Bob - S50

The best AOA gauge I ever used was in the T-38. What I liked about it was that it was not only calibrated for stall, but for Max range, 99% of max range, and max endurance AOA. If I ever get an AOA, I'll want one that shows all those AOA's as well, not just stall. Bob

Try it and let me know how it works. Climb to say 5000', slow to 85 knots. Trim the airplane for hands off level flight. Roll into a 30 or 45 degree bank turn. Take your hands off the yoke. Add power. Let me know how well the nose comes up. Without back pressure the nose will drop. As the nose drops, airspeed will increase. As it does, the airplane will try to pitch up to regain the trimmed airspeed. However, at the trimmed airspeed, only a portion of the lift vector is pointed up. Another portion is causing the turn. At 45 degrees of bank, only 0.707 of the lift vector is pointed up. Another 0.707 is pointed into the turn causing the turn. In order for the vertical lift vector to equal your weight, you'll have to increase airspeed by about 20%. So... if you start at 85 knots, I'm guessing the nose will not come back up to level until your airspeed increases to about 100 to 105 knots. If you roll into a turn, or increase the bank, you ...must... increase back pressure or the nose will fall and you'll begin/increase your descent. Adding power will allow you to maintain your airspeed while you are doing that. If you do not add power to maintain airspeed, the aircraft will slow down and may get down to stall speed. AKA, the final turn stall. Bob

Very wise grasshopper.

Yes it does. However, if I increase bank and do not increase back pressure, throttle will not bring the nose up, it will just increase airspeed. The only way throttle will bring the nose up is if the airplane is trimmed for a given speed. Even then, only the component of lift that is pointed away from the ground will bring the nose up. In level flight, that is all of it. In 90 degrees of bank, that is none of it. You get varying amounts at different bank angles. At 45 degrees of bank, it is only about 70% of the lift vector. That's why if you need to get away from the ground, you level the wings and then pull. It points all your lift vector away from the ground. Going to an extreme, roll your plane into 90 degrees of bank, the nose falls. Add as much power as you like. The nose is not going to come up. Bob

I can't comment on the 430w/530w since I have a 650, however... I agree with the concept on not choosing vectors to final. Even in the 757/767 I find it is much easier to delete fixes then to add them back in. Since you asked about checklists though, in the T37 (long, long, long time ago) we used a 'mailman' check. Let's see if I can remember it... M - minimums A - airspeed on final I - initial rate of descent L - lost comm procedures M - missed approach instructions A - approach check N - navaids set For non-precision approaches, when we crossed the FAF we used 6 T's T - time T - turn T - throttle T - twist (the obs knob) T - talk (call passing the FAF in non-radar T - track Whatever you come up with, the more you can get done before ATC says cleared for the approach, the better. Bob

Don't forget to look at the Trig TT-31 and TT-22. Trig makes the KT-74 for King. Bob

I think we are saying the same thing but I'm not sure so.... The 60 degree bank angle stall speed is for level flight. 30 degrees of bank requires 1.15 G's to maintain level flight. 45 degrees of bank requires 1.41 G's, 60 degrees of bank requires 2 G's, 70 degrees requires 2.92 G's, 80 degrees = 5.76 G's, and finally 90 degrees is impossible (unless you use the rudder and fuselage to act as an elevator and wing). Lift is a function of the square of velocity. So 2 G's will result in a stall speed which is the square root of 2 (which is 1.41) times the wings level stall speed. If your stall speed wings level is 57 knots, your 60 degree bank stall speed for level flight should be about 80 knots. That just happens to be the speed I fly base at. So.... if I'm overshooting but on the proper vertical flight path, and I increase the bank to 60 degrees to stop the overshoot and pull back on the yoke to maintain my fight path, I'll stall. Bank angle in itself will not cause a stall. However, if you increase the bank one of two things will have to happen: 1. You'll have to increase the back pressure (AOA/wing loading/G's) to maintain level flight or current rate of descent/flight path. This can cause a stall. 2. Your nose will fall causing an increase in sink rate and airspeed. This is not a good thing when close to the ground. You'll soon need pull back to arrest the sink rate and once again you could stall the plane. However, if you roll out of the turn before you pull, you'll give yourself the best chance of stopping the sink rate before mother earth does. Bob

