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As a "Mechanical Design Engineer" this interests me too, so I made a cardboard model. I know its nutty, but I am a nutty person. This is just a basic simplification of how the steering works in the extended and retracted position. It has the same strength properties as the gear in my Mooney

I flew to Biarritz, then north to Deauville - Normadie, east to Saarbrücken and then home with basically the same view Hours and hours for three days of nothing but high fog to the horizon in every direction. It was eerie...

The engine is back on again and I got her back today! Excited to do some flying! She's purring like a kitten. Of course there are a few squawks, but nothing major. Break-in is essentially complete.

I sure felt safer before ADS-B. I used to fly through the airspace south of KCHD just looking out the window with my head on a swivel. If I didn't see any planes, I felt safe. Now I fly through there and see all the planes on the IPad and it's terrifying! (-:

Had an epiphany late last night and confirmed the issue today after replacing a failed aircraft jack. It seems that the main gear shock discs are worn out enough that the weight on wheel switch can make contact when the gear is in transition in flight and with a wind load pushing the main tires back. This is causing the gear to not fully retract after takeoff, but is not a problem when on jacks. While retracting today, pushing on the tire causes the gear to hault retraction. Time for some new shock discs…. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great writeup jlunseth thank you I think I can add to this discussion. I have an 81 231 with a GB, fixed waste gate, no intercooler, and 1961 hours since new. I purchased the AC in 2010 with 1200 hours and it had two cylinders swapped out in that time. In the 761 hours that I have put on it, I replaced one cylinder due to a crack in the exhaust port that started at a void in the aluminum that was the stress pint to start the crack. I have always taken off at full power and climbed to cruise altitude at full power. Full power adds the extra fuel to aid in lowers CHTs in the climb. If you pull back to a cruise climb you will not get the extra fuel added for cooling. Fuel is cheaper then and top overhaul. With in the first year, I installed a JPI830, and I believe that for my AC the 830 is required equipment. It is just too easy to overheat the engine with the single point factory installed instrumentation. Can you keep a GB cool enough to get to TBO, yes. How to do that, well you need a little luck that the previous owner didn't hurt it too bad. If there is an engine analyzer on now grab the historical data. The LBs have a larger opening throttle body and the front intake tubes from the throttle body to Cyl #5 & #6 are a different part number and i believe they have a larger ID. I believe that both larger IDs must be to reduce the restriction is air flow. I reason I say it this way is that I have heard on this forum that LB run cooler, and I have a list of the GB to LB differences, but I have never seen an explanation from continental as to why these changes make the LB run cooler. At overhaul mine will be converted to an LB. I am blessed that I am the A&P/IA for my 231 and I am an engine guy. Back in the day I have overhauled >500 GA engines and maybe 30ish TSIO-360s, I have set >1000 Continental fuel flows. To dos: Engine baffle seals must be tight with NO leaks. All cooling air must go through the cylinder fins. You can have these replaced with new seal material. Fuel flows must be set correctly by a mechanic that in experienced with fuel flows. To set the fuel flows correctly I first ultrasonically clean the fuel injectors to remove the buildup on the metering orifice, once the injectors are reinstalled, I pressurize the intake and exhaust system with the pressure side of a clean shop vac to look for leaks. I spray soapy water to find, and leaks and I fix any leak. Now I set the fuel flows with a reference to SID97-3G low unmetered fuel pressure to at 700rpm to 6.5 +/-.1psi and at full RPM(2700) and max MAP(~40ish) the metered fuel flow of ~26.7gpm and this gives me ~1400df TIT. You can see that the metered max fuel flow I use has the added 1GPM to aid in reducing the CHT in full power takeoff and climb. I first heard about the added 1GPM from kortopates on this forum. This is the best single change that I have made to keep my engine cool at high power. (SID97-3G TSIO-360-G, GB 700 2700 40.0 6.25 - 6.75 45.0 - 49.0 16.7 - 19.3 135 - 145 23.0 - 24.7) I would recommend that you use Savvy to review your engine data. They do a great job giving input as to what areas need to be looked at. Enjoy Jim

That's a big one. It helps you know where to look as a conflict approaches, so that you can visually maintain separation as it gets closer. It'll help your scan skills, since you know something is there. Many times you still never see it, so it teaches you that depending on your eyes is not sufficient.

