be better than the min required for the test. Be the best you can be at flying. Great for the flying confidence. Great for CAT I hand flown ILS approaches also as you know you can do it with no sweat. Like I said, 200 & 1/2 becomes just another easy VFR approach when you can always do 50" hand flown.  200 & 1/2? A piece of cake to do. 

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58 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Is a standard ILS even precise enough to accurately do a 50' approach ( much less 50''!).  I mean if the instrument error (not just in the airplane but also the projected signal from the airport mounted radio devices) accurate enough to consider 50' (even for practice)?  Surely the airport itself is certified to cat III mins and correspondingly more accurate equipment (airplane instruments, airport radio instruments AND the human pilot AND the autopilot) to make that discussion reasonable.

In actuality, A CAT III ILS system is called a "Capture ILS System"  and not just the run of the mill CAT I ILS system. Totally different animal for day in and day out use safety. BUT a normal CAT I ILS is usable IN AN EMERGENCY ONLY down below 200' . One has to be very careful if it is used in bad weather below mins IN AN EMERGENCY! 

Here's a question- How low CAN you go before you have to identify the runway environs or make a go around, on a CAT I  ILS?

School time, break out the books. 

 

 

 

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15 minutes ago, cliffy said:

In actuality, A CAT III ILS system is called a "Capture ILS System"  and not just the run of the mill CAT I ILS system. Totally different animal for day in and day out use safety. BUT a normal CAT I ILS is usable IN AN EMERGENCY ONLY down below 200' . One has to be very careful if it is used in bad weather below mins IN AN EMERGENCY! 

Here's a question- How low CAN you go before you have to identify the runway environs or make a go around, on a CAT I  ILS?

School time, break out the books. 

 

 

 

Down to 0 with 1/2 mile vis

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27 minutes ago, cliffy said:

In actuality, A CAT III ILS system is called a "Capture ILS System"  and not just the run of the mill CAT I ILS system. Totally different animal for day in and day out use safety. BUT a normal CAT I ILS is usable IN AN EMERGENCY ONLY down below 200' . One has to be very careful if it is used in bad weather below mins IN AN EMERGENCY! 

Here's a question- How low CAN you go before you have to identify the runway environs or make a go around, on a CAT I  ILS?

School time, break out the books. 

I thought that if you saw the lights, you could go another 100' but you must see the runway to go lower.

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17 minutes ago, Hank said:

I thought that if you saw the lights, you could go another 100' but you must see the runway to go lower.

It's really splitting hairs, but some ILS approaches have minimums greater than 200' AGL.  If the minimums were 250', you could still continue down to 100'.

Actually, this applies to all Instrument approaches, not just the ILS.  So if you're on a VOR approach with minimums of 600-1, if you see the approach lights you may continue down to 100' above TDZE- but you have to continue to have 1 SM visibility, so in the end it wouldn't really matter.

Time for me to get off my nerdbox- soapbox!

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1 hour ago, Andy95W said:

It's really splitting hairs, but some ILS approaches have minimums greater than 200' AGL.  If the minimums were 250', you could still continue down to 100'.

Actually, this applies to all Instrument approaches, not just the ILS.  So if you're on a VOR approach with minimums of 600-1, if you see the approach lights you may continue down to 100' above TDZE- but you have to continue to have 1 SM visibility, so in the end it wouldn't really matter.

Time for me to get off my nerdbox- soapbox!

Now we are getting somewhere. Its not the nerd factor or splitting hairs. Its what can you do in that position. Take a look at 91.175. If you are at the approach mins and you have only the Approach lights in sight (strobe rabbit) you can continue down to 100' above TDZ at which time you must have one of the other 8 items in sight and have the required visibility. Have been there several times in Citations and Boeings. 

As mentioned, some ILS approaches stop at 250' not 200' so you might get another 150' to find the runway. 1/2 mile ain't all that far to look and 150' might make the difference of getting in or not. 

Now we get back to the previous discussion of hand flying an ILS below 200' DH on a CAT I ILS.

Here you are at 250' DH or 200 DH and all you see is a flashing white light leading you in. Everywhere you look is white except for the rabbit light.  Can you use the ILS below the DH to find the runway ? Of course you can. How else are you going to get in?  But if you haven't practiced flying lower on an ILS in good weather now you are "in training" at the wrong time. 

