UltraWear brake discs and pads add a sintered lining with a coated brake disc, creating their highest level of performance. There is a minimal increase in pricing with the UltraWear line, but final prices aren’t currently available. The UltraWear discs can be paired with with standard brake pads or the upgraded options, giving a mix-and-match approach to various requirements.

Both choices offer longer brake wear with minimal fade, create a package that requires less maintenance as well as providing better stopping power, translating into improved safety as well as being kind to your wallet.

There are a handful of options available when it comes down to picking what will keep your homebuilt on the ground, and it is nice to see interest and development to improve the choices.

For more information: https://www.nmgaerospace.com/matco-als/

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Steve Henry, famous as the champion STOL Drags pilot in the screaming yellow Highlander, has bought Tundra Tailwheels at the invitation of founder Jim Pekola. Steve is no stranger to Tundra Tailwheels, having used them exclusively on his yellow race plane for many years.

Managing Tundra Tailwheels is Josh Richling who ran us through the company’s line of no excuses off-road tailwheels. All are hewn from billet to a showy finish, but built to withstand incredibly difficult terrain. Josh showed us photos of these tailwheels navigating foot-diameter river rock in Alaska, so they shouldn’t have much trouble with that gap between the asphalt and your hangar door.

Also billet are the wheels. Previously these were spun aluminum, but those suppliers have gone to military contracts so Tundra pivoted to billet wheels. The rims feature an internal channel for increased tire retention (won’t spin on the rim).

All Tundra Tailwheels are lockable using a simple cable system. The latch is a suitably thick tang and slot arrangement; locking and release seemed low effort and definitely positive when playing with it in the Tundra Tailwheels booth. When unlocked these are full castoring wheels, so light rudder inputs are needed to initiate directional changes at taxiing speeds; rudder authority is sufficient during take off. Otherwise these wheels simply castor to trail behind the airplane; no rudder horn, springs, chains or other interconnections are needed or provided. This accounts for their clean appearance and saves weight.

Besides robustness the Tundra Tailwheels are wide and flat for increased traction. This pays off in multiple ways, says Josh. There’s increased stability in normal operations both because of the much larger contact patch and the wide, flat tire tends to roll straight unlike the more rounded tire on conventional tailwheels. Crosswinds aren’t as bad, taxiing on glacial side slopes (there are people who routinely do such things) is definitely more positive and Josh even cites pushing the airplane backwards into the hangar is more directionally stable.

For the truly adventure jaded there is a 10-inch tire option. It’s good for those foot diameter river rock landing spots. Let’s hope you don’t have to pitch a tent there.

Fitments for flat springs, tubular spring, T3X and ACME Aero are available. Pricing is $1,695 for the wheel, tire, fork and mounting (everything but the tail spring); the 10-inch tire is a plus $50 option.

More information: tundratailwheel.com

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Last year, in a moment of heat and hunger induced weakness, I succumbed to a sales pitch for a $40 bottle of glasses cleaner. Does it work? Yes. In fact, I tested my complimentary cleaning for an afternoon before, having grown even hungrier and hotter, I returned to make the purchase. A year on, I have $39.50 of it remaining. I found dish soap works just as well.

What never works, it seems, is the cleaning cloth that comes with sunglasses, even pricey Ray Bans. They are as effective at mixing sweat, sunscreen and skin oil as Bob Ross is at mixing Liquid White with Phthalo Blue, but useless at removing the slurry from the lenses. They do excel at fitting in the case, whereas a 16-ounce spray bottle is cumbersome to carry.

This year, I found the solution. And it’s not a solution. NORAD and USNORTHCOM have a heavy presence to educate pilots on avoiding TFRs which, during this election year, pop up with greater frequency and are violated with greater frequency. Brilliantly, they are passing out lens cleaning cloths.  I gave one a rigorous test (the removal of yesterday’s AirVenture detritus) and it performed flawlessly.

Do yourself two favors, be aware of and avoid TFRs and swing by the NORAD booth in Hangar D and get one of their lens cleaning cloths. Tell them Kerry sent you and enjoy the puzzled look on their face.

