Oshkosh 2011

The theme of the show was a 100-year celebration of Naval Aviation, with stirring flybys of Navy aircraft of today and yesteryear. Tributes to aviation greats Burt Rutan and Bob Hoover, the arrival of the beautiful Boeing 787 and the boffo Saturday Night Air Show complete with dazzling pyro were all the rage. But nothing gets a pilot's blood pumping more than a cruise through the product display hangars and booths. And aviation innovators never disappoint with a cornucopia of ever-more-fascinating instruments, gadgets and innovations.

The field of iPad aviation apps sprouts like mushrooms. Aspen Avionics announced its Connected Panel concept to integrate data from personal handheld devices to certified avionics (see "Aspen Has Connections" by Bill Cox).

There was, as always, introductions of instruments and gadgets, promising new GA and LSA aircraft, low-cost flight simulators, a black box that lets you control your GPS in flight---with your voice!---and even a tankless supplemental oxygen generator, just to highlight some of the cool new tech on display.

So, take heart: Worrisome news aside, our roundup of products prove that we're still thinking, experimenting, producing and marketing bold new concepts in the service of safer, more efficient, more enjoyable flight.

The trend toward easy-to-use touch-screen technology continues with Avidyne's IFD540 Touch Screen GPS/NAV/COM. Navigation, communication and multifunction display technology based on the company's Entegra unit are all now touch enabled.

The IFD540 is the heart of Avidyne's avionics suite stack, which also includes the AMX240 audio panel and AXP340 ADS-B Mode S transponder. The flight-management system combines multichannel digital VHF radio with a 16-channel GPS/SBAS receiver. It stores 1,000 user-defined waypoints in up to 99 flight plans.

General button pushing/knob twiddling is reduced by 50% to 75% or more, with touch-to-select data entry of airways, exit waypoints, destinations and approach procedures made easy with logically placed drop-down menus. Even direct-to navigation is single-button or touch-screen enabled.

Courses can easily be modified by "rubber-band" dragging the course line to a new waypoint, or tapping a new waypoint to add it to the course or otherwise make a change. VOR, VHF localizer and UHF glideslope receivers are part of the navigation package...and touch-screen accessible. Conventional buttons and knobs are still available, too.

The 5.7-inch, 640x480-pixel screen has Avidyne's Ultra-Bright sunlight-readable technology, which includes LED backlighting for nighttime use.

The flight-management system is plug-and- play: It drops without wiring changes into any slot previously used by a Garmin GNS540 or 530W, while bringing a larger screen, four times more pixels for a sharper image and the touch-screen interface. Contact: www.avidyne.com.

Leading LSA avionics manufacturer Dynon counts no small part of its success from its constant enthusiasm for growing the product line and cramming more and more functionality into its existing products, such as the widely adopted SkyView glass panel. The DX15 radio represents a bit of both devotions, in that it came about as part of the company's efforts to add a panel-mount radio to the SkyView system.

The new handheld radio debuts as one of the more compact portable transceivers on the market and at a very competitive $160 price. Li-Ion battery power is standard, rather than more common NiMH or NiCD radio packs.

Warranteed for three years, it's packed with features: backlit screen/keypad, 100 memory channels, quick recall of the 10 most recently used frequencies, and adjustable side tone. There's a battery life/charge indicator and dedicated 121.5 MHz Mayday button, too. It comes with antenna, belt clip, battery and charger, and has optional features like a headset/push-to-talk adapter cable, desktop rapid charger, even a car power adapter for charging on the way to the field. It's a compact unit at just 4x2.25x1.43 inches. Weight is only 8.2 ounces, including battery, antenna and belt clip. Contact: www.dynon.com.

First debuted in mock-up stage last April at Germany's Aero Expo, Flight Design brought the C4 to Oshkosh...and subsequently announced it wrote $11 million worth of business before the show even ended! By far the biggest chunk was for 40 new four-seat C4 airplanes, to be European EASA-certified (and FAA approved by reciprocity).