This is just my philosophy and if you disagree I will not be the tiniest bit offended. I very much like the adsb traffic depiction technology. Today while climbing out of KAIZ heading southwest, the glare was terrible. I did not punt to the technology, as has been pointed out ad nauseum, the technology has limitations. But I do have a lovely bride sitting next to me that is very useful locating the little arrows on the iPad while I diligently continue my outside scan. This works well for me. She warns me of something and then I can scan in the appropriate direction. This has helped numerous times. At least 2 or 3 times just today. Frankly fellows, it’s just silly to pick one side or the other and then attack your fellow Mooney Spacer. The technology is a help, not a silver bullet, but it is a big help. Outside scanning is vital but it is not the enemy of adsb, and adsb is not the enemy of scanning.

Well the Accu-Flite is eactly as I remembered from my first plane. Works fantastic in keeping the plane on course. I took two 2+ hour flights to Arkansas and the Brittain DG worked flawlessly. Once trimmed I found i could esentially fly hands off. No altitude hold needed. Without the Accu-Flight heading corrections resulted in altitude deviations, wash, rinse, repeat. LOVE THIS SYSTEM in a short-bodied Mooney. All in with installation it cost 2AMU's. I highly recommend this system if you are on a budget.

Using the RAM parts I listed above

I nominate this for the best post of the year! I think we need another button!

I ran my engine to 2400 hrs before replacing it. It had an IRAN at about 1100, but the reason was an incident where I lost oil pressure at 19k and had to make a rapid, no power descent to a safe no power landing. According to my A&P, that caused piston slap that scored the cylinder walls, hence the IRAN. It also had a turbo rebuild at about 700 hrs, right after I got it. That turbo made it all the way to TBO without further incident. I firmly believe that the TSIO360LB can run to TBO and beyond, if the engine is run correctly. Unfortunately, I think that many of the original engines were not, and part of the fault falls on misleading information in the POH. For example, the CHT redline is 460 dF. If you ever hit 460 dF it is probably time for a top overhaul at least. The goal is 380 dF. During high, hot climbs in the summer, such as out of a western airport, the engine might creep up a little over 400, but if the fuel flow is set up correctly to generate at least 24.0 GPH in a full rich full power climb, the CHTs will routinely be around 380, and in the spring, fall and winter they will be lower than that. The POH also has cruise power settings with the engine at or just slightly rich of peak. This is the worst possible place to run an engine and will generate the highest Internal Cylinder Pressures. From my experience, any cruise power setting in the range of 70-75% HP or higher, where the fuel flow is 12 something GPH, is a “red box” setting, hard on the engine. I was able to run the now-replaced engine for hundreds of hours at 11.1 GPH/2450 RPM/34” MP. The reason for the 34” is that lean of peak operation is a fuel/air ratio and you can make the mixture more lean either by reducing the fuel flow while the MP remains constant, or by adding MP while the fuel flow remains constant. So I used the 34” to make the mixture sufficiently lean to be reasonably healthy for the engine. I was concerned about the extra work this puts on the turbo so after it hit 1000 hours from the replacement I had it borescoped by my A&P several times and there were no ill effects. The other thing to watch is cooling of the cylinders, which is affected primarily by the baffling. My old baffling was not great, but with the new engine I have been a stickler on keeping the baffling in good shape, no gaps or creases. Creases where the baffling meets the top cowling were the primary issue with the old baffling. I am at about 150 hours on the new engine. Had to run it ROP for the first 100 hrs per TCM’s break-in instructions, and just beginning to work up LOP operations again. The biggest issue when you buy a used aircraft is that you have no idea how the prior owner ran the engine. If they believed everything that is in the POH the engine may be doomed to an early top or IRAN already.

Probably the vast majority of winterization mods for the oil cooler are fabricated in the field by just covering over the part of the oil cooler with some aluminum after first experimenting with some aluminum tape. But with only the 1 factory CHT probe I wouldn't want to touch that at all. You need proper instrumentation before doing that so I suggest holding off till you get an engine monitor. Given these piston engines are always trying to kill us, I would have done that yesterday!

Finally back seat is done!!! Ignore the wicker, although it was popular in the 1930,s flying boats!

