Bravoman

Just curious, where you located on the field? I am in one of the new west Ts. Ours are couny controlled and I didn’t think the lease allowed for subleasing but I could be wrong. I think it s back up to about a 10 year wait for county hangars at PDK.

A couple years back I helped my friend get his sailboat out of dry dock out of a huge boatyard in Ft Pierce, Florida, can’t remember the name. He had it there for a couple years to do some work it. There were literally many hundreds of boats up on stands layers deep in this boatyard and about 10% of the boats had people living on them. The place had kind of a surreal feeling about it. It was like there was a subculture of folks living on their dry docked boats, and the craziest thing about it was that it is clear that the vast majority hadn’t been in the water in years and wouldn’t ever sail again.

You can tell from the tail that is a very early 60s model

There is some validity to that. If I was doing a lot of over water, mountain or night flying I would have a twin for sure. I am sensitive to risk management and for that reason don’t fly at night anymore because if something happens to your one engine in a single your options have the potential of being greatly reduced if out of range of an airport. But the twin comes with significantly more maintenance expense and the potential of not one but two overhauls.

I really can’t agree that the operating costs of the Bravo are all that high. I say that though with a caveat. That’s once you get it completely dialed in so far as all systems are concerned with everything operating rock solid where you want it. But then again that really applies to any new-used plane that is 15-50 years old. The reliability an dispatch rate of the Bravo has been great, and as mentioned above, it has a Lycoming that will make TBO with little problem if you fly it correctly which really isn’t that hard, and this certainly should be factored into the equation . Some might argue that burning 18 to 19 gallons an hour in cruise is high , but it really is reasonable when you consider the speed and therefore efficiency of the thing, being able to get up and over a lot of weather that you would otherwise have to circumnavigate, etc

I guess the answer is that you take the plane to someone who doesn’t know what they are doing for enough years and that’s how it happens.

Changing them out is a no brainer based on those ages. I put it in the cheap insurance against having a bad day category.

I’m not sure where mine is installed but if a new probe didnt solve the problem could it be the wiring? I can’t imagine the previous owner, who I know was the original owner, wouldn’t have had it addressed if it were erratic from the get go, which you might assume would be the case if it was due to improper placement. I’m no mechanic but just thinking out loud. Next time I’m at the shop I’ll find out where mine is installed and will report back.

I’ve seen that on Andrew Zimmern’s and Anthony Bourdain’s shows and have been wanting to try it. Looks delicious.

Bk or stec?

Mine too, but it’s nice to know that that is available the next time it breaks. If it was available earlier this year I probably would’ve sprung for it before spending north of $3000 getting my 150 fixed.

If I am reading everything correctly that the Bendix King rep said on the Beech forum , looks like the Aerocruz will be available for the Bravo and other long bodies sometime mid to late next year.

I am interested in the Aerocruz and was particularly interested in it a couple of months back when I was having issues with my KFC 150 and before I spent about $3000 getting it back up to snuff. I had contacted Bendix King directly early in the summer and was assured that it was going to be released in September. That did not occur. Everyone in the avionics business that I have spoken to says that given the history with Bendix King product announcements there is no telling when it will actually come to market. IMO It looks like it will be a great auto pilot replacement option for many of us if it actually hits the market place.

No one said a lawsuit was inevitable and quite frankly if a shop did to my plane what they did to his I don’t think I could get past it to resume a relationship, not when it comes to aircraft maintenance. If we were talking about ski boats, maybe.

And, to let you know that my heart is in the right place, if I was a California lawyer I would represent Don gratis to make sure everything went the right way for him because as an aviator and aircraft owner I can feel his pain. Forget the shop, there is an insurance company involved, he needs to be made at least whole.