Adventures of 83LJ

[jjbardell]

First night flight complete preceded by a great flight over downtown Chicago and dinner at my favorite fly-in, Pilot Pete's. Kids at the table next to us loved the Sonex so we went to the ramp for a little 'ramp' flying. They loved it almost as much as the grandparents they were with. Hats off to the Chicago APP controllers last night for keeping an extra set of eyes on me since ORD Rwy 9R/9L were in use.

[jjbardell]

What a view.

[Bryan Cotton]

Very cool Josh!

[vwglenn]

Sweet. How do you like the Discovery Lite?

[jjbardell]

It's good overall. But I have my complaints with it. The AHRS has a tendency to wander off, which can be quite startling when the autopilot is engaged. The unit paired with a t22 remote transponder is suppose to be ads-b complaint; which as of now it is now. It's causing errors and the FAA wants me to fix it. Matt is supposedly working on it.

If I did it all over again I would have spent the extra $3k and got the Garmin G3x.

[DCASonex]

It's good overall. But I have my complaints with it. The AHRS has a tendency to wander off, which can be quite startling when the autopilot is engaged. The unit paired with a t22 remote transponder is suppose to be ads-b complaint; which as of now it is now. It's causing errors and the FAA wants me to fix it. Matt is supposedly working on it.

If I did it all over again I would have spent the extra $3k and got the Garmin G3x.

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Was looking to upgrade my bird to ADS-B out, but your problem with that and recent article in June issue of AOPA magazine -- News and Notes: Legally Speaking, Unwanted Attention, - Page 106, that points out that once it is installed, forgetting to turn it on, even if flying in areas where no transponder is required, is a violation, has convinced me not to upgrade until 2020, if then.

David A. Sonex TD

[kevinh]

The unit paired with a t22 remote transponder is suppose to be ads-b complaint; which as of now it is now. It's causing errors and the FAA wants me to fix it. Matt is supposedly working on it.

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? When the time comes I was leaning towards a T22...

[jjbardell]

Yes, the EFIS is suppose to send the WAAS GPS coordinates to the Trig, and together they send NIC and SIL codes out, which is part of the ADS-B information.

As of right now, MGL has not gotten their EFIS Lite to send the information properly to the Trig. According to MGL, they are working with Trig and are expected to have a firmware update in the coming months. Luckily, we have plenty of time still, but it is frustrating that it wasn't until I reached out to Matt informing him of a urgent letter from the FAA that they realized the issue.

Living under O'hare airspace (Class B) and transmitting error codes got attention rather quickly. They are letting me continue to fly in the area, but check in on me regularly. I receive detailed reports of every flight from the FAA.

What was worse, was that I was unaware I had to change my ICAO code from the package I ordered. MGL has the default code set to a sequence of numbers which reported out as a Russian Military Aircraft. Needless to say, I received a personal phone call right after I landed on my first flight. lol. Definitely not a good default code to have in their system and the FAA was not pleased.

[kevinh]

Thanks for that - bummer! I'll check in with them again before I order.

[vwglenn]

Good info. I have an Enigma in my plane. I think it works well as an engine monitor and some of the other features but I'm not pleased with it for navigation. The GPS interface is clunky and not very intuitive. I figured the Lite would be an improvement with the bigger screen and higher resolution. Plus I already have a RDAC/compass/GPS ant.

I need to play with one though. Hope MGL has a booth again at OSH.