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Hello All, I want to offer a PIREP for some Brittain repair work I had done recently. We were having some issues with our Brittain components (Turn Coordinator, and AccuTrak). I contacted Bevan Rabell since they had done great work on legacy BK equipment for us. They indicated that they dont work on Brittain, but graciously pointed me to Porter Strait Instrument Co in Tulsa, OK. Upon contacting Porter Strait, I found out that they have a gentleman named Kevin who supports them on an as needed basis doing any Brittain repair work and that he is a former long time Brittain employee. They connected us with Kevin to evaluate our issues and identify instruments and model numbers before we sent anything in. We found Kevin to be incredibly knowledgable and also quite entertaining to talk to. He was intimately familiar with Brittain products by model number, description, functionality, common problem components (e.g., this capacitor typically goes bad, that valve usually needs cleaned and lubricated, cuz it gets stuck), etc. Longer story short, they inspected, cleaned, and repaired multiple pieces of Brittain equipment for a very reasonable price and in 1 to 1.5 weeks including round trip shipping. Kevin also educated us on some functionality and limits of the instruments we were unfamiliar with (or had forgotten). Bottom line, if you are having problems with your Brittain components, I highly recommend Kevin at Porter Strait. We were very pleased with the experience. Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk

There's lots of detailed info out there now on the nature of the 737Max issue, and it's hard to look at the picture without concluding that it was a truly awful design of aircraft systems, irrespective of the compounding failures to inform pilots about those systems and train them to handle potential malfunctions in them.

For PHX-TUS you're looking at roughly a half hour or a bit more depending on the exact airports you're talking about. Get a '65-67 "C" model Mooney with a B-Kool and you're good. Anything more is overkill. https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/28910845/1965-mooney-m20c-mark-21?dlr=1&pcid=17527&crmid=614667&if=1 https://www.b-kool.net Get it painted for $15k. If it were me I would swap the audio panel for a PSE450B and swap the G430 for an Avidyne 440. You'll have the perfect commuter.

started with crimpers and wires. then metal work

I would get the Jepp charts. I miss mine... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Would this qualify as awful?

I don't currently qualify for VA health care benefits because I have private health insurance, but it's nice to have that as a safety net just in case. I do know many people, including family members, who use their benefits who receive very good medical care. Perhaps not gold-standard, but quite good. The negative stories in the press seem to give people the impression that the VA is universally bad, which it isn't. Is there mismanagement, fraud, and waste? Yes. I'm not sure how to remove mismanagement from any government run system when too often the jobs become a sinecure for employees. But the fraud and waste, just like with Medicare, seems to be at the hands of unscrupulous private sector medical providers.

Definitely do the troubleshooting guide. The fact that it it is making a louder whine than usual and has a low current output suggests that it lost a phase. Which usually means a bad diode or a loose connection inside the alternator.

Nothing about an FAA type certificate ensures high quality. 737 Max could be exhibit A. Likewise, an Experimental placard doesn't automatically mean the opposite. @Yooper Rocketman experimental home built is likely the highest quality aircraft I'll ever fly in. And that list includes plenty of certificated aircraft.

every time I see something in the store for sale without a price I assume it's free.

From Don Maxwell today: Mooney has approved the synthetic brake fluid for use in all Mooney’s.. Royco 782 & Aeroshell 31. It really needs to be used in any of the Models with the heavy duty dual puck brakes. Those models are the M20K Encore, M20M, M20R, M20S, M20TN, M20U & M20V. Aeroshell has a new grease that has the molybdenum in it that can be used on the Dukes actuators. Aeroshell 64 . Cold weather starting tip Prime and wait 30 seconds. Fuel needs time to vaporize. Please share with other lists . Don Maxwell dmaxwell@donmaxwell.com Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

Saw you there today @Hyett6420 Nice looking bird.

This is not uncommon

I have a G model with carburetor. This is what I am doing next time I need a boot. I am an IA, and do have experience on many types of planes. The manufactures that hook the engine to the cowling with a flex duct all have the same problem. Why just keep doing the same thing? I am going to be doing a field approval, and making the duct out of aluminum. The filter will be mounted solid to the airbox, and the cowl will be slightly modified to allow the filter to move behind the trim plate of the cowl. Who knows, maybe I will do an STC. Jeff

As you mention, fraud and waste happens in the private sector, too. There are probably more examples of it there than in the gov't, but people are more tolerant of it in the private sector, plus it doesn't provide any political ammo there.

Certification is different for heli engines. Also, heli engines drive a large HP consuming cooling blower. Heli engine certification requirements include sustained operation at 105% and 110% of rated power. To achieve this, the ratings must be "adjusted". As you'd never be able to wring 220HP out of a 200HP (really 195HP) IO360 angle valve Lycoming under any conditions. But if it were de-rated to 170, you could then get the 17 additional HP necessary for the 110% certification requirement. The higher RPM is also driven by both practical requirements and certification. As 70% power must be available at 70% RPM, and it must be available at an altitude above sea level. From a practical point of view, any helicopter must be able to hover out of ground effect at 5000 feet, or 25 inches of manifold pressure. In real world terms, similarly built heli and airplane engines make the same HP. EDIT, Note: the higher RPM results in reduced volumetric efficiency. Meaning the torque curve declines as RPM increases. This leads to a favorable characteristic of increasing torque as RPM decreases from redline.

