A 1978 PIPER Arrow piston single, reconditioned by the US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) as a showcase for avionics and other upgrades, will be displayed at the US Experimental Aircraft Association's Oshkosh, Wisconsin, fly-in, beginning on 28 July.
The "Ultimate Arrow" has an Arnav Systems MFD 5200 multi-function display (MFD) which provides engine-monitoring and crew-alerting functions as well as recording engine and system parameters for trend analysis. The system includes a datalink receiver which allows ground-based weather-radar images to be displayed on the MFD. The display also presents a moving map, linked to a global-positioning system (GPS) and navigation database, and will sound an alarm when GPS altitude is too low compared with terrain stored in the database.
Other avionics installed in the aircraft include an Insight Strike-Finder lightning detector, Shadin fuel computer, Electronics Inter-national altitude alerter, S-Tec autopilot and AlliedSignal Bendix/ King avionics, including a KLN-98B approach-certificated GPS.
Performance improvements include a new LoPresti Speed Merchants' cowling, and Knots 2U wing-root fairings to boost cruise speed. Anew Hartzell three-blade propeller reduces the noise and vibration of the reconditioned Textron Lycoming IO-360 engine, AOPA says.
Source: Flight International
