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Really good discussion of 'real world' factors on
aircraft turbocharging for the past few days.
Rusty's brief comment about fuel burn on boost is
especially relevant. I get frequent inquiries about reliability when
running 'conservative' manifold pressures of 30 - 40" Hg at cruise.
The engine would probably tollerate this but the ignored factor is
fuel burn. A standard RV-3 (with the original internal fuel tank) would
have less than 1 hour endurance when running at 40" MAP.
At max power my RV-4 only has a 1.5 hour endurance at sea
level (30" MAP) and I don't have a turbo!.
This is not an argument against turbos, in fact I
may soon have 'turbo envy' when these guys get them
operational. There are reasons why a turbo can be a good thing, just be
sure you know what they are.
But the real reason for this post is to get an
idea of what size EM2 display would have the highest demand. I'm
ordering the parts for the first production batch next week and software
development is 99% complete.
The EM2 will be available in two different sizes
but both have all the same other features. The large format has
a panel cutout width the same size as a standard radio stack
(6.2") with mounting flange out to 6.5". Total heigth is
2.875" with a cutout heigth of 2.5".
There are a lot of planes already out there with
very little panel space left so the smaller version would suit them
better. The EM2-S measures 4.7" wide x 2.55" tall with a panel cutout
window of about 3.5" x 2".The price for the smaller format is slightly lower but
not enough to make that a big factor.
So, the question is, which would most pilots
want? Any answer or guess is welcome.
Thanks to all for the encouragement (&
patience!) on this project.
Tracy
PS:
For an example of what took so long, I just
spent a week programming & optimizing the damping factor for
altimeter & VSI functions. Stuff like this didn't even occure to me
when I started. I saw the need when static port pressure burbles due to
turbulent airflow, wind gusts, etc would send these readings all over the
place.
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