The full-scale mockup looks like the grown-up version of the company's U.S.-sales-leading S-LSA, the CTLS, with graceful contouring along the same general lines of the CT. The all carbon-fiber composite C4 will carry four 6-foot-plus occupants up to 160 knots cruise on either a Centurion 155 hp diesel (and Jet A) engine or 180 hp IO-360 avgas engine, stall at 50 knots, launch in 1,312 feet, be certified for VFR and IFR, and have an impressive useful load of 1,320 pounds. That will work!

A BRS airframe parachute will be standard equipment on every plane, just as it is on the CTLS. Avionics still are to be decided, as company CEO Matthias Betsch is making partnerships with various vendors. Max range on 70 gallons of fuel will be 1,200 nm (avgas engine) and 1,700 nm (diesel engine). First deliveries are expected in 2013 at a price of €220,000, or $308,000 at today's exchange rate. Contact: www.flightdesign.com.

Too often, pilots skimp on strapping on the nasal cannula when flying at higher altitudes. We all have our reasons: forgetting to fill the oxy bottles, thinking we can tough it out, or we simply don't want to spend the money to fill those tanks as often as we should.

Windblade Corp. has a clever, highly functional alternative: a smallish, lightweight oxygen generator called the Inogen Aviator G2 Oxygen Concentrator. How does it work? Rather ingeniously: by filtering out nitrogen from the ambient air to supply you with what amounts to an inexhaustible supply of concentrated oxygen at up to 15,000 feet...and never an O2 bottle in sight!

The Inogen Aviator weighs just 7.25 pounds, is powered either by battery or a 12-32 volt cigarette lighter-style socket, comes with a nasal cannula and generates 93% pure oxygen from the surrounding air. The device meets FAA guidelines for supplemental oxygen (up to 15K), and will be available soon for multiple users: the model shown here supplies one person. Contact: www.inogenaviator.com.

Small, lightweight but truly mighty: Insight's G3 fully functioning color-engine monitor brings a broad range of indicators to one display, ideal for a crowded panel or load-conscious LSA.

Engine monitors are great for displaying combustion-related indicators of engine health. But staying on top of mechanical indicators such as various sources of vibration is another vital way to pick up on engine danger signals. The latest of several functions just added to the G3 is Vibration Analysis, which allows pilots to operate safely at lean-of-peak settings, detect small mechanical problems before they become big problems, and thus prevent catastrophic engine failures.

The module, one of several built in to the G3, displays an oscilloscope-style feedback once the engine is running. The display graph shows amount of vibration energy on the vertical axis and multiples of crankshaft rpm on the horizontal axis. The visual impression is of a constantly shifting waveform that represents engine motion. Any sources of engine vibration are incorporated into the display graphic line, such as prop, magneto and alternator.

Since every engine runs differently, once pilots learn the "normal" visual signature unique to their own aircraft, they can quickly notice and respond to any abnormal signature. Contact: www.insightavionics.com.

The paperless cockpit becomes more ubiquitous, thanks to Apple's iPad and new apps like Jeppesen's Mobile FlightDeck. Called an "aviation navigation solution" and available for download on the App Store, it's essentially a touch-screen, interactive digital enroute navigation library designed to replace all those pounds of paper pilots lug around and must reference, on the ground and in the air.

Features include own-ship position and route overlay, worldwide georeferenced terminal charts, terminal charts, airport diagrams and Jeppesen Airway Manual text information. And for the first time, Jeppesen's Airway Manual Service is available in fully electronic format.

There's more than simply cutting back on hauling around cumbersome reams of paper, too. Jeppesen believes the reduction in pilot workload and enhanced efficiency in the cockpit improves safety and comfort for pilots and flight crews, whether for private, business, commercial or military flights.

Imagine the simplicity of updating charts and reference materials by download rather than having to constantly stuff in paper revisions and discard out-of-date pages. The full-color, high-res display offers easy search, zoom and pan with high/low altitude IFR charts, airports, airways, waypoints, navaids, airspace, terrain information, enroute and terminal communications, operational notes and more.

