Here’s a somewhat belated update on VH-POM.
I visited Murwillumbah on the 5th – 7th of June to have a look over the plane post-flight, do some initial maintenance, and talk to the avionics engineer about what needs to be done. They’d recently had a lot of rain, which resulted in people kite-surfing on the end of the runway…
VH-POM was there as expected:
Exterior looks fine, although the paint is pretty bad in places:
Generally the white paint seems pretty good; it’s the maroon that’s taken a beating.
First thing to do was to get a listing of the avionics that’s actually in there. This is:
Bendix-King KY-97A VHF radio – the standard VHF radio for light aircraft.
Collins VHF-251 VHF radio – was probably the standard VHF radio forty years ago, when it was reasonably modern (the only information I’ve found on this comes from an advertising brochure dated 1971)
Codan HF2000 HF radio – a decent HF radio, used when out of VHF range
Garmin GPS155 – a very old (as far as GPS goes) TSO C129 GPS. This means that it’s adequate for almost everything, except driving a new transponder.
Narco NAV-121 – a nice VHF Omnidirectional Ranging (VOR) receiver (aka “NAV”). Unfortunately a Airservices Australia has recently shut down most of the VOR transmitters. There are still a couple near big airpots (eg. Canberra has one) but they’re definitely fairly rare. Nice in that it all fits into a standard instrument slot, whereas many NAVs use two slots.
Narco NAV-122 – like the NAV-121, but it provides glideslope and marker beacon support as well.
Narco ADF-141 – a pretty ancient Automatic Direction Finder (ADF), but if it works it’ll do the job. Airservices shut down most of the NDBs (beacons that the ADF receives), but the ADF has an advantage over VORs because it can also receive (and navigate using) AM radio stations.
Bendix-King KN-62A – a nice example of a Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) transmitter/receiver. DMEs are in the same category as NDBs and VORs (ie largely obsolete), but there are still a couple around and it’ll be worth hanging onto this. Doesn’t currently work, so it’s been removed for repairs.
Narco AT-150 – an old transponder. Needs to be updated to meet the new rules (due February 2017).
Bendix-King RDR-160 – weather radar. This plane has it mounted off-centre in the nose, and it does not seem to work very well – I’m unsure whether it’s actually broken or just not set up right.
Stec System 50 autopilot – at least one thing in this plane is not obsolete! Still old, but autopilot technology hasn’t really come a long way since this was new. Word from the previous owner is that it doesn’t like the rain and only works when dry. Initial testing suggests that the servos are not engaging.
The plan is to keep what I can for now, and look at doing a significant panel update in the relatively near future. In particular, to remain IFR-compliant I need to install a Mode S transponder and a suitable (modern) GPS receiver.