Avionics News July 2017 - 35
Photos by Frank Noelle ABOVE: Marcia Noelle, her Cessna 182, and the canine breed that solved a problem with the paint. OPPOSITE PAGE: To the panel of their 1974 Cessna 182, the Noelles added an Avidyne IFD540, AXP340 and, unseen, an MLB100. Above the 540 is the FreeFlight Ranger ADS-B unit, which wirelessly connects to an Android tablet. A handheld Lowrance GPS drove the RMS FlightSoft moving map on a laptop computer that Frank, who is not a pilot, operated on their flights. When Lowrance stopped updating the database, it was time to act on the future, to meet the ADS-B mandate and the eventual reality every owner faces, selling the airplane. "What would happen to the selling price if the prospective buyer needed to install several thousand dollars of new avionics?" Marcia wondered. At Oshkosh, the Noelles started their shopping trip by attending an informational seminar on ADS-B, which is where they learned about the Aircraft Electronics Association's $1,000 ADS-B upgrade drawing. "We skipped out of the presentation a few minutes early and hightailed to the AEA booth in hangar B before the exhibit halls closed" and filled out the entry card, Marcia remembered. "On the last day, we got a call that we'd won the last drawing. It helped, and it was greatly appreciated." But this was "the short story," Marcia said. They went shopping for an ADS-B system with specific goals in mind. "We're both retired IT people, and we value continued support of products," she said. She became a pilot two decades ago to make better use of her time as a software consultant for manufacturers of semiconductors. Living in Porterville, California, "I was commuting 200 miles (one way) to Santa Barbara." That changed when she picked up a man who flew his plane to Porterville to examine the pipe organ at the church the Noelle's attended. "Hmm. Porterville has an airport; Santa Barbara has an airport; I should learn to fly," Marcia recalled. By the time she'd returned from her next trip to Santa Barbara, Frank had an instructor lined up. Shortly after earning her private ticket, she bought her Cessna, which sports a unique Dalmatian paint scheme, and not just because they are, as Marcia said, "into Dalmatian dogs." The black vinyl spots cover areas where the paint didn't stick when the airplane was refinished several years ago. With the dogs and their airplane, the Noelles live at the Independence, Oregon, airpark southwest of Salem. There she's seriously involved with the EAA, its Young Eagles program, the Oregon Pilots Association and has, for the past several years, led the airpark's annual EAA fly-in. At Oshkosh, after attending the avionics seminar on ADS-B and winning the $1,000 drawing at the AEA's booth, the Noelles sought out the avionics manufacturers in the exhibit hangars and began their conversations by asking each of them about their policies on continued support of their products. A number of manufacturers answered their questions with blank Continued on following page avionics news * july 2017 35
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