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Who wants to bet that after the election COVID magically and suddenly won't be a thing anymore???

Friday, July 31, 1970 13th leg. Amarillo, TX (TDW) to Winslow, AZ (INW). We got up early, again, this time with an actual wake-up call and headed back to Tradewinds Airport. The plan was to parallel I-40 heading West towards Winslow, our very first stop on this trip. We covered the 503 mile distance in 3 hours and 15 minutes. I asked Dad if we could spend the night? This was partially because I was tired but mostly because I didn’t want this grand adventure to end. Dad said “no”, that we needed to get home. 14th leg. Winslow, AZ (INW) to Torrance, CA. (TOA). It was hot in Winslow and Dad was concerned about takeoff performance. He did something on this takeoff that I never saw him do before. After getting some speed on the roll, he reached for the flap lever and gave her a couple of pumps of flap. Instead of launching the plane into ground effect, it caused the Mooney to start skipping down the runway. Three heart pounding skips later, we were airborne and climbing slowly away. The 442 miles back home to Torrance went by in 3 hours and 10 minutes. We had covered some 945 miles on this last day in 6 hours and 25 minutes of flying. This brought our total return trip to 2,543 miles in 19 hours and 10 minutes. Our first family flying vacation was over. Dad had finally realized his boyhood dream of flying his own airplane across the country. Epilogue Not long after returning home, Dad received a letter from his old flying buddy, “Reds” Honaker. “Reds” had enclosed a newspaper clipping of an airplane accident. Richard “Rip” Davis, the nice man who shared his plate of fries with me at the Bridgeport Airport Cafe, had been killed. It was the first time in my life that I would know someone who had been killed in an airplane accident. It would not be the last. Charlie Hillard would go on to become the first American to win the World Aerobatic Championship in 1972. He would also join up with Gene Soucy and Tom Poberezny to form first “The Red Devils” and later “The Eagles” aerobatic teams. Sadly, he would lose his life in a freak accident following a performance at the Sun-n-fun Fly-in in 1996. Following this trip, Dad would fly his Mooney just eighteen more times, including day trips to both Palm Springs and Santa Barbara. Then, with Mom facing surgery and uncertainty about when or if she would be able to return to work, coupled with a slowdown in orders at the factory where Dad worked and facing the possibility of layoffs, Dad decided to sell his Mooney. Then, in a mean twist of fate, shortly after the Mooney was sold, orders picked back up at the factory and Mom was able to return to work. Dad didn’t need to sell the Mooney after all, but it was too late, zero six Uniform was gone. I would not see the Mooney again for another twelve years. I was a Student Pilot, 26 years old, and I took a drive up to Hawthorne Airport on a whim. There, sitting across the runway, was Dad’s old Mooney. It had the same paint scheme but the colors had all faded and some of the striping had worn away. I was shocked by it’s appearance. Then I remembered the first weekend that we had owned it back at Torrance. We washed the Mooney from top to bottom and then Dad climbed underneath it to clean every bit of grease and grime off the belly. I thought of Dad, lying on his back on the ramp at Torrance Airport, cleaning his shiny airplane with great pride and the tears began to flow. It was one of the saddest moments of my life. In 1984 I moved East with my family and not long after that, the Mooney did too. Somehow I managed to locate the new owner and sent him a letter. He actually replied and sent me this picture: The Mooney had been re-painted and was all spruced up again! It was a happy day for me and Dad liked it too, but the Mooney wasn’t done with us yet. On July 8, 2010, Dad and I decided to fly down to Sebring for Lunch. Dad was at the controls of our Skyhawk. He landed on Sebring’s long North-South runway and as he made the first turnoff I noticed a Mooney parked on the ramp with a familiar registration number. I pointed and said “Dad, you’re going to want to park right next to that Mooney” and he did. We had a nice visit with the current owner who caught us up on all that had happened to it since Dad sold the plane in 1971. The interior Dad had put in was gone, as was the Mark 12 with the Mooney faceplate and the Bendix ADF. Forty years to the month of that special summer vacation, Dad, his old Mooney and me were together again. To this day it remains one of my favorite memories. My Dad with our Skyhawk.