I'm adding this to my list of Mooneyspace controversies: Touch and goes will kill you. Levelling the airplane during gear swing with prop stand, engine lift point, tail stand, or straps on the engine mount. ROP vs LOP Using your bare hand to wipe the windscreen. Whether to lock the baggage hatch or not. Bladders vs patching/resealing tanks. Take off with or without flaps. OPP stuff, legal or not, etc. Don't let the prop drive the engine. Avoid shock cooling. Turbo cool down time required or not. Raising the flaps on rollout to save the tires vs risking a gear retraction. Travel boards are required for rigging. The ADS-B-in Traffic Display is a distraction and makes you less safe. <- New!

I think the answer to the question in the title of the post, “Why do people freak out about adsb and midair collisions?”, has a an easy answer. We on Mooneyspace just love to argue!!

Lance time is flying by to fast, no pun intended. I’ve finally moved my acclaim above my bravo. This weekends trip to the gulf coast finally did it, approximate fuel savings $250..and about 40 minutes faster. Flew approximately 1000 miles using 70 gallons and truing 190 LOP 13,000, 4 gph less. D

Thank you both! I'm sitting in SLC waiting for a delayed connecting flight with a maintenance issue. I thought, "Hey, I'll fly commercial so I don't have to worry about weather and timing!". Brilliant. Ah, the age of just-in-time, oversold, etc. Billboard could say: "If you were in a Mooney, you'd be there by now."

That’s a good summary, both ADSB and MK1 eyeball have limitations, however, they are complementary 99.99% of the times to scan and avoid, For instance, * I can’t scan traffic 5nm away using my eyes but ADSB tells me about these before they become a conflict * I can avoid slow departing C152 ahead of me using ADSB display but I can do it easily using my eyes when cleared for takeoff Sometimes both do not work (let’s call that 0.01% of the times), the “traffic too close than 1/2 mile and converging from an invisible corner”, one should not get into that situation where both ADSB screen and MK1 eyeball are limited? things works better if technology is used for early scan while eye is used to acquire target and avoid them visually (using tools as they are intended)

We did not have ipads at that company. The flight plan did have lat / longs printed by each way point and mag heading so you verified the fms heading and distance match the flight plan. This was especially important as we crossed the prime meridian as 10e could easily be put in as 10w and be in a different country. We also didn’t have gps only IRU’s so had to monitor the drift of each one to vor’s for correct position. I think we were one step up from having to use a sextant and star navigation.

Complexity? A complete non issue. In heavy turbulence I turn the AP off because I can fly the airplane better than the autopilot, but the YD stays on because the multiple Garmin inputs* to it can better anticipate yaw changes than I can. To me one of the most important inputs is Lateral Acceleration, which is the rate of change of lateral motion. It's one thing to adjust to lateral motion. It's quite another to adjust to the rate of change of lateral motion. To me these multiple inputs make it better than other YDs with single inputs. *Per Garmin: "The yaw servo provides Dutch roll damping and turn coordination in response to yaw rate, roll angle, lateral acceleration, and airspeed."

Lubricating might work - for a while. Try to get the lube only on the joint around the knurled knob. If you get it on the ball it will just make matters worse. What happens is that people lube these things and the lube attracts dirt and gums them up. The real solution is to remove them, pull out the retaining spring wire, take them apart and clean the parts really well. BTW it’s the same with the eyeballs where the yoke shaft penetrates the panel. Don’t lube them.

If you use it sensibly it helps you look outside more, and more effectively. If it doesn't, you're not doing it right. Why do you use an airspeed indicator? Just use the feel and weight of the controls and the sound of the air flowing over the airplane! THE ASI IS A DISTRACTION! IT TAKES AWAY FROM YOUR AIRMANSHIP SKILLS! YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE ONE! Why do you use a radio at an uncontrolled airport? Aren't your eyes effective enough to see all traffic? STOP USING YOUR RADIO! LEARN TO LOOK OUTSIDE! EXERCISE YOUR SKILLS! YES, I'M KIDDING! You should use every tool available that improves your situational awareness. ADSB goes a long ways toward improving SI, but you can't just stare at it and people who think that's how it's used are trapped in cold darkness.

