druidjaidan

During my last trip we discovered our year old LED landing light wasn't working. We didn't need it on the trip thankfully so we just left it off until we got back home. We decided to take a look while we were changing our oil and the issue was immediately obvious. The ground wire from the landing light had been installed under tension with no slack and had broken at the eyelet terminal. The wire is a bit weird, it clearly is some form of high temp shielded wire. Does anyone have a spec for this wire?

Takeoff gets us around 17.5 GPH. We've never seen very high CHTs.

Talked to the support rep at tempest. His initial thought was that it was "failure to rotate the plugs". He ended backtracking that pretty hard when I pointed out just how chucks appeared to be missing and told me to send a few plugs in for analysis. We'll see. As for temperatures. It certainly possible, but the damage doesn't really resemble the examples I see online for any of the preignition or detonation. The engine has been perfectly smooth running, and makes normal power. All of which I wouldn't expect if something had been drastically wrong like that or a mistimed mag. Unfortunately we can't pull engine monitor history, we only have a JPI Scanner. We've actually been more concerned about too cold than too hot since we bought the plane. During the winter we struggle to make it to the green arc for CHT and the scanner reading 280-320, maybe getting to 360 during a long climb in the summer. Obviously something is happening or happened, we'll see what Tempest says when they get the plugs.

Tempest UREM38E. I sent an email to a couple people listed as support contacts on the tempest site. I'll see if they get back to me with their thoughts.

We took our plane up to a local MSC to have the 100hr AD's done, a few squawks taken care of, and other preventive maintenance. We pulled the plugs to clean and gap them and found something my mechanic had never seen before. The bottom plugs for cylinders 1, 2, and 3 look like they've been blown apart. These plugs have about 250hours on them.

Oh I'm grateful, or at least my partner is =). I wouldn't wish him to be stranded, we got great help in the past when similar issues struck us so I totally understand. Also just because someone helped doesn't IMO give them a blank check. A lot of it is reasonable, the materials cost is reasonable, the call out fee is reasonable. The shop rate is....annoyingly high (places we normally go to are 80-120/hr), but the field rate is what the field rate is and just means I wouldn't go to them in the future. So the main question probably not clear: My reaction was WTF 3.5 hours to do the tire? Seriously? But I've never done it myself yet so I didn't know if that was reasonable.

I think you might misunderstand my response. It was just clarification that I meant 3.5hours at $159/hr.

Sorry the labor was in no way cheap. It was $159 per hour, $556

My partner landed to get fuel at a moderately busy class delta this past Sunday and had a flat on touchdown. Unfortunate, but everyone was fine as was the plane. The bill was a bit more of a shock than I expected though. So I'm curious if this is line with others experience and we just need to suck it up or if we should complain a bit. The breakdown was: Callout fee ($200) Mechanic 3.5 hours * $159. Tube, Tire, misc materials: $255 Total was a bit north of $1000 The materials cost seems fine to me, a bit more than if we'd bought the same thing ourselves but not incredibly so. The callout is annoying, but par for the course. The mechanic rate is pretty insane, like 60-100% more expensive than any mechanic we've hired before, but the part that surprised me was 3.5 hours to do the tire change??

We discussed it earlier and I thought you had concluded I had it right for my model year =). I promise you that my Vfe is 105mph and Vle is 120mph on my 66 F, I have all the early model stuff: retractable step, smooth control surfaces, manual gear, etc. That Vfe changes a lot of things power setting wise I imagine. I think I've worked out the MP issue and I'm going to have a mechanic address it (no vent hole in the MP line). But that doesn't affect the RPM range issue or the effective power issue, just the gauge calibration (and I believe my 3" offset from the MAPA number). The governor doesn't know anything about what the MP gauge is reading =). I believe the RPM to be accurate, but I'll likely have it checked while in as well. None of this I think changes the issue we ran into being that a Vfe (105mph) we were unable to maintain glideslope with flaps extended and power outside the red arc.

Counterpoint: If we put in flaps we can't maintain a stable approach outside the red range. With my flaps being limited to 105mph our power setting required to maintain glideslope is within the red range. If we remove the flaps the power setting drops below the red arc for a 105mph approach and above it for a 120mph approach (and obviously we can't add flaps for the 120mph approach due to the lower Vfe).

Level at about 15.5" will get me settled at 120mph, just enough to get the gear down. Unless I misread your post it sounds like 15 or 16 inches will get you down to flaps range (105mph) with gear up since you're dropping gear at GS intercept.

Mine is also "avoid continuous operation". I've gotten some mixed signals on what exactly that means across a couple threads reading about it. The description I've heard most commonly though is that you can transit the RPM range, but you shouldn't stop in it. That implies to me that an approach shouldn't be flown in the red range. I'm not sure what qualifies as "continuous". It's a nice ambiguous term. Is 30 seconds continuous, is 2 minutes continuous, 15min, is anytime the needle stops continuous?

There has to be something up with our MP gauge at lower settings. There is no way in hell my plane is making it to flaps speed at 15-16 inches with gear up. At that range I will just barely make it to gear speed in level flight after about 90seconds.