David I’m glad you’ve been able to keep the virus away. Clearly is a moving target. Even countries that have been more successful have had to change strategy as information is assimilated and the situation evolves. Came from knowing nothing about it to knowing something. Unfortunately all the political bs has gotten in the way of the public health response. Wash hands, wear mask for others in case you’re an asymptomatic carrier, distance. Keep life as normal as possible otherwise. Rinse and repeat. That’s it. All the public health messaging failed over and over again. Won’t get into that but the CDC kept moving the target as a political apparatus responding to what resources were available at the time (PPE shortages) and kept moving the goal posts for the public and allowed the hospitals to do whatever was practical rather than what was proper from apparent political reasons. Hospitals are still doing it with the PPE and isolation dance. Hospitals are still trying to min staff and profit off the backs of the workers and bailouts. Look at HCAs quarterly earnings. Its disgusting. The only reason the CDC said “no masks” and tried to give all sorts of bull $hit explanations was because we didn’t have enough masks. They could have said “masks would really help, make sense and have been used successfully in other parts of the world, but we ain’t got none” but they just make up a bunch of politically expedient doublespeak instead. That approach is infectious and cancerous in of itself. This thing keeps hitting close to home. Yesterday- admin said she was at a family party (not a good idea). Everyone got it except her. Her daughter’s MIL is on a vent. That means she’s 50/50 in the door to the ICU for survival. Today - my neighbor (doc) posted about his residency mentor dying the other day from it. Kinda close to home. Today I try to message a local pediatrician about a patient - he’s out with it with 22 days of symptoms, his wife heading to the ED being admitted with it. Every day there are new stories. Maybe we’d do better if we just focused locally. Put our covid numbers and mortality rate on a big electronic billboard and put them online. Live unfiltered data. But nope, the covid update email I get each evening is marked “confidential and not for distribution”. These are the healthcare workers trying to help folks who couldn’t help themselves and are getting taken down. And taking their families down. If you don’t wear a mask, the healthcare workers will still take care of you. Might keep putting them at risk. But it speaks volumes that people won’t just wear a simple f-ing mask even if it might prevent a single infection. Or not. But there might be an increased chance of helping and avoiding harm. So just do it. Please. Look my kids can wear a mask. And yes face shields help too. That’s what we’re wearing in the hospital. Just pretend you’re on a very long woodworking project. :-)

Once vaccines are widely available the ‘rona won’t be a thing anymore. Until then it will. The person in charge could treat it responsibly, listen to medical and scientific professionals, and appear to the public wearing a mask and practicing social distancing. The POTUS has a huge bully pulpit which can do immeasurable good if used responsibly.

Let’s see my track record... First 7 years of ownership, 1 AI failure, 2 vacuum pump failures and 2 DG failures. 7 years with the Aspens - 0 failures. Hmmm... Mike - you need to stop posting these photoshopped pictures! Fake news![emoji6] Good luck with the 275s Peter Garmin. Still trying to figure out how a guy who said the Aspens were too small to read, will end up with 275s... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

1. ONLY applies to MAX units 2. ONLY applies if software is 2.10 or 2.10.1 3 The fix is a software upgrade, free from your Aspen dealer. 4. Takes about 12 minutes to upgrade the software. 5. If you already have software version 2.10.2 this AD does not apply 6. Check your software version by pushing the menu button and turning the lower right knob to the last page.

I will miss the Mooney speed and efficiency. I look forward to seeing my Mooney friends at OSH and other venues. My mission is the same, family trips and Pilots n Paws. The plan is to go slower and burn more dinosaurs doing just that. Sean

The video as promised... enjoy! Chris

As I said before- At some point someone is going to have to say that X number of deaths per year due to COVID is an acceptable number for the world to go back to normal operation. There will ALWAYS be deaths due to this disease even with a vaccine. It will never completely go away (just like ebola is still around). People die of the Flu every year and we accept a certain number of deaths every year from that and we just go on with our lives. 20,000 to 60,000 die of the flu. What number of deaths from COVID will be acceptable? Pick a number because it will always be with us from now on. At some point the world will have to move on and accept the inevitable - people die from a variety of reasons. COVID is just one of them.

Over and over again the economists are telling us that to get the economy backup and running we need public health control. Can’t do it in reverse. Can’t wish out economic woes out of this one and stick our heads in the sand. I’m not sure where people arguing let’s open up fully and that will get the economy going again. Tried that after Memorial Day. It doesn’t work. It’s been proved. Push through, protect our fellow citizens by listening to public health official, and try to repair the economic damage methodically. Start by listening.

