How are other owners and pilots providing backup capabilities for primary attitude control, navigation, and communications, in the event of instrument or avionics failures, vacuum loss, or power loss?
Editor:
The later hand-held Garmins have a Primary Panel page for backup use. Based on the sensitivity I have seen during experimentation, I am satisfied that it would provide a safe way to control the plane in an emergency. I don’t know how they do it without solid-state rate sensors, but even the Turn Coordinator representation works remarkably well. If you are running off ship’s power, you just need to have fresh batteries in the unit when punching out in the soup, and you’ll have backup for everything but complete loss of GPS signal.
Our 196 is mounted on a small bracket that is Adel-clamped to the left windshield brace, at the corner of the glareshield. There is ship’s power right in that corner of the panel (on both sides). The 196 integral antenna picks up fine in this location; as well as the panel mount roof-top antenna. This prevents the wiring clutter, while putting the primary panel page right in the pilot’s scan, should it be needed. Of course, if anyone got an extra 396 for Christmas that they want to send me, it may fit that same bracket….
We have the SVS system to guard against vacuum loss, so that we don’t lose vacuum too if the electrics go south.
We will soon have the Sporty’s electric AI to replace the TC, so we will have redundant AI capability. If one AI dies, we will have cross-check capability with the DG, the 106 GPS Primary Panel page, and the other AI (plus the remaining verification instruments for heading and pitch changes).
We keep a BatteryMINDer connected to the ship’s battery whenever we aren’t flying or parked away from home. That means that our battery is not only fully charged all the time, it is also being kept de-sulphated all the time, so we don’t have an age-related loss of capacity. It always passes the new battery load test.
Despite the full battery, we carry a compact back-up battery pack that is electronically regulated to limit the max current flow, and is designed to be plugged into the lighter socket. I have personally cranked a 351W V8 with this model battery pack, and it spun the starter faster than a standard battery. This pack is kept connected to the charger setup along with the ship’s battery, so it is always fully charged. It is kept within reach during flight ops, to ensure that we have an additional battery supply “just in case”. It can operate the main panel gear (within obvious amperage limits), or the handheld VHF-VOR Comm, and the Garmin 196, can be plugged into the pack for standalone backup.
The VOR in the handheld offers some navigation backup should the GPS signal disappear for an extended time, AND we lose the panel-mount VOR capability due to total loss of electrics. Then there is always that vertical card compass on the glareshield. And if all this stuff craps out at once, and it isn’t from a smoking hole, I sure hope I can see outside or there probably WILL be a smoking hole.
This all just represents a more or less conventional approach to layered backup for attitude control, comm, and nav. Those folks who have been using the more sophisticated equipment (laptops, PDAs, etc.) will have to elaborate on how they are gaining and layering backup for these three needs.