Sitting at the table in our Condo on the Big Island of Hawaii overlooking what some might call "Paradise", I sit back and summarize my simplistic observations on the above "discussion". 1. Why make things more complicated than they need to be? 2. Avoid simple brain overload and most importantly, 3. Just update your databases monthly.

+1 for no yaw damper and flies like it’s on rails. 1980 M20J

I would call it that, A spade is a Spade. Until TBO is backed up by a Reg of some sort and not documented by most all manufacturers manual as a Recommendation, the shops exposure is minimal. The liability really gets tied on with the Overhaul though. Shop ties itself to that accessory for Two years.

Not really a disagreement with this statement but context is important. would you rather be mildly cramped in a plane for three hours, or in a car for 14 hours. that is the choice myself, wire and two daughters have. so is it spacious and plush, no.. is it worth avoiding a 14 hour drive? YES!!!

Yup! That is another smart part of the design. Not only does it "disconnect" the steering (not really of course) but it also straightens the wheel. I would say that is so the wheel well can be narrower in the cabin, but knowing Al Mooney, it's probably in case there is some slight errant breeze in the wheel well, he would want nice smooth airflow over the wheel Here's a better example of the "self centering" action:

Kinda what I suspected as the same thing was happening when I found metal in the filter before overhaul. Now the engine is just off the test stand making full power after overhaul, and the behavior is nearly identical, so my money is on the governor setting. I had the prop resealed at the same time by a good shop, and I doubt they set the low pitch stop too high.

Pretty sure that's a 1990 vintage Aero Mods M20-100 "One Piece Fiberglass Belly Pan with Skid Runners Fairing". I have the same belly pan. According to my documentation, "The Belly Pan is intended to protect the primary aircraft structure in the event of a gear-up landing". Aero Mods was out of Wheat Ridge, CO. It was a great design; weighs about 10 lbs. If I can find a good pic, I'll post it.

I believe it is an Air Mods one piece belly. All the image links for it are broken. There is talk on Mooneyspace that describe the two strakes.

I haven't seen anyone say "never a distraction". Anything can be a distraction. "Moderate benefit against a tiny risk" is the subjective difference where many will disagree. Avoiding a collision is not a "moderate benefit" to many people, and since mid-airs like the one in question typically happen in the pattern, it's also an area of high risk. That said, there are other tools, like the radio, and looking outside, that should be and typically are used as well. A good pilot will use all these tools effectively, and maybe more that people come up with in the future, judiciously to continually minimize risk. I don't find it particularly difficult to use the traffic display in the pattern, and it's especially useful in busy airports with parallel runways. I've yet to hear of an accident where use of the traffic display, or the radio, or looking outside, was cited as a contributing cause. We do, however, see accidents, like the one in question, where it is apparent that available tools could have helped prevent the accident. And, no, I've yet to hear anyone around here complain about the traffic display increasing their workload or adding a source of distraction. People seem to be able to manage these resources pretty well, just like they do radios, airspeed indicators, etc., etc. Why do we seldom hear people complaining about the radio being a source of distraction? It certainly can be, but people manage it quite well. It seems very specious to me to deprecate the use of a safety tool due to the unlikely effects of misuse. Scan management and resource management is part of training for use of all kinds of things, but most don't get deprecated to avoid use because some people might do it wrong.

You can be target fixated on anything, and in an emergency that’s likely to happen without proper training. Fly with an intro Instrument student and see how effective that scan is. But you can’t point to unskilled or untrained pilots and use that as a bash to all technology. What you’re insinuating Vance is that all aviation should be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. If that’s the case everyone should be flying a most basic 172 or Cherokee. But certainly you don’t start drivers Ed in a F1 race car… Perhaps your better argument is that technology and more capable flight equipment requires more training to use safely and effectively. 100% I’m sure we’d all agree. But poor pilot skills only points to poor pilot skills. A great instrument and traffic scan is part of the framework for safe flight. Solo student pilots are in the air alongside professional lifetime career pilots. We all start somewhere. One of the lessons we need to learn is what tools to use when.