Bob, I think you got it right. Bank angle doesn't make you stall, AOA does. For the majority of us without AOA gauges we can think wing loading (G's). You can be at 90 degrees of bank and not stall, but you aren't going to maintain level flight or even a slight descent. In a GA airplane the rudder is used to coordinate flight, not turn or roll. The ONLY reasons I can think of to purposely use cross controls are a slip to lose altitude or to compensate for crosswinds. Compared to at least one of my flying partners, I tend to fly 'bomber' patterns. Ok with me. Tease me as much as you like, I don't care. My goal is to live, not impress somebody. They are wide enough that I can roll out on base, take a look for straight in traffic and then time my turn to final. I also fly 80 knots until final. If you have a little overshoot and can make a coordinated turn with normal bank and wing loading to get back on final at a reasonable altitude, do it. If it will take lots of extra bank and pull, or put you on final at a low altitude, go around. If you find yourself low, slow, still in a turn, and still overshooting; roll out, level the wings, pour the coal to it, and get away from the ground. The probability of kill (PK) of hitting another airplane is relatively low. The PK or the ground is pretty high. Bob

We pay for everything with the LLC debit card. I think it costs us something like $75/year to keep the LLC active. Bob

We formed an LLC to own the plane. We have a total of four partners. We did it for two reasons. 1. Liability. As others have mentioned, if one of us causes damage, they can't come after the other three of us. If I'm the one flying I fully expect them to come after me. 2. Taxes. In Washington state, when you buy a plane, you have to pay a 'use' tax of 6.5%. Our LLC did that when it bought the plane. There is no 'use' tax on an LLC. The LLC owns the plane, we each own a share of the LLC. When one of our partners decided to sell, they were selling a share in the LLC, not a share in the plane, thus, no 'use' tax. Bob

Glad to hear you like the plane. Gives me a little better feeling about my reasoning. I'm figuring that if I load up 6 people in a C340A I can only put enough fuel on board to cruise for about 2 hours and go 350-400nm VFR or maybe 300-350nm IFR, then have to stop for gas. S50 to MSO or BOI or LMT or MFR, get gas and continue. I can live with that. My wife doesn't like to cruise for more than about 3 hours anyway. And as I get older and I now have the old man ass (no ass) my butt gets sore after about 3 hours anyway. If its fewer (or smaller) people then I can add more gas and cruise another hour or two. With a twin piston, I look at the second engine as being there to give me a controlled descent, not necessarily level flight at gross weight. That means if I'm over the Cascades or Sierra Nevadas with several thousand feet of clearance, I'll be able to clear the mountains and make it to a descent sized runway as opposed to needing to find something within 20 miles to land at if I lose the engine in the Mooney. Bob

Did you hear about the flight attendant, mechanic, and pilot that went to the bar? They each order a beer. The flight attendant's beer comes first and there's a fly in it. She says, ooooo...., bartender, there's a fly in my beer, bring me another one. And he does. The mechanics beer comes next and there's a fly in it. He reaches in his hip pocket, grabs his needle nose pliers, grabs the fly, flips in on the ground, and drinks his beer. The pilot's beer comes next and there's a fly in it. He reaches in with his dirty fingers that he hasn't washed all day and grabs the fly. He's just about to throw in on the ground when he looks at the fly, then he looks at the beer, then he looks at the fly again. Holding the fly over the beer he shakes it and says, "spit it out... spit it out!". Bob

LASAR has a pilot they use for some of their flight testing. We used him for our 1 hour checkouts when we bought our plane from LASAR. His name if John Wiegand. You might contact LASAR and see if he might be interested. Bob

