Tru trak

[rmorris]

Traded more emails with Larry, then we chatted on phone today...
1) doesn't look good to get MT prop STC for my T337C...which we both agreed was weird. So he said he thought he could get field approved, just costs me $1500 more that way. I said that since we were field approving, how about a 4-blade scimitar model? I saw one on a Cirrus SR22T and thought it looked great, plus owner said cooling of 4-blades was good. Larry said the TSIO-360 would not push the 4-blades. Then I dropped back to asking about 3-blade scimitar (per your egging on) since we were field approving...he said that he didn't recommend because of cooling. He said the 119 blades were the ones he suggested be used.

2) different topic, but discussed on phone with him...changing out my engines when doing the props. We talked about going to a single engine turbine pusher, or upgrading both engines similar to Riley STC. Based on cost and other plane options available without the hassle, the Riley (or similar dual bigger engines) seems the more reasonable path. he is going to investigate some. If anyone has good info to lead him in right direction on current STC to either use, or use as basis for field approval, please provide asap.

[kilr4d]

Originally Posted by rmorris

..Based on cost and other plane options available without the hassle, the Riley (or similar dual bigger engines) seems the more reasonable path. he is going to investigate some...

I would pursue an existing Riley or a different twin altogether before tackling a conversion. Soooo time consuming and expensive to see those kind of projects through to completion.

[hharney]

It has been a while since I have given you all an update on how things are going, so here you go! :-)

Things are moving forward very well in the weeks since Sun N Fun when we received approval of the installation kit for the C172 and C177. We are also currently working on installation design for the C182 and PA-28.

The majority of our time is being spent on finalization of the paperwork and flight testing required for the full system approval. We are still very much on track to have that all completed in time to begin deliveries at AirVenture. These are probably cumbersome and fairly boring details as far as most of you are concerned, but they are actually quite important!

On May 25th we did another flight with the FAA demonstrating failure modes and some more normal use modes of the Vizion autopilot system. This was done in our C172 with special failure mode software installed in the autopilot. We also were able to show them, for the first time, our TOP SECRET new feature that will be included in the Vizion system at launch in July! They absolutely loved the feature and are very excited about it’s inclusion in the final product.

One of our main reasons for wanting to offer the Vizion to the certified market is to improve the safety of the existing fleet. Because of the way the Vizion autopilot is designed, the failure modes that we demonstrated to the FAA actually require multiple failures to even be possible, but we wanted to make sure that we tested and demonstrated things in the absolute worst case scenario. During this flight we demonstrated things such as dual max servo velocity hard over failures, servo lockups, and gyro / pressure transducer failures. Through ALL of these tests, the aircraft remains quite flyable and in the “real world” the autopilot will actually recognize these failures and automatically disconnect.

I think that is all for now, looking forward to seeing you all in Oshkosh.

As always, please share this email with anyone that you know that is not on the list and should be!

Andrew Barker
President / CEO
TruTrak Flight Systems