This is why I always did every 3rd ILS (in good weather) down to 50' hand flying. Just so if I needed it I would feel comfortable. 

If there is any chance that you would need to avail yourself of this quirk in the regs you need to brief to yourself or other crew just what the TDZ is and what altitude you will go down to BEFORE you ever attempt the approach. Thinking about it at DH is not the time to be looking for the TDZ. 

Also to bear in mind maybe the limitations of the AP if you are coupled for the approach. Is your AP certified to go below 200'? On the 737-200 -300 it was set for 50' AGL so leaving it coupled at DH with only the rabbit in sight was fine. In fact I taught to leave it coupled to 50' in low weather as too many times I saw pilots click it off at mins and then climb back into the crap by not keeping the decent going. There is always a visual effect that causes one to level off at DH and not continue down. If your AP is not certified below 200' then you have to hand fly below 200' and transitioning from coupled to hand flying at DH is NOT the way to go. I strongly recommend that once you are stable gear and flaps down inside the OM you click it off and hand fly from there to the ground or GA. Again, my habit of doing every 3rd ILS down to 50' hand flown to stay in the game. 

So for me the no coupled approaches on the TT is not a factor. I can hand fly it just as easily as I can monitor the AP. BTW, the Brittain Accutrac has the same limitation, no coupled approaches even though it does track a localizer beam fairly well in good weather. 

Fire hose out and charged  :-)

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From a purely practical, "get it on the ground" position... my autopilot will take me all the way to 50' or to the ground. Any runway with an ILS will also give me quite a bit more margin in my Mooney than you'll have in a commercial jet. The width and length of the runway and the small foot print of my Mooney means that I don't have to be as precise and still am able to get the wheels down and stopped on the runway.

I'm not trying to make an excuse for being sloppy, not keeping the needles centered, or landing on the centerline at the captains bars. I'm just saying there's a difference between getting a semi truck into a parking space vs a go-cart. So worst case scenario... find a runway with an ILS and ride it all the way down.

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1 hour ago, gsxrpilot said:

From a purely practical, "get it on the ground" position... my autopilot will take me all the way to 50' or to the ground. Any runway with an ILS will also give me quite a bit more margin in my Mooney than you'll have in a commercial jet. The width and length of the runway and the small foot print of my Mooney means that I don't have to be as precise and still am able to get the wheels down and stopped on the runway.

I'm not trying to make an excuse for being sloppy, not keeping the needles centered, or landing on the centerline at the captains bars. I'm just saying there's a difference between getting a semi truck into a parking space vs a go-cart. So worst case scenario... find a runway with an ILS and ride it all the way down.

When I say that an autopilot, or even an airport approach system may not be calibrated with enough accuracy that you should count on a good approach below mins, this is what I mean.

My home airport, the RNAV approach was leading you to about 25 feet right of the right runway for several years, every time, and not just my airplane, and then eventually I guess it was re-charted and fixed.  OK yeah, in an emergency I supposed I would rather be dropped off 25 feet right of a runway, but you get the point.  The data base was literally not accurate enough to allow a low approach to 50'.  OK, it has mins of 406' for that, RNAV 24 into my home KPTD, and yes my KFC200 will ride that glide slope right to the ground if I don't disengage it, but where on the ground it will drop you off may not be on the numbers as you might expect.

This is essentially the same topic as expecting to measure anything beyond the calibration of your device.  Get on your household scale weigh yourself and write down your weight: I am 212.245353534 lbs right? My scale reports 212.2.  How shall I interpret it?  Without further information I interpret that as 212.2+/-0.05.  In any scientific experiment the further details of calibration are provided. In this application of approaches, the device is reported as such that "don't trust the process below 200' " and the sources of error are the autopilot, the approach signal and calibration itself, and the human pilot.  A Cat III has been designed differently.

Edited by aviatoreb
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We're missing the point here folks. 

Its not what one might take a chance on with their autopilot "in an emergency" Its what is legal and practical in every day operations. 

I don't really care if your AP will take you to the ground 25' off center or not. What can be done "legally" on everyday operations and what you the pilot has to do to make it happen is what I'm talking about. And I'm referencing ILS approaches only here

I've checked out my old old Garmin 155TSO GPS by letting it fly the azimuth and doing the decent by watching my position my moving map tablet with Avare and I can hit 10' from CL every time. Would I do that as normal every day operations IFR HELL NO.  But I can hand fly an ILS to 200' , see the rabbit and continue to 100' above TDZ  very easy, as an every day operation. That's all I'm promoting. Be as good as you can be Be better than the min req'd for the check ride. 