Sure. A couple of months ago I was asked to assist with recurrent training for a client who was returning to aviation after a long hiatus. Despite the layoff, he was a good stick, and flew the pattern nicely. But only after I took his iPad away. On the first downwind leg, he has his head absolutely buried in the iPad, and was extremely concerned about a couple of other airplanes on or entering the downwind. I s**t you not, he spent more than 50% of the flight time on the entire downwind leg with his head in his lap (I know because I watched his eyes, like I do with all students). Meanwhile, he allowed the airplane to accelerate to over 100 KIAS (this was a 172), climb almost 200' above traffic pattern altitude, and was unable to conduct a stabilized approach. Again, he had no problem maintaining reasonable speeds and altitude profies in the pattern once I took the iPad away. When I asked him about this, he said he felt it was important to get acquainted with the "new technology", and talked about how much safer he felt with it. But no one had ever given him any training on how to use it, and he was stunned to hear me say he was making himself less safe. I did my best to do so politely, using some of the data discussed here. He finished the checkout with another instructor, and it's unclear to me what impact my training had on him. Another: last week I was established on downwind with a student in a specific training scenario (power-off 180 in a significant crosswind), when an airplane from the flight school down the road reported inbound on the VOR-A approach to my home drome. I'm very familiar with the approach. The MDA is 600' AGL, and flown properly, inbound aircraft are established at 600' AGL well before crossing the downwind leg for the runway on a perpendicular course, enroute to a midfield flyover and missed. There is no conflict between the VFR traffic pattern and this approach, when everyone has eyes outside (and augmenting that with ADS-B traffic data is great). But rather than continuing to simply report position, the inbound aircraft identified us by call sign and issued us an instruction to do a 360 to accommodate them. I've had this happen a couple of times, and I'm always incredulous. But that's actually not the relevant part of the story. Doing what they asked would have both compromised my training scenario and created another conflict with an aircraft behind me, so I replied "unable", to which the response was, "we have you on ADS-B, we'll blah, blah, blah", at which point their aircraft blindly maneuvered to head directly toward the location of our downwind-to-base turn, and climb right through the pattern altitude. I presume this is based on what they saw on ADS-B based on their last announcement, but who knows? In any case, they clearly had positional awareness, but not situational awareness. Another example, less interesting but still to the point: traffic is congested enough in our metro area that a "common training frequency" has been established, which all the local flight schools would like pilots to monitor if more than a few miles from any particular airport. I'm unconvinced this is helpful, but I'm not a jerk, so I do monitor it, and do my best to be polite. I routinely get calls to my N number from aircraft that are multiple minutes away from a possible conflict, asking me to "say intentions", and wanting to negotiate separation even greater than what the professionals who staff ATC require. Again, I try not to be a jerk about it, but the minor irritation is that it unnecessarily distracts from training; and the major issue is that I've seen it create bizarre panic on a couple of occasions when more than two aircraft happened to be vaguely in the vicinity of each other, but not anywhere near a real threat. If you've never seen or heard things like this, I respect that. But don't tell me I haven't seen and heard it with my own eyes and ears. There is definitely fixation and distraction going on out there. The bottom line argument in this thread isn't whether ADS-B is "bad", no one is saying it is. The opposing positions are between "Traffic displays are easy to use effectively, never a distraction, and represent a huge safety improvement", vs. "Effectively using a traffic display is complex and can be counterintuitive, and it provides a moderate benefit against a tiny risk, at the possible expense of a small increase in larger risks". In this respect, your comments about airspeed indicators are actually a great conversation piece. We have a finite amount of time to be "heads down" in the cockpit, so what do you think the risk is of taking time away from checking the ASI while in the traffic pattern, in order to look at your traffic display? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you can do both at the same time - you're an excellent pilot, you can pat your head and rub your tummy, etc. But the accident data is right there in black and white: huge numbers of takeoff and landing accidents, very tiny numbers of midairs, and this hasn't changed since ADS-B became commonplace. As an instructor, should I really be telling other pilots, "I see you're looking at the airspeed indicator a lot, you really should spend more time on your ADS-B display"?

If you want the yaw damper but cost is an issue, keep in mind that the GFC 500 is a modular system. It’s very easy to add the yaw servo later if you decide you want it. The servo mounting will be there because it attaches to the same bracket as the pitch servo and the CAN bus and power are easily extended with from existing wiring. Installation is simply bolting in the servo and attaching the bridle cable and some changes to software configuration.