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Aircraft Specialty Flightlines, an AirVenture Veteran, has been innovating safer, more capable and easier to use components for experimental amateur aircraft builders for years. This year, they brought three new innovations to the show.

Braided pressure hoses have been an essential part of aircraft and race car construction for decades. The only problem is that it is not easy to fabricate hose end fittings without special skill and tools. Aircraft Specialty Flightlines has developed hose ends that can be easily installed in the field without special tools or skill. This comes in handy when the hoses need to be routed through holes that are smaller than the hose ends. The new hose ends come in straight, 90 degree and 45 degree fittings for most applications and sizes.

Folks building anything with a Beringer brake setup will benefit from Aircraft Specialties new Beringer parking brake bracket, with integrated switch for a parking brake annunciation on the panel. This will come in handy with many RV-10 and RV-14 builders.

For the fighter pilot at heart, Aircraft Specialties has crafted ergonomic knobs for your throttle, mixture and prop levers. No more plastic blandness beneath your left hand. These knobs are substantial, ergonomic and really nice looking.

For more information, visit aircraftspecialty.com.

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AirVenture just isn’t complete without a golf cart ride down to the Ultralight area for a visit with the principals of Aircraft Specialty/TS Flight lines – Steve and Tom.

Tom Swearingen has been making hose assemblies for homebuilders for quite a few years now and is well known for quality custom work done very fast – I have had hoses made and shipped in twelve hours that arrived two days later! And that’s not just “journalist service” – most everyone sings the praises of Tom’s speedy work. He specializes in one-off, unique configurations, building custom hose ends as well as making hose assemblies to custom lengths- and since he is well-versed in the kit planes of today, he has all the specifications for the most popular configurations, saving the builder the work of researching sizes and lengths for many stock builds.

We’ve got no questions about where we go for hoses -but we still don’t understand why e makes us trek all the way to Ultralights to visit. Then again….a trip to the South 40 is always good for airplane watching at least once during the show, so hustle on down and say hi to the guys!

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One advantage of arriving early to AirVenture is that you may have the opportunity to preview deals before others arrive and the tents fill. While Hangars A-D are off-limits, some of the isolated vendors allow folks to wander through and get a preview of the deals to come. Take, for example, Lincoln Electric just north of the tower. They are offering lots of deals this coming week. Like many vendors, all their “open boxes”…display units at the show…will be offered at 15% off. The catch? First come, first served, and you have to be here on Sunday afternoon to cart your prize off. No shipping on this deal. Great for locals and folks with a Murphy Moose who plan to stay the week. Not so attractive of a deal for the person who arrived in a Cozy with camping gear.

New to Lincoln Electric’s line of welders is the Sprinter 180Si, which seems like a great option for many homebuilders. With TIG accessories including a foot pedal, it sells for $1199. There is no discount this week, unlike their other welders, plasma cutters, engine drives, and welding helmets, but they will throw in filler metals and gloves and ship for free. The Sprinter is DC, so it doesn’t work with aluminum. Many of their other products have substantial MFG rebates, up to $1200, and also with free drop shipping.

So, wander around once you get here and see what bargains you can find!

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The first is from Aircraft Extras. I suppose you might get bored opening the oil-access door and checking the dipstick before every flight—or you may have an airplane whose access requires a ladder or a hoist or perhaps a drone—but this device has some neat features beyond its most obvious: to provide an electronic read of the oil level in your engine. By inserting the Oil Quantity Sensor into the sump of your Continental or Lycoming, you can get a read on the engine oil level right from the cabin.

The system is designed to be inserted from the bottom of the sump and needs to be a certain length to be able to read the full range of oil quantity for your particular engine. It’s worth spending some time on AE’s website to appreciate the details of the installation. As the company notes, some engines might not have an unobstructed path for the length of sensor you need and gives an example of a Lycoming O-360 that only resolves to 6 quarts or less. And, really, that’s what you care about anyway. 

