Bob - S50

But less of a verigo trap.

Thanks. I couldn't figure out how to flip it.

It's listed on the Camguard bottle so you won't have to remember.

Here's ours.

Nice. I have a GTN650 and never thought of creating a fix directly from the flightplan page. I always assumed I needed to create the waypoint and then add it to the flightplan.

At only 7 miles from the VOR, even a 3 degree difference between computed magnetic variation and actual magnetic variation would result in an error of less than .4 miles. That being the case I'd create a temporary fix and put it in my route of flight. Just to be more accurate, I'd probably also program my trusty old KNS80. Once airborne and receiving GSO, I'd use the KNS80 for navigation and verify reasonableness with the GPS. Once I got within about .5 miles of the fix I'd just go direct to MAJIC to allow for the lead turn.

Nice summary. I put my comments in red above.

Part of the difference is the difference between jets and piston. With the jet you just set the N1, EPR, FF or some other reference and you get the desired power. Other than the throttle you have no control over what the engine does. With pistons, power produced can be influenced by throttle, prop, and mixture. And even then, there are differences in prop efficiency depending on the RPM you set for the speed you fly. To be honest, I never look at the POH for power. My cruise power setting is almost always 22", 2600 RPM, and just barely LOP which gives me about 9.2 GPH or about 70% power. If I climb to the point that I can't get 22" then it's WOT, 2600 RPM and barely LOP. As I climb, the FF and % power decline. Before we got our yaw damper, I used to count on 10 GPH giving me 145 KIAS, 9 GPH giving me about 135 KIAS, and 8 GPH giving me about 125 KIAS. I'm now about 5 knots faster than that when the yaw damper is on. Knowing the IAS and the density altitude I can use my E6B to get my TAS.

That's his problem. It isn't level on the ground but it shows level. If I remember right, press and hold the knob while turning on the G5 to get into configuration mode. Search through for a pitch offset setting. Try adding about 5 degrees to the value that is there now then exit configuration mode and restart the G5. If it still isn't what you want, adjust the setting in the appropriate direction until you are happy, then never mess with it again. Ours now shows about 3 or 4 degrees nose high on the ground and level at normal cruise speeds.

An uneven fuel load might require a bit of aileron to keep the wings level but should not require bank to maintain a heading.

That sounds more like a business or club with rental rates, potentially for profit to me. If you want total control of upgrades and maintenance, you might consider something like this: Small buy in for partners. Something around $5000 to $10,000, fully refundable when they exit, provided they don't owe you anything. If they damaged the plane through carelessness, or haven't paid the hourly rates, or haven't paid you monthly fees; what they owe you comes out of the deposit and they get the rest. Monthly fees to cover fixed costs. Hangar, insurance, annual, subscriptions and registrations. Make an estimate of the monthly cost per person, then increase it just a bit to ensure you'll have enough to cover those costs. At the end of the year, compare what you took in vs what the actual costs were, and refund the difference (no profit). Dry rate rental to cover expected future costs. Engine, prop, magnetos, oil changes, SB282, etc. All things that are hourly/use driven. Again, if you wish, you could choose to refund the difference between what you collect and what it costs. By renting dry, it gives each partner a chance to control costs by controlling how they run the throttle and mixture as well as where they buy the gas. It also allows you to not worry about the fluctuating cost of gas. If I were renting at a wet rate I'd be running as fast/hard as I could to minimize my costs and wouldn't care how much gas cost where I filled up because you'd be paying for it. Fill the plane with gas to a specified level. We've recently changed ours to 50 gallons because our useful load allows us to do that and still carry 705 lbs of payload and it makes filling/preflight checking easy. Or you can get a FuelStick Master or a digital fuel gauge with Cies floats and fuel to some other level like we used to. We have a log for flight time and fuel on board before and after flight. If someone brings the plane back with more fuel than it had when they left, they get a credit. If they bring it back with less they get charged. We use the current local fuel price at the end of the month when doing that. You still need to spell all this out in writing and specify operating procedures. How does scheduling work? How do you solve a conflict? Can you land at any airport or are there surface type and runway length requirements? ROP or LOP? Specific pre or post flight actions required (like cleaning off the bugs)? How much notice do you have to give them before taking the plane out of service for an upgrade? For the annual? Can you kick them out even if they don't want out? If so, under what circumstances? Just my two cents worth.

Me thinks the ball may be lieing to you. In the DC9, I did not trim the plane the way we were taught. I did not turn off the autopilot. If the plane was flying right wing low, for example, then something must be trying to make the plane turn left and the autopilot was putting in some bank to compensate. I would crank in a little right rudder trim and wait a minute to see if that was enough to fix it. If not I would crank a bit more rudder trim and wait. I would continue until the wings were level.

I don't know about those particular airplanes, but to paraphrase Everett Dirksen, "A pound here, a pound there, pretty soon we're talking real weight." Here are some examples of things I see when I look at listings. Many of them are meant to make the plane nicer (and many they do) but they cost us UL. Speed brakes, thicker glass, articulating seats, bladders, stormscope, radar altimeter, ADF, two transponders, keeping the vacuum pump, a backup vacuum pump, TKS, leather wrapped yokes, old avionics, unremoved wiring, strobe power supplies, ADS-B equipment that piggybacks off the old transponder meaning you are actually adding weight, extended range tanks. I'm sure there are others. Other than TKS, most of those are anywhere from 1 to 30 pounds difference each. Alone they don't make much difference, but together they are huge. And don't forget errors when calculating W&B changes not to mention errors of calculation if you weigh the plane with fuel in it and then adjust the weight based on how much fuel you think you have.