I'm still hoping for a C340A in the not too distant future, but keep the J too (with partners for both). Just two of us? Take the Mooney. Four or more? Take the Cessna. For me, the turboprops are too expensive, $500k plus. Same with the bigger piston twins, C414, C421, Navajo, Duke, etc. If I'm going to buy a twin, I don't want another 4 seat airplane which many light twins are (Seneca, Twin Comanche, etc). The idea of FIKI and pressurization for under $250k sounds very inviting to someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest and has to deal with mountains and icing every year. To put in 6 people and bags, I figure you have to plan on 1200 pounds before you add fuel. At 27 - 33 GPH for 190k +/- cruise, one hour of reserve, and maybe 10 gallons extra for the takeoff and climb, you need a bit over 100 gallons on board just to fly for 400 miles or so. That means you need about an 1800 pound useful load. I looked at Aerostars. The only one that would meet those specs are the 702P's and they cost about $350k+. The 601's and 602's have useful loads around 1500#. I looked at Baron 58P's. They can be had for a reasonable price and some have a useful load around 1700-1750. That might be do-able. They are less expensive than the C340A. They have a great system for loading the rear seat passengers. However, most are not FIKI, many do not even have boots on them. The pressure differential is either 3.7 or 3.9 psi depending on which model you get. My first choice is still the C340A. Many have FIKI. Almost all have boots and hot props. They only lack a hot windshield to be legally FIKI. I could live with that. Cabin pressure is 4.2 psi which is better than the Baron. I think a good one could be had for under $250k. With VG's (which almost all now have) useful load varies from about 1700 to nearly 2000# with many at or over 1800#. Also, with the VG's, VMC is less than stall speed so if you are airborne, just step on the good engine (which will be obvious) and keep flying while you look for an airport. Bob

I tend to agree. When I taught aerospace physiology in the Air Force, we taught (right or wrong) that you could generally only control you cholesterol levels about 10% by diet and exercise alone. We had two extremes in our squadrons. We had one guy who probably did not have an ounce of fat on him, ran every day, ate carrots and celery for lunch and had a total cholesterol level around 300 (sort of like Jim Fixx). There was another guy who was well on his way to becoming the Pillsbury Doughboy and his total was about 135. Although I have no easy way to know, about 2 years ago my total was about 200 to 220, marginally high. I went on Lipitor. I had some other medical issues last year when I would normally get my physical so we did not do the testing. This year I went in for testing and my total was 154. However, what muddies the water is that like Ryoder, I've been on a low carb diet and have lost about 4 gallons of 100LL (25 pounds) since the previous test. I do not know how much of the drop in total cholesterol was due to diet/weight loss (exercise is not a factor... trust me) and how much is the medication. Bob

How many pilots does it take to change a light bulb? One... he holds the bulb up and the world revolves around him. Bob

The way I do it was not always one of the choices. If I'm trying to decide whether or not to go, especially for local flights, I'll often pull up SkyVector and rest my cursor over a few airports to look at their current weather and forecast. If I decide to go, I check weather, NOTAMS, and TFR's on DUAT, then get a verbal with FSS. DUAT: For weather and TFR's, I first use the interactive maps. I usually look at radar, echo tops, METARS, TAFS, freezing levels, AIRMETS (icing and turbulence), TFR's, and winds aloft. I then get a standard brief. I also check the boxes in the standard brief for NOTAMS. Even though it gives me tons of NOTAMS, I look at the airport identifiers and only read those I'm interested in. I connect my phone and tablet to the internet and start my two apps (Garmin Pilot and Naviator) to update weather and TFR's for a graphic display. I then call and get a verbal briefing just to make sure I didn't miss or misinterpret anything. Depending on the flight, I'll sometimes do the verbal with my hands-free while driving to the airport. Bob

