The EIS 4000 Engine Information System can output engine data on a serial port in a format that can be recorded by a PC. So I figured I would probably hook that up to record engine data. Recently I bought a Dynon D-10 EFIS, and when I read the Pilot's User Guide, and I learned that it too can output serial data: time, pitch attitude, bank angle, heading, airspeed, altitude, turn rate, lateral and vertical g and angle of attack (if you have the optional angle of attack sensor). I did a bit of research, and it looks like there are fairly cheap add-ons I can buy to allow a laptop to record data from two serial ports.

This evening I managed to record some data from the Dynon EFIS using a laptop computer, so I know it works OK. The data imported into a spreadsheet without too much difficulty, once I figured out that the first line in the data file was corrupt, as it started recording in the middle of a data set. I deleted the first line in a text editor, and the spreadsheet ate it right up. For details on baud rates, etc needed to get the terminal program set up properly, see an earlier posting.

I just realized that the Garmin GNS-430 can put out serial data that a laptop should be able to record too, if I want position, GPS altitude and velocity. I'll be able to swamp the Flight Test Engineers at work with data!

Now I just need to figure out how to record three serial data streams. And the real tricky part will be figuring out how to do a time sync on them, i.e. figure out which record in one data stream occurred at the same time as a record in another data stream.