If there were 25 million active GA pilots...

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...
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| "Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote in message
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| Then have two.
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| When you are IMC with smoke in your cockpit, how do you know which
| electrical system to shut down?

You shut down both of them and wait for the smoke to clear. Then you
cautiously turn them on one at a time and see which one produces smoke.

Or your observe your panel status lights to determine which is having bus
problems, then shutdown the inop one.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
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"Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote in message
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| Vacuum pumps would be deep in landfills.
|

You know, a lot of pilots *like* vacuum pumps. They don't want everything
dependent on a single electrical system.

You know, a lot of pilots do not know that dual bus electrical systems with
backup alternators are better than vacuum pumps which are virtually
guaranteed to fail before TBO.

Jim Vadek wrote:

You know, a lot of pilots do not know that dual bus electrical systems with
backup alternators are better than vacuum pumps which are virtually
guaranteed to fail before TBO.

Maybe your stupid little dry pump will fail.

In article , "Jim
Vadek" wrote:

vacuum pumps which are virtually
guaranteed to fail before TBO.

not much of a TBO if the pumps fail before reaching it.

--
Bob Noel

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

You know, a lot of pilots do not know that dual bus electrical systems with
backup alternators are better than vacuum pumps which are virtually
guaranteed to fail before TBO.

How about one electric AI and one vacuum AI? That is the best of both
worlds.
--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

Richard Kaplan wrote:

How about one electric AI and one vacuum AI? That is the best of both
worlds.

Which one do you believe when they don't agree? "The man with no watch knows
what time it is. The man with two is never sure."

George Patterson
To a pilot, altitude is like money - it is possible that having too much
could prove embarassing, but having too little is always fatal.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote:

"The man with no watch knows what time it is. The man with two is never sure."
^^
Should be "one".

George Patterson
To a pilot, altitude is like money - it is possible that having too much
could prove embarassing, but having too little is always fatal.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...
How about one electric AI and one vacuum AI? That is the best of both
worlds.

Which one do you believe when they don't agree?

One hopes that a look at the vacuum gauge and the ammeter would help you
with that. Of course, if the instrument itself has failed, you have to fall
back on the traditional cross-check techniques, but that would be a
possibility anyway. Besides, it's much more common for the power source
(vacuum or electric) to fail than for the instrument itself to.

Pete

"G.R. Patterson III" writes:

How about one electric AI and one vacuum AI? That is the best of both
worlds.

Which one do you believe when they don't agree? "The man with no watch knows
what time it is. The man with two is never sure."

You let the other instruments vote one of the AI's off the island.


All the best,


David

On 16-Oct-2003, "Dan Luke" c172rgATbellsouthDOTnet wrote:

...in the USA instead of 400,000 or so:

There would be GA airports *everywhere*. They would be like beehives on
the day before Thanksgiving.

I think what you mean is that there would be few places without convenient
access to/from a GA airport


You could rent a T hangar for less than the cost of a 1 br apartment.

More likely GA airplanes would be designed with features like folding wings
to make storage more efficient


The accident rate would be about the same but the fatal accident rate
would be lower due to modern, more crashworthy designs.

The real key to even getting to that level of GA use would be to make it
practical for GA airplanes and pilots to safely operate IFR in pretty much
the same mix of weather that the airlines fly in. The biggest challenges:
practical and low cost ice protection and weather visualization (the latter
rapidly becoming a reality) and greatly simplified IFR procedures (so that
25 million pilots could operate "in the system."


You'd give the engine in your airplane about as much thought as you do the
one in your car. The idea of sending oil samples off for analysis at each
change would seem absurd.

But aircraft engines would continue to cost a lot more than auto engines --
just not ten times as much.



Your new "family" airplane would be air conditioned.

Maybe. Still a big weight penalty and not needed nearly as universally as
AC in cars

It would have a headup synthetic vision/HITS display, emergency autoland
capability, real time data
link weather and a CD/DVD player.

It would certainly have a lot of "high tech" avionics, but the demands of
traffic control in an environment with 25 million pilots would dominate
their functionality.


You'd have a second, "fun" airplane.

Maybe, but even with mass production techniques airplanes would still cost
lots more than cars -- just not 10 times as much.


40-year old airplanes would all be junkers or lovingly restored classics.

Probably right.


Vacuum pumps would be deep in landfills.

Everything that COULD be electronic WOULD be electronic. You would
certainly have redundant electrical systems


Air traffic control would automated for most functions.

It would have to be to manage the 50-fold increase in traffic. Oh, and by
the way, there would undoubtedly need to be enforced positive control in
virtually all airspace with the possible exception of parts of Alaska

Regulation enforcement officers would be flying around, watching and
listening, but federal enforcement actions would be more uniform and fair
due to more lawyers and politicians getting busted and raising hell.

The reason for more uniform (and aggressive) enforcement of regulations
would be that with 25 million users the system would collapse without it


Frogs could dance and the Cubs would win the World Series.

Naw, its not as unlikely as the Cubs winning the Series.

-------
-Elliott Drucker