New Products From Tr ig And Lxnav

NEW PRODUCTS FROM TRIG AND LXNAV From Ross Gaddes, of Sailplane Services Ltd., NZ’s Winter, TRIG and LXNAV representative

This is an exciting, high tech, new product. The V80 has an 80 mm indicator with QVGA 320*240 RGB pixels screen, with 1200cd brightness. It is able to display many fl ight parameters (vario, alt, AS, netto, wind vector, AHRS, compass heading (calculated 20 times per second.))

It has an external SD card (on the front side), for fi rmware update, and data exchange (in case of standalone unit) .

It is compatible with existing LxNav RS485 bus, meaning you can connect it to your LX9000 as an additional indicator. This instrument completes the state of the art panel and represents the very best in modern electronic instrumentation.

The Flarm Mouse is a stand-alone fl arm unit with built in GPS antenna and micro SD card. It also has an IGC fl ight recorder (up to Diamonds). It is designed to have extremely small dimensions (it weighs only 40 g) and low power consumption -typically 30mA. It is compatible with all fl arm indicators (12V). If you are considering the installation of a fl arm into your glider, this tiny unit can fulfi l many purposes in addition to collision avoidance.

The Flarmview shows traffi c information provided by FLARM or ADS-B devices. As a stand-alone instrument, this is the logical companion to the Flarm Mouse. It has a high resolution, sunlight readable, colour screen and is only 9mm thick. It is capable of picking up ADS-B and A/C Mode traffi c and will work with Power Flarm.

There is no doubt in our minds that LXNav are developing as the leader in sailplane instrumentation. These new products are compatible with each other, ensuring that LXNav products fi t with each other when considering up-grades and new installations. They are well made and our experiences so far have proved LXNav to be very pro-active when support has been requested. These new products also show that LXNav are developing and advancing, as more knowledge and better components become available.

Of interest to the glider market is this new radio for aviation use. The new TY91 is a fully certifi ed 25 kHz / 8.33kHz VHF radio. It is a low power, 6 watt model, which is ideal for the majority of GA users. This unit is perfect for light sport, ultra-light, glider and balloon pilots. The Trig TY91 takes up minimal space and weight. A small control head and separate radio hardware unit provides more installation options, especially when space is at a premium. The control head can be conveniently mounted in a full 57mm round hole or even smaller compact mount. Fitting is straightforward, and once installed, the depth of the radio control head is only 74mm. In

TY91 and TY92 Controller and hardware

practice, this means that the Trig TY91 and TY92 control head can be located in an aircraft instrument panel where a ‘single box’ radio simply will not fi t. The TY91 is the perfect com partner to the TT21 and TT22 Mode S (1090 ES ADS-B Out transponders). This VHF radio includes a dual-frequency listen feature; pressing the monitor button toggles this feature on and off.

When the monitor is active, an icon appears next to the standby frequency, and the radio will scan between the active and standby frequencies, listening for transmissions. The primary channel has priority – a transmission on the primary channel will interrupt the secondary channel.

This is useful in an aircraft with only a single radio, since it allows you, for example, to copy the ATIS whilst maintaining a listening watch on the ATC frequency.

We consider this unit as ‘state of the art’ when considering soaring avionics. As with LXNav, the after sales support has been superb, and there have been very few issues with the transponders anyway. The biggest issue so far has been a delay with the release of the radios, mainly because of certifi cation which, not surprisingly, has taken some extra time. These are not a cheap alternative, but the pricing of the TY91 Com is to be compared with Becker and Dittel. We believe the quality (as with the TT21/TT22 transponders) to be at least on a par with their German competitors and offer more features. They are fully certifi ed to EASA (ETSO) and, within days, to FAA (TSO) standards. The units will start to be shipped as soon as some pre-production issues are sorted, so they should be available within weeks.

To sum up, we believe that using Trig for the avionics and LXNav for soaring instrumentation completes the normal traditional panel installation. Winter has long been the popular choice for the mechanical instruments and we see them as market leaders as well. Both Trig and LXNav have informative websites, and with the NZ dollar being strong, this is a good time to consider adding or upgrading, especially fl arm for Omarama, and eventually the North Island.