Tentatively helpful Dynon Skyview feature

While discussing emergency procedures on my EAA 1114 list server, it came to my mind that Dynon could offer a very attractive (not to say life saving) feature on Skyview. Here it is: in case of emergency it would be very helpful to have a one button feature allowing to push the 7700 into the transponder and the 121.5 into the radio. It could be secured by requiring a confirmation to avoid errors but I think that in case of emergency, particularly if the pilot is late declaring it, this could be indeed life saving.
I should have shared this on Dynon's web site but I know that our friends at Dynon are watching us here too (plus VAF is my preferred sharing place!).

ELT trigger is already on panel

SL40 already has the EC button available. I guess its a tradeoff between convenience vs. risk of accidental triggering of a 7700 broadcast. I'm comfortable navigating around the Skyview menus but occasionally hit the wrong button, which is easy to reverse in most cases. If I inadvertently hit the "7700 button", I guess a group of controllers would be given a quick wakeup call. Would then need to get on the radio if I wasn't already, find the local frequency and explain the error. I wonder how often that would happen if Dynon offered this option.

The ELT button is there for emergencies and my hands generally stay away from that place on the panel (fortunately!).

PilotBrent said:

SL40 already has the EC button available. I guess its a tradeoff between convenience vs. risk of accidental triggering of a 7700 broadcast. I'm comfortable navigating around the Skyview menus but occasionally hit the wrong button, which is easy to reverse in most cases. If I inadvertently hit the "7700 button", I guess a group of controllers would be given a quick wakeup call. Would then need to get on the radio if I wasn't already, find the local frequency and explain the error. I wonder how often that would happen if Dynon offered this option.

The ELT button is there for emergencies and my hands generally stay away from that place on the panel (fortunately!).

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With all due respect, I do not see this as a trade off. Except in catastrophic situations, most pilots are reluctant to call an emergency for the very reasons you mentioned until it's clear they are in one. At this point it may be too late to push buttons to enter 7700 and 121.5 as there is one more important thing left to do: fly the airplane for an imminent off airport landing. Even if the pilot has no time to establish communication by radio, the transponder may provide valuable information about the location of the landing (or crash) site. This information may be even more valuable for VFR flights not under flight plan or flight following. In my opinion the risk of misuse of emergency carries little weight against this scenario, particularly if the implementation of the feature includes safeguards.

Obviously would agree that priority in these situations is to fly first. My understanding is that the 406MHz ELT is more accurate to find a downed aircraft than the last transponder signal. And once ATC has our ADS-B signals on their screens (apparently they are starting to be added and they continuously ping 1/s) then I'm not sure that squawking 7700 adds much more. Admittedly that could be a few years away.

Dynon has been great at adding features to Skyview - if they add this 7700 button it would be an interesting test. That's why its called experimental I guess.

Read the AIM and you will see that you are not supposed to squawk 7700 if you are already talking to ATC, even if you were 1200 before. It will cause them to lose you if they already knew where you were. Also, 121.5 is wrong if you were talking to someone.

Thus, you have an emergency button that does the wrong thing as often as the right, and if it's labeled emergency, people will press it without thinking and we might harm the situation.

So, we've actually discussed this at Dynon before and it didn't seem right.

Not a great idea. Such a button has to be "somewhere" in the menu structure. You will use it maybe once or less in your entire flying career. Will you remember where that function is, compared to in EVERY flight adjusting your frequencies and usually your transponder?

Also it pushes a frequency to the standby frequency, not the active. Still have another step.

All in all... meh. There are dozens of more useful items for Dynon to work on. Like the 5% EMS Screen!!! Dynon, I'm coming back to your forum and push that again!!! see page 2 of this thread... http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=111857

Jordan1976 said:

Read the AIM and you will see that you are not supposed to squawk 7700 if you are already talking to ATC, even if you were 1200 before. It will cause them to lose you if they already knew where you were. Also, 121.5 is wrong if you were talking to someone.

Thus, you have an emergency button that does the wrong thing as often as the right, and if it's labeled emergency, people will press it without thinking and we might harm the situation.

So, we've actually discussed this at Dynon before and it didn't seem right.

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If I am in an emergency while talking to ATC it does not make sense to push this button, period. I don't see any problem here. As for triggering an emergency by mistake, it's easy to take care with warnings: ever tried to delete a file in windows?

Bill_H said:

Not a great idea. Such a button has to be "somewhere" in the menu structure. You will use it maybe once or less in your entire flying career.

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Thank you for the compliment, Bill ! But try to put yourself in the shoes of the occasional or low time pilot. An event that happens once in your life of flying must be quite stressing, particularly if you are short of time. I do not believe that in this case I would care about fiddling with my radio and/or with my transponder to enter the right codes to signal my emergency but I think that I would be able to push 3 buttons: emergency, confirm emergency (same button) and switch 121.5 to active. This is a no-brainer!
With all due respect, I do feel it's a good (if not great) idea!

Bill_H said:

All in all... meh. There are dozens of more useful items for Dynon to work on. Like the 5% EMS Screen!!! Dynon, I'm coming back to your forum and push that again!!! see page 2 of this thread... http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=111857

Click to expand...

I'm a lot time pilot and I agree with Bill on both accounts. An airplane "air" accident takes a fairly long time to develop, unlike a car or motorcycle accident. Short of a raging fire in the cockpit in which 7700 is the last thing on my mind, you have the time to dial freqs and transponder codes.

But 5% EMS, especially on the six pack presentation, yeah way higher on my list of Dynon nirvana.

The Skyview has an optional feature called "External LEVEL Button". This feature is also available within the Skyview menu. I think it would look cool to have a big red button on the panel labeled, "PANIC BUTTON" or "EMERGENCY WING LEVEL". If the pilot becomes disorientated while flying at night or in instruments conditions, he can push that button. Or if the pilot becomes incapacitated, the passenger can push the button before calling for help on the radio. Wiring the button is simple. A momentary-normally-open switch is connected between ground and pin 28 of the SkyView display.

I've been flying GA for 30 years and only had to use the "special squawks" once. My alternator gave out, and as my displays died I shutdown everything except the transponder and one comm before squawking 7600 as I came into a satellite airport under class B airspace. The battery was too weak to transmit. Got the green light (good because that's the only one I remembered) and landed. I went to the tower with some trepidation only to find they loved the diversion from routine. The only comment was "when you rolled through 7500 on the way to 7600 you got everybody's attention".