I bought a low time engine IO 540 and Bravo airframe. Both had approximately 600 hours TT. The plane was about 20 years old. The previous owner lost his medical and could no longer fly. The plane had been flown monthly by a friend. It had been kept in a hanger with air conditioning and a humidifier. The owner was very wealthy and always gave the plane the best of care. I liked the airframe and panel but was concerned the engine might fail or be expensive to maintain I had the engine bore scoped, an oil analysis was done and the cylinder compression was taken. All the tests were competed. The engine appeared fine. I had an extensive annual on the plane and bought it. I have put more than 150 hours on the engine. It has performed well and been a very good investment for me.

ABSOLUTELY NOT trying to be provocative, but I have a physician friend that says 100% the opposite...in that “Covid 19 is HIGHLY politicized and he and other professionals have been muzzled and risk their careers by speaking out”...So while you feel “Patriotic” by wearing your mask”...Many others (not saying they are “right”)...feel exactly the same by NOT. (Wearing a mask)...It is a damn shame that Covid 19 has been politicized, but brother, IT HAS.

Beautiful airplane. You need to fly around in a suit a tie and a fedora hat like a 1952 business man and take lots of black and white pictures.

Thank you, Mitch!

This past Monday was the big day! Pick up Amelia from KPOF Poplar Bluff, MO and fly her home to KFYE, Fayette County Airport, Somerville, TN. Beautiful weather with winds 4 knots or less. Perfect for the pilot with only 7 hours TW time. Pictured is the previous owner and the new owner. I'm the short guy! I have done one landing in the 195 now. Yesterday I flew an L2 Grasshooper and manged 6 landings on my own. What a fun new challenge!

Man there's a lot of negativity on here lately. Maybe it's because we've been cooped up too long. Life does not always work exactly the way we want and we can't always get it our way. Bitching about it doesn't fix it. Unhappy people don't live any longer than the rest of us, they just FEEL like they've lived longer. Stepping down off my soapbox. Bob

Just buying my Mooney C-GPGS, a M20C in Victoria. It is in getting inspected and annual. Great shop that is doing a thorough job. Should have her by the first week of Aug. I have just got back into flying after about 10 years off. (We took our sailboat and circumnavigated the globe for about 10 years and just finished that adventure) This is the first plane I have owned so I'm right into the big learning curb of ownership/maintenance etc. Exciting. Anyways, I have learned quite a bit from this forum and really appreciate all the participation. Jordan

You were doing well until you went off on the mask rant. Sorry, but you sound just like the rest of the experts now and we’re all dummy’s. You need to work harder on your message delivery and not come off as I’m right and you’re wrong. I’ll leave it at this. Like it or not, it is how we feel and no amount of chastising is going to change our minds. We too have had family impacted by the virus, so that angle is covered in case you move on to the guilt and shaming next. David

2087 empty. 1111 useful on our bird. Max Take off weight is 3200. Max Landing weight 3040. Max Zero Fuel Weight 2900. (Edited. Sorry for initial BAD numbers)

I was trying to just listen by reading these posts and yours made me want to comment. We’ve been listening to the health professionals for months now telling us something different every day. When we do our research and read what the health experts are saying and voice that, we get shouted down that you don’t know what you’re taking about because you’re not in the health field. This is not the way for us to Listen as you put it. Many of us have tuned out the so called experts and are moving on with living over worrying about dying which we all will do some day. The latest the experts are telling us that we should consider wearing goggles. How long before we’re all required to wear hazmat suits when we want to go out? I have to wonder if they all have weekly meetings to see what else can be dreamed up to throw at us and see what sticks. I must be doing something right in the fact that we’ve managed to not bring any virus home to my mother in law who’s 89 and lives with us. The only thing my wife and I do every time we come home is wash our hands. We don’t get overly concerned and freaked out if someone gets within our 6 foot bubble. We also only wear masks entering a business that requires it. Usually my mask is protecting my chin from getting the virus. I’ll go back to listening now and help keep this forum Mooney friendly. David

Sigh. Very effective what you do Erik.. Seeing and listening. Interesting that I receive your words Thank you so much. Consider me muzzled.. Carry on with your fun here. What me worry

The Teflon is really look about holding oil/Grease back, you should have any issues in that union. Yes, the Etching process is pretty rough. Doesn’t take long to open up some clearances. Well normally you will get about 4 O/H out of a set of blades. Sometimes a 5th but not very often depending on blade design. Dont always have to O/H to make them look like new. An IRAN can give the same visual appeal, an not be nearly as rough to the propeller Components.

So my interpretation of your remark is Europe feels “bad” and USA doesn’t. Binary choice? Can I feel bad, wear a mask and socially distance AND want schools and businesses to resume commerce as millions are being financially devastated and the debt to future generations amplified?

