ShawnM

You're very welcome and glad to help. The 660 is awesome.

Again, welcome to the forum. There is a lot of valuable info here that you won't find anywhere else on our planes. If you ever have a question it can be answered here in this forum. 

What year is your SportCruiser? Hours?

Mine is a 2007 with just over 800 hours.

I know many people fly with a tablet these days with Foreflight or Garmin Pilot, I do have an iPad mini with foreflight. With the 660 and an ADS-B receiver or ADS-B in/out you won't need a tablet unless you just want a larger screen.

I like a sterile cockpit and the fewer the gadgets for distraction the better. I do always have my iPhone and iPad in the plane as backup but they are stowed away as a "backup" only.

Welcome Wmlnce.

A couple of reasons.....

• I love Garmin equipment (maybe this does not really count)
• Mainly it's the easiest way to upgrade, it's a direct swap, bolt for bolt, for the 396/496 unit. No modifications are needed to mount it in the instrument panel. The Airgizmos are the exact same size when mounting them in the panel.
• My instrument panels are shorter than the newer 2010 and up planes. Our panel real estate is limited and we cannot install the 796 as it's too big.(unless you want to spend tens of thousands of dollars and upgrade your instrument panel to the current panel size).
• It's designed to go hand in hand with the new GTX-345 all in one transponder/ADS-B unit, the manual has a section on wiring the two units together. 
• The 660 is a 796 in a smaller footprint and has some newer features.
• For the physical size of the unit the screen is HUGE compared to our 396/496
• It'll display all the ADS-B and weather from compatible equipment, GDL-39, Stratus, the DIY version of ADS-B and many others
• it's lighter, smaller, faster, brighter, uses less power.......

I could go on and on about the 660 but to sum it up the main reason is because there is no physical modification needed to the aircraft. This is probably the easiest LOA that CSA will have to approve. There's nothing else to mount, no cutting or drilling required and the wiring is wire for wire with the addition of 1 serial I/O line on the new 660. It has 2 serial I/O lines whereas the 396/496 only has one. And it's wireless to stream data to other Garmin products, like the GTX-345, and your ipad or tablet of choice.

Hope this helps, if you need more specific info please let me know. I have a ton of data I gathered for this LOA request. 

It is my understanding that there is also a request in from US Sport for the Garmin GTX-345 all in one transponder/ADS-B unit. This is to help the older fleet comply with the 2020 mandate for ADS-B out. My Aera 660 request goes hand in hand with the GTX-345 request as the older Garmin GPSMAP's 396/496/696 will not display ADS-B info from the newer Garmin ADS-B equipment. The technology for the older GPSMAP's is just that, old and outdated. 

Maybe Patrick can update the group on this request.

I have a LOA request in for the installation of the Garmin Aera 660 gps to replace the now discontinued Garmin GPSMAP 396 that came in the early aircraft. This is a direct swap with no physical modification to the aircraft or any additional equipment at all.

I submitted all requested documentation and then some to US Sport on August 15th, 2016 and Patrick forwarded it to CSA according to his email to me on the 17th. I do not know the exact day Patrick submitted it to CSA. I followed up just over a month later and Patrick's response was "still no word from the factory. I have sent several emails back and forth. I have also forwarded your comments. I hope to have a resolution shortly."

Tomorrow is my second scheduled follow up with Patrick. I have a reminder on my calendar to contact Patrick monthly for any updates or if CSA is requiring any more data or information. I'll report back here as to what I learn each follow up.

That list is for general "improvements" to the overall aircraft. Access to "timely" LOA for Dynon AOA install is top on the list. The LOA has nothing to do with performance. The rest are suggestions for other improvements. 

Number 2 ???  Frankly, I dont understand why someone would knowingly buy a LSA with a 100HP motor and then complain about it's performance.    I love my plane!

And plangley is right, you can't have your cake and eat it too. 

I recalibrated my EMS-120 fuel level senders because I thought they were never accurate. I still dont think they are accurate.

When the tanks were empty I put an exact known quantity of fuel in my tanks. I have four 5 gallon fuel tanks and I added exactly 20 gallons of fuel and then set the fuel computer to 20 gallons. After every fuel addition the Dynon knows I added fuel and asks me how much I added. This is a setting that you have to turn on if you want this reminder. If I tell it exactly how much fuel I added each time it's always dead on for the amount of fuel on board in the tanks regardless of what the fuel gauges read. I preflight with my homemade dip stick to double check but the fuel computer is always right as to the total amount of fuel on board.

