Ragsf15e

One annoyance with my edm-930 is that it flashes a red warning if my rpm hits 2700 as that’s the “redline”. Luckily my prop generally hits around 2660-2680 usually, but I dislike getting warnings from something that’s actually a good thing (2700 rpm) during takeoff. They should have better logic built in. What does your g3x do?

You don’t. Technically you still have the flares and chaff armed (which would be a big no no at home) in the pattern but you’re so slow that you’d probably be toast. Hopefully the base defense people are patrolling a wide area around the base. I will say that we flew very tight patterns, thus the derogatory term “bomber pattern” for a wide one. Yeah, if you’re going to combat in an army unit, on a ship, or in a fighter aircraft, there will always be times where you know that you’re very vulnerable. You try to minimize that, but sometimes it can’t be helped or the mission is important enough that you do it anyway.

it’s awesome isn’t it! I know this is slightly different, but I assure you there’s some of that same rush in the Mooney… When deployed overseas, we often flew “tactical recoveries” just in case someone tried to sit a mile off the end of the runway with a “manpad” and pick you off. Also, because they were really fun. There are many options, but speed, randomness and altitude (high or low) all play a factor. You didn’t want to come up initial at 300kts /1000’ being predictable like at your home station. On one deployment, there were two options, 500’, 500kts up initial to a climbing break for downwind, and the other one was a high altitude (~15,000’) steep dive to downwind. All of these were done in 2 or 4 ship flights. I was sitting as supervisor in the tower one morning (~6am) during the actual invasion part of OIF and 2 Navy F-14s (yes, we still had them then) came back from Iraq and wanted to wake up the base. They came up initial at somewhere around 50’ and I don’t know how fast, but they weren’t quite supersonic. The “tower” was very short, but I only saw the top of them going by below me before the incredible roar which I thought might bring down the building. Before #2 had called gear down, the phone was ringing. The USAF colonel in charge of operations was screaming mad and since the pilots weren’t currently available, he was taking it out on me. I could only picture the scene in top gun of Maverick and Goose standing outside the office after their high speed pass! So that arrival wasn’t used much after that… but we did have some fun with the high one. One morning after flying all night, I brought my 2 ship home completely out of bombs and very little fuel too! We were up around 35,000’ just hanging on min power to drift home. No speed restrictions from bombs, I figured that was as good an altitude as any to enter the pattern. So I flew to the left “downwind” with my wingman out about 1/2 nm to the right, clicked the mic twice to get his attention, rolled inverted, idle power, and pulled the nose down until it centered on the little nader dot in the hud that was 90 degrees down. I looked over at my wingman and his jet looked so awesome pointing straight down, still out there, sunrise in the background. It felt like an eternity, but I was happy to see the Eagle (with missiles and external fuel tanks still) wouldn’t quite get supersonic in idle power. I swear it felt like 2 minutes, but eventually I tensed up my legs and pulled about 5 or 6 Gs to pull out of the dive and kill the speed, dropped the gear and flaps and rolled off on base. I was basking in the glow of my arrival on rollout when my wso pulled out his earplug and found a pool of blood. Apparently he was a little clogged, hadn’t said anything because it “was so awesome”, and had almost burst his eardrum. He missed the next 5 days of flying and had to be a mission planner until he healed.

Ha! I just saw that you went to the Big Texan! We use to go there all the time when I was teaching USAF pilot training. Amarillo is a good dinner stop on cross country. If you call the restaurant from the fbo, they’ll come pick you up in a huge black limo (~60s era?) with real Texas longhorns across the entire width of the front of the hood!

My F has a fixed step (1968 model), so I think his is fixed too.

I had that problem with mine a few years ago. Very frustrating to troubleshoot since it was only happening once in a while. Once was in the weather on a SID with a climb gradient which was fun. I actually called DMax and talked to him about it and he recommended cleaning that plunger with contact cleaner or similar (it’s not technically an electrical contact) each annual. I did that and haven’t had that problem recur at all!

Being from Canada, you probably already know this, but definitely bring some extra survival gear! I fly on “cold” days down here in Washington, but I’ve only seen -20c before my heater couldn’t keep up (I was already wearing a hat). If your engine dies and you make a beautiful landing in a field, don’t let the rescuers find your dead frozen body next to the airplane with no gear/fire/mummy bag! But being from Canada, you already knew this…

My last set was at ~800hrs and doing fine. Weird how there’s some random failures.

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.

Thats just two sad reasons to lose an airplane, however im glad he wasn’t hurt.

Ahh, well you’re in good shape then! If you’re waiting on the boards, possibly worth a close look at the flaps to make sure they are both coming up fully and equally.

There’s a good rigging article out there too… ill see if my google skills are up to the test… found it! https://knr-inc.com/shoptalk-articles.html?view=article&id=106&catid=25

Ahh, yes. I used Jepp for a while as well and it was a little quirky even on windows. Garmin initially had a browser based system when they started providing navdata, but now they have an “app” that you download and run from windows. Ive had great results with both a G1000 and my gns430w.

Yeah the gear design isn’t great for a wow switch since it doesn’t compress nearly as much as something with a piston or spring. Well it doesn’t compress much if your donuts are good, maybe yours does ;)? The airspeed switch seems a more reliable way to keep the gear down when you’re on the ground and allow them to come up in the air.

Im surprised you guys have issues running garmin’s navdata update app? I’m using a relatively up to date windows computer and Garmin’s installed update software (not the older web browser update). It works perfectly for GNS cards.