Somehow people in other countries around this Earth are worrying about CV19. I wonder if 700,000 people so far dead did all that because of the US election?

Once you use a sidewinder on an opposing plane, the results are usually explosive!

Anthony who?

All that is true about PCR and the nuances of testing, but all this is data about the quality of the test, not the quality of the test RESULT. As individuals, we don't give a crap about the test, it's the result that's important. If anyone is interested in reading up on it, I'm talking about the positive predictive value and negative predictive values, which are FAR more dependent on the prevalence of the disease than the quality of the test. If a disease is very common, you could have a crappy test and you would still have a low false positive rate. Conversely, if the disease is uncommon, even a fantastic test will have a high false positive rate. To this point, the number of people who have gotten COVID-19 is still probably less than 5% of the population, so even a very good test will have a poor false positive rate. The CDC last month estimated the positive predictive value to be around 50%. So if you were asymptomatic and tested positive, there was a 50% chance the positive result was wrong, even though if you test people you know are healthy, only 0.1% (my guess) of people get a false positive. Conversely, since COVID-19 is still probably uncommon enough that a NEGATIVE result is almost certainly correct. Even if the test was so crappy that it gave you a false negative in 20% of the people who you know have the disease, if the disease is uncommon enough, a negative result might have only a 0.1% chance of being a false negative. The upshot of all this: The quality of the test is not very important in how reliable any one person's result is. If the disease is rare, it won't matter. Once it's common enough, it won't matter because we'll treat everyone like they have it anyway. Right now, for any one person, a NEGATIVE result is very reliable, but a POSITIVE result is probably not. As the disease spreads, the positive result will become more and more reliable, but less useful since more people will have it anyway Even though the quality of the test results might be poor for the individual, the quality of the test IS helpful as a proxy for measuring the spread of the disease across a population. Although a positive result for one person might not be reliable, the NUMBER of positive results in a population is likely to be correct as a sign of how the disease is changing.

No, the point is that they had a great product and had difficulty with newer technology. That's very common. Sometimes companies recover and sometimes they don't. HP made oscilloscopes but the triggering circuit was really bad. An engineer left HP and started Tektronix with an idea for a better triggering circuit. Tek scopes were so much better that HP got out of the oscilloscope business for a few years. When they came back they had a competitive product. So, you have to keep looking at the current product offerings and not live in the past.

Some machines are like family members... Often they get names... Thanks for sharing the great details, BK! @Raptor05121’s Mooney May be within a few hundred tail numbers.... of BK’s Dad’s Mooney... Best regards, -a-

Seriously consider getting expert help (your mechanic), or at least a parts manual... everything after the filter on my M20R is no longer positive pressure.... 310 horses trying to suck through a straw.... You still don’t want the hoses to collapse... When they do... the engine fails to make full power... This is when it will be helpful to remember how your Alt air system actually works... PP thoughts only, not a mechanic... Best regards, -a-

Beautiful plane. 195s are gorgeous and there is something intoxicating about a radial. It almost compels you dress up a little to go flying like days of long ago.

I like the repair shop analogy Rich. Just modify it slightly. You have little steam of oil leaking. You don’t even notice it. In fact It seals itself off such that you don’t have any issues with your car. Some people notice and go to the shop, some people don’t. However the car behind you and maybe a few others following your path lose traction and go careening off the road and crash. The old guy with bad maintenance and old tires - man forget about it. Maybe you knew about the slippery fluid leak and didn’t think much of it, or maybe you had no idea and go merrily about your way. I don’t think of myself as working in a Covid hospital - just a regular old regional medical center. It’s the same across the US - most hospitals big and small, urban and rural, are affected. It’s amazing we have to debate the seriousness of taking on a minimal personal inconvenience to protect other American’s health and well being in this day and age. I consider mask wearing out and about the most patriotic thing I can do save showing up for work. Back to the OP topic - I’d ignore it unless it came up somehow on my next medical.

If you work in an auto repair shop, all cars are broken. If you work in a heart hospital, everybody has a bad heart. If you work in a COVID hospital, you will see a lot of COVID problems. I don't work in a hospital and all I see is a lot of healthy people who don't know any sick people. Except what they see on the news...

I doubt if the Aspen software update will fix this fine swiss watch KI256 however, Peter. Thankfully, I had an Aspen to keep the shiny side up in IMC that day. Are you still flying and trusting your life to the technology of the '30's, with your KI256/Ki258 or did you finally get that KI300 you swore by 4 years ago installed?