Getting the rigging right first is important but at the end, a very small tweak on the aileron trailing edge is very effective. On my first (very expensive) annual, a very popular (and expensive, and knowledgeable) MSC said the rigging was all messed up. They were also replacing a trim tube and some heim joints. Anyway, they used the boards and got her all squared away, then told me to go fly it and see what happens. Well, it had a pretty solid right roll (I have a video somewhere that I took to show them). The “big boss” of the shop looked at the video, took a pair of duckbill pliers and slightly tweaked the left aileron. You can’t see the bend, it’s very small. Totally straightened it out. So if you get there after the boards, it’s not the end of the world.

You don't see one of these off your wing tip very often...

I bought my airplane 32 years ago before my "perspective" change. I think my airplane may be one of the best equipped Mooneys in the fleet. The G1000 and G1000NXi are great products, but I like the flexibility of being able to modify my airplane as new and exciting technology comes to market. That can't be done with any G1000/NXi equipped airplane. I happily accept the 20 knot speed difference between my airplane and the Acclaims for the extra benefits I have with mine.

Gee, Don. If money isn’t an issue and you want the best, I think Mooney still has an Acclaim Ultra they’d sell you.

Triflow

Another reason there could be a delay in adsb traffic showing exactly the right position is it’s source. It’s often impossible to tell if you’re getting the position/velocity directly from the other aircraft or fed through the FAA system. For example, if one has UAT only and one has dual in but 1040 out, well the faa resends the 1040 posit to the UAT aircraft. There are systems with only 1040, only uat, dual in, etc. Or worse, if someone has no adsb, you still get their position, only it’s derived from the faa radar and then fed out to you. It’s hard to tell what the source is. All that being said, my adsb experience in a g1000 aircraft and my own, both with dual in/out, is that the position is usually very accurate. Certainly better to see a target with your own eyes, but I definitely include adsb in my scan, especially at longer ranges (say 10nm from the pattern, more adsb traffic scan, 5nm more outside traffic scan).

Forgot the picture Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a M20J with a GFC 500. I made a conscious decision not to add the yaw damper because I wanted to minimize the stuff I have to deal with operationally (you have to turn it on after takeoff and off for landing) and I wanted to minimize unnecessary equipment which requires maintenance and can fail. The mid-body Mooneys don't have the Dutch roll tendencies like Beechcraft products (worst ride I ever had in turbulence was in a Duchess), there's not a lot of adverse yaw, and the aileron-rudder interconnect already aids in coordination of rudder and aileron. I don't regret my decision a bit. What you will likely find is that those that have it like it and those that do not don't miss it.

Myrtle is a mid-body K Model 231 with a GFC-500 and no yaw damper. The autopilot has been rock solid since Day 1. With almost 200 hours on this configuration, I can honestly say I see no need for it. I don’t feel like I am missing anything.

Where I usually fly, above 8,000', I've realized something lately. The technique of using the "Big Mixture Pull" then the Lean Find function on the JPI EDM900 to establish something like 25 or 50 F LOP, is not dissimilar from the way I was originally taught to lean an engine while a student pilot. Lean it out until it starts to run roughly, then enrichen until it smooths out. Admittedly, the trainer was carbureted vs. the fuel injection on my J, but the procedure and end result is surprisingly similar. My J will run deep LOP. The engine just gets quieter and quieter as it produces less and less power. When it starts running rough, it's waaay LOP. On long flights up high, especially in the winter, I find that the critical limit is running rich enough to keep CHT above 300 in all cylinders.

You can download the complete FAA data now: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/aero_data/NASR_Subscription/ I do this for a living, so I'll warn you without significant time and effort, this will not be a super easy tool to reference. Yes, this is the source data that commercial vendors will use or their own navigation data (for US data). But, it IS all there. If you want to explore this data, I'd suggest you start with a tool that can read AIXM and choose the 5.1 option. There will never be a way to ingest data into your navigator beyond what you have now - that's a choice made by your navigator and has nothing to do with the vendors supplying navigation data. But, this would allow you to easily compare your data and authoritative FAA content. This will require a little peek into your navigator's AFMS - this will tell you what you can do and cannot. For my era Garmin, I can operate legally in IMC with an expired database for terminal and enroute. I do have to verify my data and the current FAA data (easy with the NASAR data) agree. Do I do this? Not a chance. I pay my annual subscriptions as (dare I say) it's a bargain in aviation terms for what it provides for me. I try not to look, but I think my Jepp costs are around $700-800 annually. Knowing the enormity of work that goes into this data validation (ever AIRAC cycle), it's frankly a bargain. Avidyne users, you might want to read your AFMS. I've only seen a couple, but both prohibit any any IFR use on expired database (including terminal and enroute). Garmin may have started doing this too, but the older Garmin navigators do grant you that option if you do the homework.