Yeah speed mods are certainly part of the issue. Our plane as the 201 shield, the cowl enclosure some gap seals and the one piece belly all from a previous owner. I'm sure that's weighing in on the differences. I also have a few questions about the accuracy of our MP gauge at low power settings that I plan to have looked at in a couple weeks when we're able to get into the on field shop to get a few other things looked at. The main problem we ran into is this: Starting on approach level at 105mph and configured as: Flaps set to approach (takeoff setting) and gear down. Then at the FAF we reduced power for the glide slope which put us right at about 12" MP, and the prop hits the governor limit and dropped to about 2275 RPM in the red range. If we reduced power to get out of the red we dropped well below glide path. If we pushed up to enough to maintain 2350 we'd drift above glideslope. If we go no flaps then both the 105 and 120 configurations and associated narrative about when and how to configure seem to work out just fine for maintaining glideslope (other than my 3" difference). It just makes the transition a lot more dicey since my usual VFR approach has us on final, full flaps, 80mph and slowing to about 75 over the fence.

I've finally started work in my instrument rating after a few frustrating trips and spending more than I needed to on hotels. My co-owner is a CFII so we're working together on it. He had previously expressed that he had difficultly finding an approach configuration that would maintain glideslope. No matter what he did the power setting the plane wanted to be in to stick to the glideslope was in the red arc. I went out on one of my early lessons that introduced the concepts of fixed power settings and configurations for desired performance and instantly struggled to find a power setting to maintain glideslope. So I did some reading. The MAPA guide gives two approach configs: 120mph, flaps up, gear down at FAF 2350rpm and 18" (ours works out at 15" not sure why), or 105mph, flaps up, gear down early, 2350rpm 13" at the FAF (ours worked at 10" again not sure why). Both of those approach configs (especially the 120mph that the guide seems to emphasize) puts us a lot faster than we normally would be 200ft up. That and literally every config in there has no flaps from M20C to R and we've both been using flaps for landing. I obviously know nothing about it since I'm just learning IR, but my instructor seems to think that's not very common. Are these common configurations that most of you are using? How do you handle the transition from 120mph down to landing, seems like it would just take being a little high on the approach to get into a lot of trouble. We practiced a non precision and I was of course a bit behind and came out high, by the time I had transitioned and landed we had eaten up A LOT of runway.

Related note...Anyone happen to know the part number / source for the spring that holds the door over the receptacle closed?

Close. Here's what I explained to him after his regulator test. The regulator has some simple tests involving testing for a closed circuit at several points as well as a few others things you can test. The generator is tested by measuring the voltage across the armature to ground. It should hit 14v by 1500rpm. His test did nothing. It tested for voltage from field to ground. When master was turned on. Basically testing it how you would an alternator.

Ooops I could have sworn I posted an update on Monday or Tuesday noting that I was all fixed up and on my way, but it was a hectic return flight so I might have missed hitting submit. The repair was finished Monday mid morning. A swapped out generator and I was on my way. Interesting trip back with a squall line over North Dakota and high winds over the Rockies making us out down for the night a couple times. Though the "lone plane in a field with trash swirling about" is a great description of what Oshkosh looks like on Monday It would have saved me a a day or so and a couple hundred dollars had I pushed back on the nonsense voltage regulator test he had me do (basically expecting the field terminal to have voltage, which it would have with an alternator).

I mentioned to you when we spoke that I suspected that he didn't understand the differences between a generator and an alternator, and I was right. The mechanic bumbled the diagnostic he had me do over the phone so unfortunately it wasn't just the voltage regulator. So then he starts showing me how the lower cowl comes off and I was more than a bit uncomfortable with doing that much disassembly, in a time crunch, unsupervised, for the first time, over grass, in the baking sun. So I paid him to do it... Sadly now I'm sitting in the hotel waiting for him to actually do it and hoping he's better at turning wrenches than he is at electronics.

We made it safe and sound to OSH. When we left Wyoming we tried powering some things and where able to run 1 radio, the intercom and basic engine instruments. Eventually we got a draining light again and powered off the radio. Then after a while we got a draining light again and had to cut to just master with basically every breaker pulled except the warning horns. Turned on the radio 45 from RIPON and picked the ATIS. Back off until just before RIPON. Then all the way in. Parked way off in VAC. Pretty confident we where getting some charge. So I would bet against a loose wire. But I'll have an A&P look at it and meet up with BDPeterson once we're settled.

We're currently thinking that we charge up tonight. Camp here and then pull all the breakers/turn off the master and takeoff. When we get in the vicinity we'll turn on a radio and leave everything else off. Then hopefully find a roving A&P at Oshkosh and meet up with bdpetersen

We where over central WY (Worland) on our way to KOSH. Started losing electronics then the low voltage light came on. Seems we lost our generator. Called a bunch of nearby places, nobody has it in stock that we've managed to get ahold of. We're way far away from our home base, anyone got any tips?

Looking for tips on a fuel stop, for the plane and the passengers both. We're planning to do our first overnight in Coeur d'Alene on Friday night. Then get up and make a brief hop to 38S (Deer Lodge MT) to top off then head east with some aerial sight seeing over Yellowstone. We after that we need a stop somewhere around the Mt Rushmore area. Nothing seems to have food obviously available nearby and cheap fuel.

I'll stop by Monday. Possibly plus 1.5 depending on if the wife and daughter want mingle.