I have 3 partners. Has worked for me.

Checked the #1 fuel injector for dirt?

Congratulations. Keep up the good work. One way to gain some payload capacity for free is to only fill the tanks to 50 gallons instead of full. That gains you 84 pounds (38 kilos) of payload capacity and still leaves you with enough fuel to fly for 4 hours with reserves.

3 pounds hopefully for 3 knots? I'll take that trade.

I personally don't believe in spending money JUST to increase UL or cruise speed. However, IF something breaks and I can improve either of those while improving something else, I'm willing to spend a little extra. For example. When one of our nav/strobes needed replacing, we went with the LED's and saved a couple pounds. When our starter died, we replaced it with a light weight starter. When our alternator dies, we'll likely replace it with a light weight alternator. If our exhaust system needs to be repaired, I'll likely want to replace it with a powerflow. Replacing our broken, heavy, high cost to repair KFC 200 with a GFC 500, we not only saved about 20 pounds for the autopilot, we also removed our vacuum system. We've removed systems that we decided did not make sense for us (ADF, interior curtains, and radar altimeter). Lot's of ways to improve UL, some of which cost nothing.

Looking at the TKS website, it appears that the TKS system for the J is NOT FIKI. It is 'inadvertent'. It appears that the FIKI system is only available on the 252 and later. That means you could not legally take for a flight when you expect there to be ice along the route. Just something to consider.

To answer your question. UL was very important to us when we were looking for a plane. We wanted a J and would not consider one that had a UL under 950. Our '78J now has a UL of 1002 lbs. We wanted the ability to put 4 people in the plane and enough fuel to go somewhere. I've had 4 people on board maybe 6 or 7 times. One of my partners does it occasionally too. While your current UL may work for you, it may limit your ability to sell the plane when you decide you need something else. I agree, we rarely fill the tanks. The only time I do it is to tanker fuel. And you can't do that without a good useful load. I also agree with others that my wife and I plan to stop about every 3 hours or so but we have been known to fly a bit longer than that depending on the mission (like needing to get from Seattle to Grand Forks, ND in one day for a funeral). 40 gallons is enough to fly for 3 hours. Adding the extra 24 gallons would just reduce the allowable payload by 144 lbs. However, since our UL is now over 1000 lbs, we just decided to start leaving the plane with 50 gallons on board because that makes refueling and preflight fuel level checking easy. Still leaves us with 702 lbs for payload. That's enough to load up 3 people with bags and fly over 600 NM with reserves. As for losing weight... Changing from a KFC150 to a GFC500 will save you about 20 pounds and you'll have a more capable autopilot. Our plane came with a radar altimeter and we pulled it. The only thing you need that for is to fly a Cat II or Cat III approach which we can't do. That could save a few pounds. If funds are unlimited, get rid of the GNS430 and MFD and get newer GPS. If you really think you need the big screen, make it the GTN750 or IFD540. That's a couple more pounds. I personally don't see the need for a storm scope. While it would be nice to see where the lightening is, I can watch for that visually and I'm sure a hell not going to go flying IMC in and around TRW. And like someone else said, don' fill the TKS tank unless you actually need it.

Not me. Up to 300 miles I don't save any gas by going high and I only save a couple minutes (no wind). I pick my altitude based on terrain, then ride, and finally wind. For flights under an hour I usually fly somewhere between 3500 and 5500.

I suspect you mean usually. I usually get vertical guidance too. However, there are some approaches that I don't, like the one to my home airport: RNAV A to S50. I suspect nobody gets vertical guidance on an approach that is circling only.

Somebody over on the Cessna forum posted the timing schedule for the Surefly. Since you are talking about increase in speed, I assume we are talking about cruise power settings. Let's say 2400 RPM or higher. Assuming you have an engine timed to 20 BTDC and if I read it correctly, there is zero advance until your MP is below 25". That's about 4000 - 5000'. Higher if you are using RAM. Let me create an advance summary below: RPM 2400 2500 2600 2700 MP 25" 0 0 0 0 23-25" 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.5 22-23" 9 9 9 9 21-22" 12 13.5 13.5 13.5 21" 12 13.5 15 16.5 Also, for lower power settings, it appears you will never get any advance with RPM below 1600. It also appears that the maximum advance increases by 1.5 degrees for every 100 increase in RPM. And as you can see you get the most advance (benefit?) at high RPM and low MP. That makes sense because both of those conditions tend to cause the peak pressure to move further past TDC. So to see much increase in efficiency I would expect you need to be cruising up around 8000'+.

I use the acronym VNAV to remember the requirements for using VNAV on the GFC500: V ertical constraint set. N avigating along a magenta line. A ltitude bug set to an altitude below my current altitude. V NAV selected on the GMC507

If you go to the flightplan page, then touch the menu button, then touch VNAV profile; is VNAV enabled?