First, the 737 MAX crashed because the pilots couldn’t handle a software problem. You can argue that Boeing didn’t provide information or they weren’t trained properly, but the airplane was just fine until the pilots crashed it. While Experimental doesn’t mean poor quality, there is no history of planes that you can look at and judge the quality. You buy an experimental, you are assuming the risk that the person(s) who built it and designed it was competent. With certified planes, they have gone through tests to insure some level of quality. Tom

That’s like that quote from Merkel: “Humanity knows no limits”

Yeah, I love how we enter an octal squawk code to match up with a hexadecimal one for our plane. Univac to IBM integration anyone?

If you need to be on the north side of PHX, consider a place at SkyRanch at Carefree: https://skyranchcarefree.com Alternatively, if you'll be flying to Tucson regularly, consider Pegasus: http://pegasusairparkaz.com

With over 40 years of experience in the electric utility industry, I read this thread with great interest. A few more comments about ROWs. Most utilities do not own the rights of way under their lines or have easements to re-clear. Also, many times it is state and federal agencies that prohibit trimming on government owned land. Can’t win. @bonal what do think about Bill Johnson as the new CEO? Turmoil seems to follow him around from the Duke-Progress Merger to his time at TVA. Sorry, this is all unrelated to aviation, but I’ve enjoyed the discourse. lee

just once forget to disengage that hand crank by your left leg when you raise the gear after an emergency gear extension....you will have an emergency knee or leg surgery to repair the damage done by the crank, and then you will be rebuilding the emergency extension system

There is a difference between regulation.....and operation. The FAA and the NTSB does not operate the airlines, they regulate them. Nor is that regulation perfect. All one has to do is look at the innovation coming out of EASA vs the FAA. Do I have to remind you how long it took for the FAA finally admit that actually a second attitude indicator powered off a different source would actually be better than requiring a T&B? Or that TCAS would be the best anti collision system? That is just a few examples. Finally I would remind you that PG&E is in this fix precisely because the state and the state PUC has failed both in insuring ROI on the grid AND maintenance of the forest areas under their control. IOW, where the state has had operational control they failed. Nothing in the history of State of California operational control suggest they could operate a grid successfully.

Apropos to the topic of aviation, I'd point out that the FAA and NTSB together have produced a safety culture in commercial aviation that has no parallel in the private sector. This week there was a regional jet that slid off the runway and killed one person. He was only the second person in 10 years to be killed in an accident on a scheduled US flight. I recall when the discussion to privatize ATC came up, few here were on that bandwagon, and the AOPA certainly isn't. Compare that to health care, where human error contributes to or causes 250,000 deaths per year, and where arguments about privatization and socialism go back and forth ad nauseum? One thing that seems clear to me about human nature--when you need to produce a safety culture, the government must be involved. Efforts to produce that culture in health care through private errors efforts (wow, that was a Freudian slip) have not demonstrated anywhere near the level of success that we have seen in commercial aviation. If the power utility industry needs to develop a safety culture, I don't think it will happen without some type of state intervention. The public outcry will not be sufficient, and they will simply pass the costs of lawsuits to their customers because that's the way capitalism works. Oh, that's right, it's not capitalism because there's no competition...

Unlocking the unit to use Jepps costs something like two grand if I recall. Did you pay for that? The unit displays the standard charts issued by the government at no extra cost. The cheapest Garmin subscription includes them and they can be superimposed on the display. Here is the page from the installation document on enabling either feature. To get into the configuration menu, press the HOME button while the unit starts up.

There will never be negative pressure above the pistons. The rings already swap positions at least once under normal operation. As the piston moves up during the exhaust stroke, friction will push the rings to the bottom of the channel. During the intake stroke, friction will move the rings to the top of the channel. Then during the compression stroke, friction will once again move them back to the bottom of the channel. The only question is what happens during the power stroke? Is the pressure in the cylinder, acting upon what little area of the rings that are exposed between the piston and the cylinder wall, greater than the friction caused by the piston moving down the cylinder? If so, the rings will stay in the bottom of the channel. If not, friction will move the ring to the top of the channel again. Then the question becomes, will the difference in pressure between normal vs a low MP pressure combustion event make enough difference to allow the ring to 'float' up during the power stroke? And I'm pretty certain that if the top compression ring does its job, there will not be much exhaust pressure on the lower compression ring in either case, let alone the oil ring.