Edited by cliffy
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Cliffy- 

You (and I) are looking at this from the perspective of professional pilots who get told every 6 months what they're doing wrong.  And the truth is, we enjoy the process because it means we're still learning and getting better.

------------------------------

One of my favorite pieces of the Fundamentals of Instructing from the FAA is the portion on professionalism:

"As professionals, aviation instructors strive to maintain the highest level of knowledge, training, and currency in the field of aviation. To achieve this goal, instructors need to commit themselves to continuous, lifelong learning and professional development through study"

---------------------------------

"Continuuous, lifelong learning".  It's interesting that in the portion on professionalism they hardly even talk about getting paid, they talk about attitude and learning

But unfortunately, many folks don't want to be told what they're doing wrong and get better, they just want to be good enough and to get a pencil-whipped Flight Review every 2 years.

 

3 hours ago, cliffy said:

Be as good as you can be Be better than the min req'd for the check ride. 

Amen to that.

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Andy

You know I had a long winded response written here but just cut it out. I'll just add what you wrote as it hits the point so well Thanks

1 hour ago, Andy95W said:
4 hours ago, cliffy said:

Be as good as you can be Be better than the min req'd for the check ride. 

Amen to that

 

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  • 1 month later...
5 minutes ago, Steve Dawson said:

Has anyone heard of any progress for either the TruTrack or Trio yet? 

I spoke to TruTrak last week and was told they are about to start final flight testing and they are expecting approval close to the end of the year.  I know, still vague but unfortunately the norm with the FAA.  I will update as soon as I get new info.

Thanks,

Sanjeev

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On 10/23/2018 at 1:08 PM, Jeev said:

I spoke to TruTrak last week and was told they are about to start final flight testing and they are expecting approval close to the end of the year.  I know, still vague but unfortunately the norm with the FAA.  I will update as soon as I get new info.

Thanks,

Sanjeev

Hi Sanjeev,

As you know, I visited TruTrak a couple of weeks ago, and here is my update on another post:

I visited TruTrak's installation in Springdale AR a couple of weeks ago for an article I'm writing. They are at the stage of finalizing the placement of the servo, although they are pretty sure about the optimal location. Testing should start as soon as that is completed on the Mooney pictured above, a 65 M20E SUPER21 :Dand, based on other types, it could be ready to ship by next spring, since servos and command box are the same as the other types. But that is my personal estimate, I'm not representing TruTrak or their plans in any way.

M20ETruTrak.jpg

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15 minutes ago, drapo said:

Hi Sanjeev,

As you know, I visited TruTrak a couple of weeks ago, and here is my update on another post:

I visited TruTrak's installation in Springdale AR a couple of weeks ago for an article I'm writing. They are at the stage of finalizing the placement of the servo, although they are pretty sure about the optimal location. Testing should start as soon as that is completed on the Mooney pictured above, a 65 M20E SUPER21 :Dand, based on other types, it could be ready to ship by next spring, since servos and command box are the same as the other types. But that is my personal estimate, I'm not representing TruTrak or their plans in any way.

M20ETruTrak.jpg

Glad you had a good visit and thank you for the update. The guys at Trutrak are a great group that are always willing to help and have visitors! 

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I spoke to TruTrak last week and was told they are about to start final flight testing and they are expecting approval close to the end of the year.  I know, still vague but unfortunately the norm with the FAA.  I will update as soon as I get new info.
Thanks,
Sanjeev
Didn't your 201 just get sold? What are you installing the trutrac in now?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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M

40 minutes ago, NJMac said:

Didn't your 201 just get sold? What are you installing the trutrac in now?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 

My “old” 201!  It’s staying at VGT with the new owner and we are still planning on the first demo install in it. 

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Thank you Anthony.  There is no money required to be on the list.  When the Vision is FAA approved I will call you for payment to place the order.  I will put you on the install list and PM you with the additional info needed.

The Trutrak will track a course from the 300xl and yes it’s going to be a huge upgrade.  I’ve flown it in a few Piper installs we have done and it does everything it says it will and flys a GPS LPV approach more precisely than the 55x I have in my 310 for 1/4th the cost.  We are very excited for this to bee approves for Mooney’s! 

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