Brief Description: Gretz GA-1000 Heated Pitot Installation - Part 1
A "pitot" tube is used to determine the aircraft's air speed. Generally, its just that - "a tube" that sticks out into the wind and measures the dynamic air pressure and a calculation is made to determine the airspeed based on that pressure. Every airplane has an airspeed indicator instrument and therefore a pitot tube mounted somewhere. The RV-8 is no exception and by default, Van's has a little, 1/4" aluminium tube that sticks down under the left wing into the air flow.
One of the issues you can have with a pitot tube, however, is that under certain weather conditions, ice can form over the opening in the tube. As the ice builds more and more it will start to restrict the flow of air into the pitot tube and impact the airspeed indicator's accuracy. If the pilot is unaware of the icing conditions, the inaccurate airspeed reading can lead to unsafe flying conditions.
This is where the "heated pitot tube" comes into play. The heated pitot tube has a heater element inside the tube and the pilot can switch this heater on and de-ice the pitot yielding an accurate airspeed reading again.
It seemed like an airplane that had every other conceivable feature, really should have a heated pitot tube. Enter the Gretz GA-1000 Heated Pitot. The GA-1000 take the science one step farther and can actually *detect* icing conditions and will automatically turn the heater element on when necessary.