The sensor is connected via a pair of coaxial cables to a controller module that can drive either a dedicated display or an EFIS/engine monitor through an analog connection. Because most EFISes have user-configurable inputs, calibrating the system is a matter of choosing the range of voltages the engine monitor can accept, then calibrating the system by emptying the sump and then adding a quart at a time.

The sensor also has a temperature probe in the base, which would give you a nice backup temp check on your traditional method. Again, most EFISes can accept multiple inputs, but the company’s AG6 display cube will also show both oil temp and level. Finally, the system can output alarms for low oil quantity, high oil temp and sensor malfunctions. The OSE-1 electronics module sells for $195 and the sensors themselves range from $205 to $235 depending on application.

How’s the Ride?

Next up is a new feature baked into ForeFlight’s EFB called Reported Turbulence. Consider it an added piece of turbulence info in addition to the usual suspects of AIRMETs, SIGMETs and PIREPs. How Reported Turbulence works is actually quite clever. If you have the latest version of ForeFlight and are using a Sentry or Sentry Plus to provide GPS and ADS-B In data, the software will use the data derived from the Sentry’s AHRS sensor pack. In essence, it’ll look at physical disturbances of the Sentry module and, after processing it in software, produce an outcome that suggests a smooth ride or three four levels of turbulence in the commonly understood rankings: light, moderate or severe. (There’s no extreme rating.) [ForeFlight just wrote to say there is actually an extreme rating, which I hope I never see! —MC]

Great. So how does ForeFlight get the data into the larger ecosystem? It depends on an internet connection, which can be a little tricky. For most, this means having ForeFlight automatically upload the data as soon as whatever device it’s on gets connected. So after the flight, assuming your iPhone or iPad connects, the data will upload to ForeFlight and begin appearing on other pilots’ devices.

Great. How do they see it? One of two ways. First, you can use the “pack” feature before departing. That brings in all the weather and ancillary data to ForeFlight to review in flight even if you don’t have connectivity up there. The other is to have a live internet connection in flight. Truth is, many modern phones are capable of useful internet on 4G/LTE or 5G in many places; I’m often surprised to hear my phone buzz at 12,000 feet telling me I have a new, ready-to-be-ignored Slack message. If you have data, ForeFlight will send your captured data up and it should appear in the system. Even so, my experience has been that many of the data points are fairly old. ForeFlight sets a limit of 6 hours and marks each data point with a location, altitude, time it was taken and aircraft type, which comes from the default aircraft you have set in ForeFlight. Moreover, the setup gets a little confusing if you mainly use ForeFlight on an iPad that doesn’t itself have cell-data capabilities, meaning you have the Wi-Fi-only version. Sentry connects via Wi-Fi, so even if you could get your phone to work as a hotspot in flight, the iPad won’t see it because it’s connected to the Sentry. For my testing, I had my iPhone linked to the Sentry so that it still had a passable internet connection. It would also work if you had an iPad model with internal cell-data capability and a working data plan.

The Reported Turbulence data appears as colored dots on the screen (and can be turned off to reduce clutter if you want) that open into more detailed menus when you tap them. There is a slider on the right side of the screen to select information altitude, at this time only 1000, 4000, 7000, 10,000 and 13,000 feet for the free version that stops coverage at 14,000 feet. An Auto feature syncs to the nearest value according to your GPS altitude. Tap on any of the dots and the detailed info box pops up with the calculated turbulence, age of report, altitude, aircraft type (no N-numbers), wake category and airspeed. Below the main panel will be a list of nearby reports that hint there are more reports in the system than are shown in the main view, which is probably to keep clutter at bay.

Overall, this is an interesting technology to help fill out the other turbulence data a pilot has available—in addition to a good sense of wind flow over terrain and knowing when not to fly under that ugly black-bottomed cloud. It depends on some technology that not every airplane has: an active ForeFlight app and a Sentry unit. So it’s possible there’s a Cherokee up ahead of you with the student and flight instructor trading blows with the headliner that you’ll never know about unless you overhear their quavering voices on approach frequency.