I never press the "full" button. Actually I can't remember the last time I ever topped it off.

I use the fuel computer and my dipstick more than I use the fuel gauges. The fuel computer always knows the total amount of fuel on board and the flow, it hasn't let me down yet.

I also think like Ronin, I dont like it when I have less than 5 per side.

Thanks Dave for the results. We can only hope these suggested improvements do not fall upon deaf ears. Please be sure you translate this into Czech before presenting it to the factory. We dont want there to be any chance of "lost in translation". 

I'm a bit surprised by the 2nd most wanted item, didn't people know they were buying a "light sport" and not a Mooney?  Sorry had to poke fun at that one.

$800? Not in this lifetime. I dont have them and dont think they would be of any use for me given how my left arm rests in my lap while I'm flying. My LAP was free as it was "standard equipment" on my person and it didn't cost anything. 

I just spent that "arm rest" money a second Zulu 2 headset for my non-pilot passengers and I know I'll get way more use out of it. 

I can see you put a lot of time into this printed version but I think it would have been easier for you to do this as a "poll" so we could all answer online and see real time answers.

Just a suggestion.....

To remedy number 4 just swap out the slotted dzus heads with the winged version. No screwdriver needed.

When they are locked the wing on the dzus is inline with the wind and they will now double as vortex generators. 

To remedy number 3, the newer planes have a warning light when the canopy is unlatched. I bought the brackets from CSA to add this to my plane. There is a blinking LED to let you know it's not latched. Really hard to miss.  

"Cost-effective pathway" now that's funny! 

I have a size 10 flip flop that I'll use for a canopy breaker in the event it's needed.  Let's hope I NEVER have to use it !!!

Yes Merlinspop, a hammer or the rescue workers fire axe will suffice for the task at hand. 

Musicman, my "instrument light" switch turns on the back lighting in my analog airspeed gauge, my radio and my transponder.

Merlinspop, the "J" feature you suggested wouldn't work. There would be no way to open the canopy from the outside by rescue workers if you crash and are unconscious. The strap/snap idea might work.

AOA, I couldn't agree more. I started my training in a Remos G3 with AOA and it was a very nice feature to have.

Good luck on your search/purchase.

How do you improve on perfection?

All joking aside, I agree with you, the Dynon AOA is my number 1 improvement suggestion to CSA . It simply does not make any sense that we already have all the necessary hardware/software built in to the Dynon to monitor this but they dont include the Dynon AOA pitot tube. It's been proven by the FAA to be safer and there are numerous studies and white papers out there to back this up.

As an owner of an older aircraft I (and others with older aircraft) benefit from all the improvements already in the newer planes. We can simply upgrade to the newer avionics and not have to worry about LOA and paperwork. The factory has already approved the new "bling" and we can just upgrade. This summer I have a plan to upgrade all my avionics to newer and add ADS-B as well.

Yes, thanks for everything Dave, I also really appreciated this forum and please look me up when you get to Florida.

There are several of us here who I'm sure would like to meet up with you. Ocala (KOCF) is a short flight for several of us.

Shawn

Dave,

I know the site is free, I was proposing exactly what lsav8tor stated, setting up a paypal account for donations and/or annual fees to offset the monthly cost of the account. Everyone here benefits so I only assume that everyone would donate to the cause. Since you have a successor then no worries.

I too applaud you Dave for what you have done over the past two years. A big thanks for this forum and the work you put into it.

I'd be interested in partial admin responsibilities and would love to share the responsibility with anyone who'd like to help. I could dive in when Dave is finished as I also am in the process of moving from north Florida down to Tampa. I also think that no one person should bear the costs associated with this site since we ALL benefit from it. I'd propose a annual fee for those who want to take part in the site. I know we can all spare $5-10 a year or enough to keep the site running. Any thoughts?

Dave, what is the $20 a month for? Hosting? If so, that's expensive for hosting. I use Godaddy for hosting all my sites and it's $8 a month. Maybe US Sport could pitch in as well. Patrick?

If it's just for hosting then we could even charge a lower annual fee for membership. This site contains a lot of valuable info for our plane.

Any thoughts from others?

Thanks Angus, good dog!