Does anyone know anything about the Flightline tranceiver that Aircraft Spruce sells?? It's a Flightline FL-760, for less than $700 with a built in intercom apparently. I like that it fits in a 2.25 inch panel hole, is light, has intercom, and especially, is relatively cheap. But, sometimes cheap also means cheap.. ha ha..

I bought one for the midget mustang project, but it hasn't flown yet. When I set it up on the bench at work it sounds good. intercom and aux audio inputs all sound fine, the intercomm and aux audio mute when the squelch opens, etc. everything about it seems fine on the bench, but they all work on the bench. They appear to be very popular with sailplanes, probabally because of the low current so they can run off of a battery.

Joe:

I am not happy with mine. I had to return the first one and they sent me another. People tell me that I am hard to understand on it. I don't think they work well in a plane that has a lot of noise.

Tim

I have one in my Experimental PA18 it works quite well. I did not use the intercom function, elected to use one from PS Engineering. I am impressed with how far out it can receive an ATIS, further than any of my others. Perhaps it is the antenna with large ground plane? I have also been told it is very clear when transmitting. It does not have a flip/flop feature. Sold through EDMO in Spokane WA talk with Chuck if interested in more info. Very easy to install.

People tell me that I am hard to understand on it.

Check your mic. First make sure you have it positioned right, next to your mouth, but also check the bias control on the mic. Most are adjustable with a jeweler's screwdriver, and it can make a super huge difference. It's really rare for a radio to transmit garbled, but it's really common for garbled transmissions to be caused by the mic itself. On the other hand, if you have a poor antenna connection or poor ground for the antenna, you can easily have a weak transmission--but it should still be relatively clear for short distances, so if you're "hard to understand", it's much more likely to be your mic.

Cary

I flew in a LS Savannah that was equipped with a Flightline. It seemed to be a great little unit, easy to use with good reception.

Hey guys.... I've installed one in my Auster, quite impressed so far. The auster is VERY noisy but the FL-760 copes well, intercom is great and coms are fine. I get a little ignition noise but have unshielded leads and plugs. I'm running the com and txpdr off a 7ah battery. Cheers!

There's several very small radios that fit an instrument hole. Microair, Flightline, Xcom, Becker. Becker was probably the first but they're kinda spendy, Microair was the first inexpensive one to catch my eye followed by the others listed. I know a cople guys who bought Microairs- they seemed to work OK but I think maybe had limited power & therefore limited range. One buddy had a Microair go sour on him & he had to send it back to Australia for warranty repair, that was a PITA.

These small radios enjoy widespread use in gliders, where panel space is at a premium. Microair has had a spotty track record in terms of reliability - - with most of those spots being negative. Becker has been excellent in both performance and reliability, though it's pricey - - Becker's user interface for anthing other than volume and changing channels is non-intuitive, so keep the manual in a safe place. I have Becker stuff in my glider.

Flightline is getting good reviews with some enthusiastic owners. It's too new to have a long track record, but results so far are good. Unfortunately, it's not TSO'd.

The sole reason I went with the Flightline was cost, nearly NZD1k cheaper than anything else equivalent and the Edmo guys have had good in service reports. The units are actually made in Japan if that means anything..? Only downside as mentioned is non-TSO'd

Wow... Awesome little radio.. Receives great.. Intercom is very cool, you can program it to work with a push to talk button, so no noise with windows open and no chopping words. Turns on runway lights, but haven't talked to anyone yet, but am very happy so far.. Got it from Zane at a Great price..

Will that intercom feature also work as a voice-activated? PTT's are kind of a pain. I flew in an experimental Swearingon which along with all the other buttons on the stick had a dual-function PTT-- one click activated the intercom, the other the radio. The owner was always getting them mixed up, as in "hey look at mountain" to ATC & reading back clearances to the passenger.

Yea, never tried it but it will. It also will scan up to 32 programmed frequencies going back to the priority between scans. I sure like it so far.

You can program vox or ptt intercom. The vox works very well, has 3 levels of sensitivity. Like I said above, the Auster is probably one of the noisiest aircraft I've flown in and the vox intercom works very well. So far I can't fault the radio and would definitely recommend it on $$ alone

A friend of mine who's building an exp PA11 just showed me his new com radio yerterday, an MGL Avionics V10. 3.25" round x 2.2" deep, it'll be mounted up in the LH wing root. Built-in intercom, flip-flop, touch tuning.

Coyote Ugly wrote:Yea, never tried it but it will. It also will scan up to 32 programmed frequencies going back to the priority between scans. I sure like it so far.

Who you talkin' to out there?

Gump

I for one do not need 32 programmed frequencies to talk to the voices in my head. Oops, excuse me, this is aviation-- that's VOX in my head.

Have a Flightline in my Champ and have a challenge. 1 headset works great, nice and quite. Plug in the co-pilot set and I get more static than I like.
Checked all the grounds
Cleaned battery terminal
checked antenna
used different headsets
checked the jacks
.....................................puzzled......wish I was smarter

Had a problem like that too.. It was a headset.

Had a problem like that too...unplugged the hand microphone, fixed it