toto

They mentioned a four-place turbine, but did they also mention a pressurized four place? It kind of sounded like they were talking about selling a Meridian for the price of a Matrix (but losing two seats and a pressure vessel). I actually think there’s probably a market for this sort of thing. Many of the SETP owners fly solo or with a single passenger, given the limited useful load of some of these planes. Losing two seats might bring the insurance down a hair. The icon they used for the four-place turbine gap actually looks like a PC-12 to me, which is *not* an aircraft that suffers from limited useful load

Interestingly, Aeroshell lists 21C as the top temp for W80. (This is more a marketing page than a spec page, idk.) https://www.shell.com/business-customers/aviation/aeroshell/piston-engine-oil/w80-w100-w120.html ”AeroShell W80 for cold climate regions (-17 to 21°C)”

There’s an interesting oldish Flying magazine article on this topic from the early aughts .. https://www.flyingmag.com/rules-and-fuel/

We were talking about this in another thread recently, and it sounded like the STC language is incorrect. The STC has not yet been approved, and ETA is unknown.

I certainly wasn’t trying to say that AV-1 is the best oil. It has well-documented problems. I was saying that among synthetic aviation oils, I had the best experience with AV-1 of the lot. I’m currently running XC with CamGuard in the Mooney.

Every 50 hours in my case, vs the Mobil allowance of 100 hours (which obviously was a bit optimistic). My understanding of the sludge situation was that it mostly affected big-bore Continentals. The most notable thing I remember about it was that Dick Collins had a very public fight over engine damage from the oil, which was probably the worst PR the product could have had.

Clearly a very subjective assessment Used AV-1 in an O-360 for 2500 hours with essentially no change in oil consumption and no change in compression over the life of the engine (well, the life of the overhaul, anyway). Did a major at 2500 just because it seemed like borrowed time, but there were zero problems with the engine. Started using Exxon Elite after the major, and compressions were worse with worse oil consumption (and ended up getting hit with a fun 50-hour recurring AD on ECi cylinders too). I know that the AD, oil consumption, and compression likely has nothing at all to do with the post-break-in oil (likely more to do with the break-in itself). But subjectively I liked the AV-1 better because it did everything I could ask of an oil, and nothing else

My experiences with synthetic aviation oil are something like: * Mobil AV-1 was the best by far * Exxon Elite was second-best, only used after AV-1 was pulled * Aeroshell 15w50 was never quite as good as Elite, stopped using in favor of XC+CamGuard If anyone wants to go back to AV-1 and needs to buy a case or two or ten, I might know a guy

Should be totally fine. Go crazy But seriously, as long as it’s an aviation oil and meets the SAE spec, it should be compatible with every other oil. https://www.aviationpros.com/home/article/10387125/mixing-piston-aviation-oils-will-topping-off-with-a-different-brand-weight-or-type-harm-the-engine

It’s going to be a really hard question to answer without knowing the state of the panel and installed equipment. Any major panel work on a 40-year-old aircraft is going to involve a lot of rewiring. There’s likely to be a rat’s nest of old, crusty wires and connectors, and your install shop is going to want to redo all of that. Honestly, if you’re going to go to the trouble of cutting a new panel and moving things around, it’s definitely worth considering a move to solid state digital instruments and removing the vacuum system. On the other hand, if you’re primarily concerned about the appearance of the instrument faces, there are companies that will refurb with new silkscreens and glass for a very reasonable fee without a lot of cutting and rewiring. You could probably refurb all of your original instrument faces for 2-4AMU.

Yeah, two policy renewals up again for me this year. Single-digit percentage increase, which almost seems like a win these days.

I did 15.0 last week, and then 15.0.1 showed up today.

Just a note that the Garmin EIS is their engine information system, while EIS is also used generically for electronic ignition systems. The Garmin EIS is a good consideration for this install, but an Electroair system would be largely a separate effort.

Looks good to me.

New paint, new avionics, and a new prop for 20k? Sign me up

Yep, this is the one case where I occasionally turn on the cellular function. Getting a briefing or filing a flight plan in the middle of nowhere. I’ve actually had surprisingly good luck with rural FBOs that have functioning wifi, but a cellular iPad definitely gives you more options.