The low-altitude version is a free feature for the Pro Plus or Performance Plus subscriptions—$240 and $360 a year, respectively. This assumes you already have a Sentry or Sentry Plus, which will need an easy over-the-air firmware update to make it functional with Reported Turbulence. Reported Turbulence might not be the most used tool in the box but it’s a promising way to get additional data to help you form a more detailed mental picture of the ride ahead of you.

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Nobody likes trying to remove dried bug residue. Unless you catch them while still, um, moist, insect remains will dry to have an impressive attachment to your airframe. I swear I’ve seen JB Weld with less resolve.

But I have found a good bug-removal tool. A local airplane detailer shared his little secret: A 3M product called the 8440 Doodlebug, which the company says “safely cleans ceramic tile, glass, some fiberglass, and other delicate surfaces.” The pads are 1 inch thick and 10 inches by 4-5/8 inches each and come in a box of five that will last you a full season. You can get them on Amazon for around $17 a box. 

Although they look like bleached-out Scotch-Brite pads, they’re designed not to scratch. 3M says, “This product is a floor maintenance buffing pad made of polyester fiber in an open-web construction. Polishing particles are dispersed throughout and bonded to the nonwoven construction with a durable resin system that permeates the entire pad. The pads are nominally one inch thick and sized to fit standard swivel pad holder.” I never would have thought to try this pad on a painted surface but my detailer swears by them.

In practice, Doodlebugs work fine with either a fully wet aviation wash or with a wet spot cleaner. Moisten the surface, let the soap work on the bug guts for a few minutes, then come back with another spritz of quick cleaner followed by the Doodlebug. Apply light to medium pressure and watch the insect carcasses lift away from the paint. I’ve used the Doodlebug for a couple of years now and can see no evidence that it’s ever scratched the paint on my GlaStar. I am very careful around plexiglass and the vinyl trim on my airplane, but for the base paint I’ve had zero problems.  

Now if I can just find a miraculously effective belly cleaner.

Resources

• 3M product link
• 3M Technical Data
• Amazon

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They come in two styles, the Alpha and the Sport. According to PCG, “The Pioneer Alpha is a sleek and comfortable ambidextrous grip that’s handcrafted to fit your needs. Choose from a variety of finish options including Natural Walnut, Black Gloss, Carbon Fiber Hydro-Dip or our affordable 3D-manufactured ‘Lite’ version. The Alpha comes standard with your choice of a 2 Way (single axis) or 4 Way (two axis) trim switch as well as three push buttons and a PTT button located on the forward side of the grip.”

The Sport is a slimmer alternative. “The Pioneer Sport is an ambidextrous grip designed with both simplicity and affordability in mind,” according to the company. “It is 3D manufactured from a durable carbon fiber infused nylon. The sport comes standard with a two way trim switch, one push button on top and a PTT button located on the forward side of the grip.”

Prices range from $189 to $479 before customizations but the company is offering a 10% pre-sale discount. The grips are expected to start shipping in July.

See how Pioneer grips are made.

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Having an action camera on your wing can add to the fun of flying. Keeping that camera charged during longer flights so you have something to look at later… not so much.

But Flybreezy, a company based in California, has a new product aimed at making battery charging less of an issue for pilot videographers.

“We took the idea of a Ram Air Turbine and miniaturized it to create a detachable, wind-powered USB charger,” details Flybreezy inventor Steve O’Connor. “It generates 15 watts and can power two GoPro cameras if you’re flying above 64 mph, or a single camera at 55 mph.”

The 3x4x6” device weighs about a pound and can be mounted to an aircraft with just about any commercially available GoPro compatible mount. You can affix it and the camera together or mount it away from the camera(s) and run cables. Type ‘A’ and ‘C’ USB ports are standard.

“We’re planning on a smaller, single camera model in the future, and we may even do something with a 12-volt setup,” added O’Connor.

Pilots who fly aircraft lacking electrical systems can also use the device to charge a phone or tablet. The Flybreezy retails for $145.

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