I just spoke to my avionics shop and got the correct scoop. This AD IS new and is specific for aircraft that have an Aspen 2000 or Aspen 2500 Max setup. Single Max units or non-Max units are not called out in the instructions from Aspen. If you have an Aspen 2000 or 2500 Max set up and have an independent unit(s) to provide AI, airspeed and altitude you do not need to comply with the AD by the compliance date. The service bulletin mentioned is for issues in non-Max units with integrated ADSB In. The units impacted will have 2.10 or 2.10.1 installed. New firmware is 2.10.2 and is available to install now. Less than 30 minutes to install. Hope this helps.

To the posts who ask No I do not work for Gill, never have worked for Gill. Just reporting my findings. In my case, The battery 7243, is sealed. The manifold or venting is only used since that is how the battery box tray is in the plane. What I do know is the life I have gotten out of my 7243 batteries Not sure why certain folks on this site need to disparage or question people who write an honest review? If folks like Concord use it, my experience w the NEW Gill Batteries has been superb. Just reporting... IF you have not had a new Gill Battery LT type you do not have the experience to judge. Certainly you can reflect on past products and make a judgement but you are not fully informed since you have not used the new product Lastly here is a great link to explain battery capacity. Jerry 5TJ is correct this will add to the discussion https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/battery-characteristics/battery-capacity Happy flying to all

Don’t let the bastards get ya down Bob! I enjoy all on MS. It’s my morning cup of coffee with friends!! Move along folks..... nothing to see here......LOL !!

If someone were to ask you “what were you doing fifty years ago today?”, most of us would probably have a hard time answering that question. Unless it happened to be the day you got married or the day one of your kids was born. Sometimes other events become so meaningful in our lives that they too, stand out, as special moments, even turning points that forever change our life experience. I knew that the 50th Anniversary of one such event was approaching but I needed to look into my Dad’s logbook to confirm the date. That date is tomorrow, Saturday July 18, 1970. It was the day that my Mom, Dad and I climbed aboard Dad’s 1964 C model Mooney, N7106U to not only begin our summer vacation, our first family flying vacation, but to be part of Dad realizing his boyhood dream of one day flying across the country in his very own airplane. This was only the second time since my Dad’s passing that I have looked in his logbooks and I was not prepared for the flood of emotion that would follow. You need to understand that this was more than just a vacation flight. It was more than a trip from California back home to Pennsylvania to attend a family reunion. It was the culmination of nearly four years of constant searching for the right airplane to make his dreams come true. It was also going to be the opportunity for Dad and me to find some of his flying buddies from the 1940s and 1950s and to see if we could find his 1946 J-3 that he ordered brand new from the factory in 1946. And, to make it even more challenging, we had to do all this in just two weeks time, because that is all the vacation time that Dad had. So over the next two weeks, I would like to invite all of you to climb aboard 06U and ride along with my family as we relive that special event from my childhood, just as it occurred so very long ago. I promise there will be adventure, an accident, a pretty girl and a celebrity along the way. Like all true stories there will be some tears and death as well.

Ohio University in Athens Ohio. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Any way you look at it you will need either the GI275 or G5 if you are going to fly IFR and install a G3X. You really are going to need a new panel fabricated, since your current panel is not a T configuration. If you plan on keeping the M20C indefinitely and don't mind over improving it, then the large flat panel G3X with backup G5 and GTN 650Xi would transform your airplane into a modern day wonder and set it up for the GFC 500 if you ever wanted to add a full function autopilot. For less money, but to prep for a future autopilot, you could do 2 G5s or for more money 2 GI275 and in either case the GTN 650 Xi. You would still need to fabricate a new panel. To get rid of the engine instruments you would additionally add either a JPI or EI engine monitor, or a Garmin EIS. For "cheap" ADS-B In, you'll need one of the GDL 50 series receivers. Regarding Garmin or Avidyne, although many on this list love their Avidyne products, to date I still haven't had one student who has had one, and before Covid I was pretty much teaching full time. As many on this forum know, though, I'm rather pro Garmin, having gone full Garmin 7 years ago, and have upgraded every time a new Garmin product has come out that looks interesting.

