Ragsf15e

The g1000 I fly (Piper) has all of those. Weird they didn’t certify that on the g3x?

Ok, that’s embarrassing. Navy, right? I will say at home station, we generally just used 300-350kts up initial, you could be down to 200kts after the break easy. However, when deployed, there are all kinds of fun approaches, and I don’t remember crashing. Once I did burst my wso’s eardrums (actually just bulging blood through them) but I came up over the field with my wingman at ~35,000’, rolled inverted and pointed straight down in idle. The F-15E has enough drag to stay subsonic in idle. At around 5000’ we started pitching up and ended up on downwind about 300kts. You can lose a lot of airspeed in a 6G pull in idle! Apparently he was a little stuffed up and the pressure change wasn’t good for him. We also had a 500’, 500kts on initial option, but that was frowned upon after the navy jets kept doing it at 200’ and 600 kts. Oh yeah, in Afghanistan I definitely did a split S to downwind a few times. Anyway, these approaches are fun, but they are also for a purpose in bad guy country. At night we just did the ILS lights out. And nobody should crash!

It gets confusing down there though because there’s both uplimit and down limit switches. If one is sticking, you can have some weird stuff that’s difficult to sort out. When I had this type of issue a couple years ago (no squat switch on mine though) I called dmax and he got on the phone with me. Basically told me, step 1, do what @N201MKTurbo said, lube those switches. Step 2, here’s the part numbers for them. Step 3, bring it to him. It stopped happening after step 1 but I have no idea if I exorcised something with lube like @Yetti recommended?

I’m not sure that’s correct. I have a 68 F with hydraulic flaps and it has 125mph Vfe. I don’t know why it changed, but it doesn’t seem to be hydraulic to electric flaps causing the change.

Glad you didn’t go yanking cylinders!

I have my long funnel in a ziplock freezer bag with paper towels in the bottom. Then I put that ziplock in another ziplock. Gallon freezer bags work well. Double-bagged. No mess. Easy.

Wouldn’t surprise me if the squat switches can go bad like that and cause issues, but I think it’s unlikely that your discs are causing that when the gear is up.

The pucks only affect those few years with the squat switch and if the gear move up, it shouldn’t be the squat switch. However, it’s complicated enough that anything is possible. It’s best to work on replicating it on jacks.

I got charged .25 of an hour. So roughly $30. However my airplane was already in the shop for annual and I brought in all the documentation and told him how to do the check, so that saved him reading the whole AD.

Bruces covers and cowl plugs have been great for me but it’s only outside away from home.

Thanks guys that’s awesome! So it sounds like I could also cue up atis on the 430w and disconnect the top antenna and see if it gets worse or no reception. I wouldn’t hurt anything and could prove it’s that antenna? Skip, I’ll try to get the motivation to get behind the radios and switch the antenna wires, but man is that a rats nest.

I don’t know why this would be, but I thought there was the possibility of hurting a radio by using it with the antenna disconnected? Probably i was wrong…

I can access both antenna- one is above and slightly aft of the rear avionics shelf. One is in the belly - bent whip as you mentioned. Is there a safe way to just disconnect one and see which radio it’s connected to? Id like to troubleshoot the correct one…

Hello, Like everyone else with a radio problem, I don’t think it’s the radio… Can someone tell me the proper way to troubleshoot my antenna and antenna cable? My radio 1 is a 430W and it has significantly more noise and worse reception than the sl30 which is #2. It also seems to be worse when I’m pointed away from the transmission. The 430w was rebuilt by garmin in 2015 (waas upgrade). I have had a few complaints about weak transmission in the past, but generally, nobody says anything, so I’m not really sure about transmission? I believe the 430w uses the top antenna, but I’m not positive. How would I test this safely? Thank you!

Theoretically, the truetrac is also certified for you, but they are unobtainable. Your best bet is probably a gfc500. You can do a pretty minimal install if you want and leave out trim and yaw damper. You will need at least one g5, gi275, or g3x to run it. It’s probably your best bet for long term support too based on king vs garmin. The older STEC models cost more and are generally not worth purchasing new.

In pilot training, one of my classmates had an armadillo strike in a T-37 during a touch and go. Those things can do surprising damage. I think a deer could total your airplane depending on where you hit it!

Mine is in the left wing, but yeah, out under the wing so it’s away from the engine, propwash and out of the sun.

If you’ve ever had thoughts of putting in an IO-390 when you hit overhaul time, you’ll need to have either the 2 or 3 blade top prop.

If you do the 650/750, just get a good read on the installation because it’s not a simple swap from a 530. You might be talking new wiring, antenna, radio racks, and integration with other avionics. That can add significant cost. The 210 would have lesser unknown installation costs.

Despite Skip’s description, the system as a whole is pretty simple. Juice goes into your VR from your bus (master switch and alt on, all breakers in). It should be full bus voltage. 12/24 if on battery, 14/28 with the alternator on and working. Juice comes out from the VR at a slightly lower voltage (~11.5v for a 14v system, but look at the troubleshooting guide). Juice from the VR goes into the alternator (make sure you didn’t lose any in transit). Skip’s magic happens. Juice comes out of the alternator at 14/28v and goes back to the bus where it feeds everything, including the VR and the battery. Follow the juice. Make sure you don’t have a broken connection spilling it or a corroded connection that spills just some of it - but this doesn’t seem like your issue since your alternator is totally off line.

That’s why going through a step by step troubleshooting guide is pretty beneficial. Some things are obvious but it’s harder when a connection looks ok but isn’t. The voltmeter doesn’t lie (usually). Im not the most mechanically inclined either, and I had to work on my electrical knowledge for sure, but I eventually got fed up with just throwing new parts at my problem. @M20Doc has a simple way to check the VR Voltage is making it to the alternator. Was that your paperclip check doc? He usually doesn’t like these threads because we bash A&Ps on electrical knowledge, but he’s a rare breed and definitely knows what he’s doing.

Cooling drag is a big deal for sure. On the older models, the big guppy mouth lets in too much air and can’t efficiently flow it all down through the cylinder fins. Evidently, Some of it even comes back out the front! I don’t remember the reference for that, but we’ve got it around here somewhere. The slight cowl flap opening minimizes this apparently by helping pull the air through, but better cowl design on later models probably helped a lot more.

You’re learning about old aircraft electronics. Some A&Ps are good at it, but many are not. You need a digital voltmeter and one of the troubleshooting guides like posted above. With the airplane off you can do most of the fault isolation yourself. While you’re at it, check the connections on the alternator carefully for wear. Those connections are notorious. You can also follow the voltage from the vr to the alternator and from the alternator out. Do this really carefully because the engine is running. You’ll likely need to follow the voltage through the system and find out where the problem is. I went through this a couple years ago and it got pretty expensive before I troubleshot it myself, found a corroded connection and fixed it. But at least I got an education and a new VR and alternator out of the deal…

Yeah, I agree it can mask a problem. I watched mine get its capacity checked (~2 hours on the tester), but if you’re not getting checked annually, starting the engine isn’t a great metric. Doesn’t really matter if you’re using a battery minder or not, starting the engine isn’t a capacity check.

Yes, mine does that to the 430W. Just can’t get it to the g5s as @Vance Harral explained.