Right, I’m just saying that if you don’t pay for it, then it gives you no value at all. So you either buy the thing you don’t want that is theoretically useful (which is what I’ve got now), or you buy the thing you don’t want that can’t be used (which is what you’ve got if you don’t pay the subscription fee).

Yep, that’s right. They do use AGPS, but they don’t require that the cellular function be turned on in order to use location services. The cellular function on my iPad is turned off 99% of the time. Seriously, if I’m flying around with the cellular function turned on, my battery life is much much worse than with just location services. And that’s with a barely-used iPad that’s less than a year old.

Yep, it’s my understanding that the GPS and cellular radio are integrated into the same component. Whether it would be possible for Apple to produce an iPad with one or the other, I have no idea - but other manufacturers separate the two functions, and offer a GPS in their wifi-only tablets. The end result is that iPad consumers have to buy a cellular radio they don’t want, or go without a GPS that they do want. Apple is a hugely successful company, and I have no doubt that they make very good decisions - both for customer satisfaction and for their bottom line. They are famously unapologetic for design decisions that seem confounding at a glance, but later become a standard that other companies emulate. Anyway, I’m not trying to suggest that the GPS+cellular thing is wrong in any absolute sense. It’s just an annoyance for me to have to buy a thing that I don’t want in order to get another thing that I do want. Feels like cable tv all over again. And as carusoam pointed out, in order to buy the GPS, you have to buy another thing that requires a monthly subscription. So the cellular function is just battery-draining dead weight if you don’t pay the subscription fee.

I use the Apple Pencil to copy clearances in all cases, but I don’t use it for flight logging. I log flights in MyFlightBook, normally in the cockpit right after shutdown. And then I periodically backfill my paper logbook with all of the entries from MyFlightBook.

You can you turn on the GPS without turning on the cellular function. I never turn on the cellular function, because it seriously hurts my battery life. My opinion is that requiring a cellular iPad to get a GPS is primarily a sales gimmick to get people to spend an extra $150 on the cellular function. (I’m a person who buys the cellular iPad only for the GPS, and it’s a little bit maddening, since other manufacturers provide a GPS receiver with their wifi-only units.) But I like having fewer things bouncing around the cockpit, so I would rather spend the $150 on the cellular iPad than on something like a Bad Elf. I’m normally getting position from a GTX345, but I want the tablet to have a separate source in case the panel goes dark.

My biggest frustration with the Apple Pencil is its abysmal battery life. The pencil doesn’t work if it isn’t charged, and the charge lasts only a few hours. I have a Surface Pro with a stylus that uses a replaceable alkaline battery that lasts for about a year, and for my purposes it’s every bit as good as the Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil is quite nice, and writes very well with zero lag. But the battery is terrible. (I haven’t used a new Pencil, I’m using the original - so the new one may be better..) Anyway, copying clearances or scribbling notes on a chart really is pretty easy. I just have to remember to charge the dang pencil so it’s there when I need it.

Usually one of three things: * Internal GPS if equipped (must be a “cellular” iPad to get the GPS) * Nav source from a panel-mount device (GTX 345 transponder is a common example) * Portable GPS like a Stratus or a Stratux (those do double duty as ADS-B receivers, but others like Bad Elf are just GPS units)

I have an iPad case with an Apple Pencil holder that keeps it visible and right next to the iPad on my knee. It still isn’t as easy as scribbling quickly on a piece of paper, but it’s close. And the cockpit is a little bit less cluttered since I have no paper, and I just have the one stylus instead of an array of pens that I used to have stuck in every possible location. The transition from giant leather Jepp binders full of approach plates to one little electronic gadget was such a massive improvement that I’m sure I’ll have a tablet sitting in my lap for the foreseeable future. So if I can use that tablet for other things (flight manual, checklists, scratchpad), it’s all gravy.

The phone briefers on Flight Service were actually really nice back in the day, because they were usually local and had very good knowledge of local conditions and procedures. But ever since the transition to an outsourced service, where you’re talking to someone in a far-away call center, it has had zero benefit vs self-briefing for me.