What I find interesting is that the E5s have been documented to fail the same way in flight and this letter says nothing towards those units. I'd like to know how those escaped the AD. Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

I had an interesting dealing with EGA. I bought an Engine Monitor and after it was installed it had a couple issues. It was routed directly instead of being routed through a circuit breaker, if it started heating up there was no way to turn it off. The Fuel Flow transducer wasn't hooked up properly, and was leaking a substantial amount of fuel. The outer Fuel senders weren't connected. The inner fuel senders were connected to both the old Moritz gauges and the JPI900, which meant both of them never showed accurate. They drilled holes through the front of the plane instead of using the proper routing. These are all things both Foothill aviation said during my annual and Chandler avionics said. I wish I could say better but I never complained since I got it for a cheap price. Installed was 7K on the dot. I've had really good stuff to say about him. Straight up and gets the job done. He fixed a leaking fuel pump while I was getting the avionics done and got me going without any wait time.

Wow, I am jealous how affordable the Ovation ducting is compared to some of the duct parts on my 252!

Definitely possible false negative. More needs to be learned about duration and effectiveness of antibody responses. Timing of the swab counts- the positivity peaks just before or at the onset of symptoms and can decline sharply afterward. Conversely, people can be PCR positive but not have virus that can be “passaged” through cells - the inference is that the virus isn’t competent to replicate at that point and the person is no longer considered to be infectious (for people with normal immune systems and aren’t/weren’t critically ill, after 10days since symptoms onset there’s about 12% of folks with competent virus and by 15 days that drops to 5%). Testing platform characteristics are also variable. We have one of the better performing test platforms gets down to about 150 copies / mL. The poorer performing platforms will miss people at the beginning (matters) and end (maybe doesn’t matter as much), of their illness course. The testing platform that lab Corp and quest are using detects about 10x less virus than the one we’re using. Contamination of reagents has been an issue with many of the failed swabs (bad reagents = false positive). Wrong swabs / environmental issues = false negative (sample degradation and PCR inhibitors) The qc for clinical labs is a pretty high standard. Same standard for other PCR based testing. Negative controls are crucial. There’s a lot of PCR based testing in micro labs these days. Really interesting data just coming out yesterday and today about copy threshold detection limits. The idea is since PCR* is a doubling event 2^x, and the machine / reagent combo has a threshold to be able to discriminate signal from noise, x is the lowest cycle number at which you can detect a signal. It’s a substitute for viral copies and can be plotted against a standard curve of a known quantity of viral RNA to figure out the concentration of starting material. Lower Ct, more virus. Anyway, when they delete the super sick kids and delete the asymptomatic adults (to try to even out outlier effect - it’s the opposite of fudging the Numbers - it’s making statistical significance more difficult to achieve - kids <5 have between 10-100x the amount of detectable virus compared to older kids or adults. Big implications for school openings. It doesn’t mean that the kids are necessarily 100x more infectious (less aerosol generation with cough but more snotty nose and inability to control behaviors such as masking). However also in the news is a large cluster at a summer camp. This pretty much means that our local school district leaders are correct in holding off opening as much as that sucks for my daughter and us as a family. *PCR is polymerase chain reaction. Probably the most impactful biological procedure in human history next to Pasteur/Flemming/Jenner/Salk Developed by a brilliant stoner surfer who won the Nobel prize (Mullis is from Bob Belville’s town in NC).

Much of America lives in small towns. The small town that my mail comes from (population estimated at 1015) is nine miles away; for several years I worked in a larger town (almost 5000 souls) that's 14 miles in a different direction. Our county seat is about the same distance as the county seat the next county over, where I keep my Mooney--call them both 25 minutes away, and about 7000 and 15,000 souls respectively. I'd like to do some Angel Flights, but would really like a mentor and ride-along first. But I did join Operation Airdrop to help carry relief supplies after hurricanes, usually the first week after devastation while the large agencies are getting in gear, and the roads are being opened up again.

The aircraft voltage regulator is inop when the master and alt switches are off. The Concord Manual indicates that 11.7 volts is fully discharged if there is no load on the battery. I would turn off the master and verify the open circuit voltage with a digital multimeter at the battery terminals, but it probably needs replacement. Battery life is greatly dependent on how the battery is treated, so claims of x years of service are really meaningless. Things that shorten battery life are: Overcharging (voltage regulator set too high) which boils off electrolyte, and deeply discharging without recharging immediately which causes sulfation. Battery life is extended by keeping it topped off with a trickle charger. Skip

Has anyone actually seen a new FAA rule? As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.”

Photo of last Saturday SpaceX launch. Photo taken from beach near Stuart, Florida. SpaceX through up a bunch more internet satellites!