When I was a green engineering intern, I had an idea for a 4 bar linkage. Using some cardboard cutouts and simple push pins, I brought my idea up to the Chief Engineer. We could move the push pins around to adjust the linkage length to get it to do what we wanted, and it was 1:1 scale. He was really happy about how stupid yet effective the cardboard method was. After some praise, he looked at me for a while, then looked at the cardboard. Then he looked at me again. His smile turned to a frown. "Tyler, where did you get this cardboard?" I shrugged and said I had found it downstairs in engineering, just a big box laying around. "Tyler, this the triple wall cardboard from GM. I know it sounds stupid, but this is a prototype packaging cardboard that we paid many thousands of dollars for. You cut up that box?!?!" Fortunately they had already made a determination about the cardboard and there wasn't any collateral damage, but I certainly lost some sleep over that

People can make this infinitely complex, but it's really pretty simple: First, yes the throttle position (over the normal cruise power range) at constant altitude will not affect mixture. The primary function of the servo is to meter fuel according to airflow in order to maintain a constant fuel/air ratio. The mixture does change as altitude changes because the servo measures airflow volume not mass and so as you climb the number of oxygen molecules in a given volume of air (i.e., the air density) decreases and the mixture will richen. Extra fuel beyond what is required for combustion can provide cooling and is required at high power to prevent overly high CHTs. Lean mixtures and high CHTs can cause detonation. But Lycoming approves leaning at powers below 75%, so at powers below that you can do anything you want with the red knob and not hurt anything. Makes it fun to experiment. The engine power and efficiency depend on how much air it can ingest, so throttling is counter productive. Thus, the "best" throttle position is wide open (WOT). So, if you climb a normally aspirated engine to some altitude where WOT yields 75% or less power then you are free to set the mixture to achieve whatever result you desire. Somewhere around 100-120 deg ROP gives best power, fastest speed and highest fuel consumption. Somewhere around 50 deg LOP gives the best efficiency (most mpg) but lower power and lower speed. Often at higher altitudes, peak is a good compromise. At lower altitudes you can reduce the manifold pressure to something below 75% and then it is safe to lean. This is good enough to start with. Some like to run WOT at all altitudes for the increased efficiency and there are techniques for doing this safely, but I think it is easier to just reduce power first until you really have the hang of it because it is always safe. Others will, I'm sure, disagree with me.

Yes it’s easy within Schengen+EU as no immigration & customs are required * In southern countries like France, Italy…the flights are still “international” one still need to file mandatory flight plans, possibly gendec, make radio contact at borders…as these countries puts ICAO requirements above Schengen/EU laws, however, this is merely an ICAO reporting requirement: no restriction on where you can land and you don’t have to see anyone. * In northern countries like Germany, it’s easier as Schengen/EU flights are considered “domestic or national” (sub-ICAO): I flew Belgium-Germany-Austria without flight plan not talking to anyone except airport guys, this sounds more like “just go” UK (and Switzerland) need more planning: one have to comply with some immigration and customs rules like sGAR, these are not difficult once one gets used to them (it’s like eAPIS in US or Canpass in Canada) For fees (and Avgas), it’s manageable in small and medium airports in countries with light GA tradition Germany, Poland, France, Switzerland, Belgium…if you go to Spain, Italy…one tend to sick to private small airports while big airlines airports have pricy handling and are waste of time: imagine Signature price tag with bureaucracy and no red carpet. This is tough on GA flyers, you can’t fly north forever: you need to go south for sun, food, beach…

I have this special technique where I spill oil everywhere and then clean it up. I am interested in @Ah-1 Cobra Pilot's tool.