Digital Horizon now standard equipment in Air Tractor aircraft

Air Tractor President Jim Hirsch announced that the RC Allen RCA2600-3 Digital Horizon has replaced the turn coordinator as standard equipment in all new Air Tractor aircraft deliveries since April 1, 2015. "Some of our customers are travelling long distances to spraying jobs, sometimes travelling across several states to work. Having this digital attitude indicator among the flight instruments adds an extra margin of safety should adverse weather conditions arise during these cross-country flights." Because of the lightweight, compact design of the RCA2600-3 attitude indicator, it can be installed in instrument panels that otherwise could not fit a mechanical attitude gyro, such as with the Air Tractor AT-402B.

With no moving parts and nothing to overhaul, the 3-inch, all-digital RCA2600-3 attitude indicator is ideally suited for ag flying operations. Its bright, high-resolution color LCD display with a 15-frame-per-second refresh rate presents attitude data as the familiar gyro-mechanical ball horizon. The RCA-2600-3 functions in 360 degrees of pitch and roll, with immediate attitude response during row end turns and other fast, acute attitude aerial application maneuvers.

The digital horizon provides 20 of degrees pitch up on the pitch dial and 30 degrees of pitch down. A fixed roll pointer references the roll dial about the roll axis. There is also a pitch sync feature, which allows pilots to instantly synchronize the airplane symbol to the horizon line when flying in a pitch up or pitch down attitude.

"An initial supply of units were offered for retrofit into existing aircraft at the 2014 National Agricultural Aviation Association Convention. Since that time, we've received good reports on it. Pilots are telling us that they like having this digital horizon because it's simple, uncluttered and easy to read. Plus, it responds much like a traditional gyro horizon," reports Jim Hirsch.