Yeah, Yeah, it’s been forever since I’ve posted. I’ve been super-busy though… really! As some of you may know, I decided to give the Glastar, affectionately known as “Whistler” a brain upgrade. My experience with my Blue Mountain Avionics EFIS was – how should I put this delicately.. “mixed”. I can’t be too harsh on the BMA folks though. They’re a smart bunch and they’ve been helpful despite being shuttered as a business for over a year now. They were definitely fast movers in the market but I don’t think their cost structure was able to keep up with the market. That’s just a guess though – no insider information! 
So I’ve wanted to put an autopilot into Whistler for quite a while now. When I started shopping, I was zeroing in on the Trio Pro Pilot. It looks like a solid unit and it’s gotten good reviews. One problem though, the price tag. For about $600 bucks more, I was able to take advantage of the Dynon BMA trade-in program and get the Dynon SkyView plus auto pilot. GOOD DECISION! The electronics were easy enough to install. The mechanical servos, we’ll that’s another story and probably another post. Suffice to say that it was TOUGH! I’m happy to report though that the SV sytem has been working flawlessly and after a bit of tweaking, the autopilot is working just great after initially wanting to aggressively bank to capture a track and then “hunting” back and forth to try to stay on course.
The following short clip has also been keeping me busy. I came up with this business idea (sky-gadgets.com) to mix great video footage with product demonstrations and tutorials to form a little online business. Trouble is that I have no idea how to video tape much less edit so off I go to get some practice. I bought a small “lipstick” camera that I mounted on the Glastar’s cage and a copy of Final Cut Express. What follows is a piece of footage that I edited together from along continuous shot filmed from Suffolk, Virginia (SFQ) to my home base in Chesterfield (FCI)
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Boy, glad you did away with our scintillating conversation!
One of the best things about the flight was the 66F OAT.
Dee
Neat!! Thanks for letting me go along on that flight with you.
Should have kept the conversation track. I don’t see Peter’s lips moving, so I must assume he couldn’t get a word in. Let’s see Suffolk to Chesterfield in 4:54, that’s about 400kts. Not bad.
Hey! I’m building a Cozy IV at SFQ, Hangar D10. I would love to see your system in person.
HI ,
Do you have a BMA autopilot for sale?
I need a both of servos, controller and the cables.
Tks,
Rubens