JeppView or Express JeppView subscription, and FAA or local civil aviation authorization to use the iPad in flight are required. Jeppesen even tested the iPad successfully for rapid decompression in flight. Contact: www.jeppesen.com.

With an LSA-legal MTOW below 950 pounds, the Snap, a new light-sport aerobatic one seater, gets its go from a custom-built 130 hp EPApower-modified Rotax 900 engine, which sports electronic fuel injection, inverted oil system, four-into-one exhaust and meets or exceeds FAA Part 23 acrobatic standards that specifies a minimum +6 / -3 wing loading. The plane is intended for competition at a lower price than conventional rigs, such as Pitts Specials and the Extra 300 series.

Full aerobatic testing for standards compliance is underway. Delivery is expected early in 2012 as either an S-LSA, E-LSA or Experimental-Exhibition model. Some specs: Max level speed of 120 kts, 45-knot stall, mogas or avgas fueled, Vne of 171 knots, 4130 chrome moly airframe, aluminum wing, carbon fiber composite rudder and ailerons, five-point safety harness...and man, is this cute or what? Contact: www.sport.aero.

Italian aircraft mainstay Tecnam (producing since 1948) will soon add yet another beautiful, modern aircraft to its fleet. Phil Solomon, Tecnam North America's CEO, sees the new P2010 "Twenty Ten" four-seat cruiser square as a natural for the Cessna four-seater market: "The interior---same size as our P2006T twin---is close to a Cessna 182 in size and comfort. It has three doors; passengers love that. And all four seats adjust up, down and back and forth."

The P2010, expected to be EASA and FAA certified by the end of 2012, will range out with a useful load of 990 pounds. "That's less than a 182, but its effective payload is totally comparable because it only carries 46.2 gallon tanks vs. the 87 or 90 gallons in a C-182." That smaller fuel load is no liability either, since fuel consumption, with the Lycoming IO-360-M1a "Light" engine (180 hp at 2,700 rpm), will burn closer to nine gallons rather than the 182's 15 gallons per hour."

The sleek, modern carbon-fiber/metal hybrid airframe is priced to compete with the Cessna 172, Diamond DA-40 and Cirrus SR22. Cruise at 65% is 128 knots, and 133 knots at 75%. Climb is a peppy 1,050 fpm, and stall (flaps) is only 48 knots! Contact: www.tecnam.net.

At last, tell your airplane where to go...with your voice! Control freaks and the rest of us will have no trouble envisioning the advantages, in such conditions as heavy turbulence or heavy cockpit workload, of a voice-controlled GPS.

Reducing pilot workload and increasing cockpit data entry distractions is as easy as "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie" with the VoiceFlight Systems VFS101. The black box lets pilots control input for Garmin GNS 430W and 530W GPS systems solely by voice: no more "head-buried-in-cockpit" risk.

The device's patented speech-recognition technology brings accurate and immediate response in all flight environments---without requiring prior "training" of the onboard software engine or specific profiles for different individuals. Anyone using voice-to-text technology to write on computers knows what a hassle that can be.

The VFS101 uses the standard aviation alphabet (Alpha, Bravo etc.) to quickly input waypoints into the GPS, up to 10 times faster than fumbling with knobs or hitting the right spot, in the bumps, on a touch screen. Simple Direct-To destinations and complex flight plans alike can be entered by voice. Victor Airways are automatically expanded. ATC re-routes are simplified. And fallback manual control of onboard GPS is always available.

It's the first speech-recognition device to be FAA certified. The STC currently allows installation on Cessna 182 models equipped with single or dual Garmin GNS 530W and GNS 430W GPS units. For aircraft other than Cessna 182, local FAA avionics shops will help pilots learn whether the VFS101 can be installed via a Form 337. Contact: www.voiceflight.com.