So I went flying with a friend of mine last weekend. He owns a 2006 Cessna 172. As I started to climb into the right seat, I noticed the little cardboard CO detector stuck to the panel. I asked him to wait two minutes while I went over to my hangar and pulled the SensorCon out of my Mooney. I just clipped it to my jacket and climbed into his airplane. We had a great flight, and it was fun to be back in a little high wing after quite a few years. Of course he asked why the concern over the CO detector and so I related Dan's story. He ordered one the next day.

Garmin, uAvionix Resolve Patent Lawsuit Kate O'Connor October 17, 2019 ADS-B solutions company uAvionix announced that it has resolved a patent lawsuit brought by Garmin that has been ongoing since June 2018. According to the company, the agreement will allow uAvionix to “continue offering and supporting” its skyBeacon, tailBeacon and echoUAT products. The exact terms of the resolution have been kept confidential. The original lawsuit alleged that uAvionix had taken and used Garmin’s ADS-B technology without permission to develop products including skyBeacon and EchoUAT. uAvionix contended that it had not infringed on Garmin’s patent and had its own method “for using Mode 3/A and altitude information.” As previously reported by AVweb, uAvionix received a patent for its “Aircraft Navigation Light ADS-B Radio” in December 2018. Montana-based uAvionix was founded in 2015 with a focus on “bringing safety solutions to the unmanned aviation industry in order to aid in the integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS).” It introduced the skyBeacon ADS-B Out solution in July 2017. Last week, the company announced that it was expanding its product line with the acquisition of AeroVonics, a startup avionics company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Because I am a business and commercial operators are discouraged from selling stuff here. The forum is for individuals. I'm good with it. I respect the system. I have tons of parts I would like to sell, but that is specifically prohibited.

The fact is that if PG&E is going to be held liable for billions in damages if any one of their thousands of miles of rural lines starts a fire, they're going to have to shut off power. We don't have the technology to perfectly deliver power to remote areas through dry brush, etc with zero risk of fire. Its a simple risk/reward calculation. Remember it was the National Weather Service who issued the red flag warning for high winds and dry air. Imagine being the PG&E official on the stand of a civil trial explaining why you left the power on during a federal red flag warning? -Robert

Leaf peeping - Autumn here in the North Country - Adirondacks region. Our house is just off the wing tip in that town river shot. Gorgeous day just flying around.

I'm sure a lot of you know this, but just in case some don't ... It's not really the compression ratio; that's just a proxy for BSFC (brake specific fuel consumption). The reason that LOP is efficient is that there is a minimum in the BSFC when LOP, and the reason that fuel flow can be used to determine approximate horsepower when LOP is that the this minimum is nearly constant over a fairly wide range of LOP fuel flows. So if you want the exact number you need the BSFC curve for your engine. It turns out that all these engines have similar BSFC curves with the higher compression engines being more efficient and so a further approximation can be made by using the compression ratio in the calculation since compression ratio is readily obtainable. But this is an approximation on top of an approximation, so there is no need to carry it to two or more decimal places. Skip

Hi All, Mark's surgery went smoothly today. They cleaned him up on his front torso. He'll go back to surgery on Monday to get skin grafts above his eyes. They are ordering CEAs to start grafting his back. Although CEAs don't take as easily on the back, the doctors have no choice because Mark doesn't have enough donor sites (unburned skin). It'll take the Boston lab 2 weeks to grow them. He was exhausted this morning before his surgery and was not too communicative. Sitting up yesterday wiped him out. It took a while for the nurses to do his dressing change post-surgery so Suzie and I didn't get into his room until 5 pm. He told us he was in pain so the nurses gave him meds to get comfortable and he dozed off. AJ and his family left the hospital today to go to residential rehab - the nurses made a human tent - arms up as they walked through on their way out of the burn center. It made me teary eyed to see AJ leave. Several of the nurses said to me - you'll see, Mark Brandemuehl will be next to leave.

I cruise oversquare every single time. Engine is about a hundred hours past TBO and doing fine. Its a turbo though, all the cruise settings are oversquare. I am pretty sure that is true of all the Mooney turbo aircraft.

I was flying one that was over gross with full tanks and a pilot. They re-did the WB and now you can take a skinny passenger. In reality it will climb like a home sick angel with whatever you can fit in it. The landing gear may collapse if you hit a bump in the runway, but it will fly!

There is no way to make money with a GA plane. GA is only for turning big piles of money into smaller piles of money. If someone tells you they are making money it’s highly probable they are cutting corners and skipping some rules.

Is replacing the back spring something a run of the mill A&P can perform, or is this something best left to a Mooney-specific shop?

I normally do not post, I want to let the aircraft owners know that in the last two weeks we have found two cracks in two different aircraft propeller hubs under AD 2009-22-03. Both had been inspected 100 hrs earlier and had shown no discrempencies. Not sure what to think, is it a vibration, time, age that these are just now showing up cracked. We had not had a hub cracked in 15 years so we are treating this very seriously.