Well... depends on your definition of easy. Forgot to mention the reason I got one is because I was unhappy with a piece of wood. When we made a stick out of wood, we found that fuel would wick its way up the stick and give a falsely high reading. We drained one tank until empty then added the unusable fuel. We then started up on the other tank and taxied over to the fuel pump. We added one gallon at a time. Like I said, we needed 11 gallons before the fuelstik would register a reading. The stick comes with universal markings. That is, evenly spaced marks. To use the gauge, you put it in the tank and the center portion rises out of the middle. For each gallon that we could get a reading we wrote down the number reading. That is supposed to be the end of it. You are supposed to keep the chart with your readings alongside the gauge. You take a reading and refer to the chart to see how much fuel you have. Or, from their website: "Mail or email the information to info@fuelstik.com and we will mail or email you a color coded "Aircraft Specific Scale" that you can slip into the float tube. Hint; Using your smart phone, take a picture of the completed work sheet. After previewing it to make sure it is clear, email it right from your device." Those universal markings are removeable. What I did was go home and use my word processor to make some markings that correspond to the actual number of gallons. I would type a few underscore characters followed by the number of gallons and then start a new line. I would use the ability of the word processor to micro-adjust the spacing between lines so that my markings aligned with the proper reading on the universal piece of paper. I then printed, cut, and placed my calibration into the fuelstik. Just in case, here is a link to the manufacturer's website: http://fuelstik.com/ Bob

I bought a "fuelstik master" and calibrated it for our J one gallon at a time. Here's a link: http://www.mypilotstore.com/MyPilotStore/sep/8868 Just barely wet under the cap is 7 gallons. The stick does not measure anything below 11 gallons. We calibrated it from 11 to 25 gallons. Anything between 25 and 32 gallons I fill to the tabs then use the gas pump reading to add what I need to get to what I want. Bob

I actually bought the 3D model mostly for the AHRS function. If my attitude indicator fails in the weather, I'd much rather fly off the GDL39 attitude indicator and confirm it with the T&B than have to fly IMC on the T&B. With the battery backup, if I have to turn off all the electronics, in an emergency I could use my GDL39 and moving map tablet to navigate out over the water, then let down to VMC and go VFR to landing. Bob

I use Atorvastatin (Lipitor) and list it on physical application every year. No special handling required. Bob

We've got a 730 but the idea is the same. I use normalize for the runnup because it makes the EGT rises more noticeable. I put it back to regular for takeoff. If I'm going to cruise in level flight for a long time like when I fly from S50 to KSQL, I try to remember to go to normalize in cruise. This practice is suggested by Mike Busch because it makes it easier to see EGT fluctuations. If you see one EGT that cycles up and down over a period of a minute or two, it could be an indication of a failing exhaust valve. I rarely use the LOP feature. I usually just pull it back to something close to what I expect, let it stabilize for a few seconds, then slowly lean while I watch the EGT's rise then start to fall. Once they are all dropping, I stop leaning. Bob

Me too... but I bring the lighter adapter along just in case. Wish they made a USB charger.

Even if you don't get an IFR ticket, nothing says you can't try and remain IFR proficient. Get a safety pilot to fly with you and fly under the hood just in case you find yourself trapped. Even if you can't do it legally, if your aircraft is ILS capable, get someone to show you how to use it and practice it while VFR and VMC. You won't be able to file IFR, and I hope it doesn't encourage you to fly in more marginal weather, but being able to fly the ILS to get on the ground in marginal conditions might save your life. I try to fly two approaches under the hood every month. If I had two pieces of advice to offer the less experienced it would be: 1. Slow down. You don't need to intercept a segment of the approach at cruise speed. Plan to be below gear down speed before you hit the first fix. That way if you find yourself high you can lower the gear to help you get down. Slowing down also gives you more time to review the approach, program radios, change frequencies, etc. Instructions from ATC will come less frequently too. 2. If you are cruising along heading toward the approach and doing nothing but tracking straight and level, ask yourself if there is something I can do now that will make the approach easier later? Load the approach? Set up the back up navaids? Set a Comm frequency in the standby window? Listen to ATIS or ASOS? Study the approach with special attention to descent gradients? Just my opinion. Bob

Cruiser, Thanks. Now I think I understand. Since we do not have ADS-B out, it does not look to see who is within 15 nm of me. Once we go ADS-B out, it will look at all traffic (participating or not) and if they are within the specified volume they will broadcast that information. My GDL will receive it and put it on my tablet. If I understand that correctly, I'm guessing I will also see traffic that is within the alert area for other participating traffic. That is, if an ADS-B aircraft has traffic 5 miles away, the ground station will broadcast the traffic position and I will see it too. Thanks! Bob