johncuyle

This product stack doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The 500&600 are both certified for the 182, but the 210 and M20 only get the 500? If they certified both for the 182 you'd expect that both will eventually be available for at least everything J and up in the M20 line. I think the GFC-500 would probably be a nice autopilot for my K and a good replacement for my KFC-200, but the G5 seems kind of low rent for J, K, or Bravos. The price jump to the GFC-600 is daunting, but if someone might be willing to shove a G500TXi and GFC600 in a 182P then it doesn't seem unlikely that they'd finds some Encore and Bravo drivers who would be willing to spend the money. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's hard to quantify concretely. Before the intercooler I would generally be cooling limited in climb and need to reduce power or pitch for airspeed or sometimes both depending on conditions. I would generally manage climb to get whatever I could without letting CHT climb above 400. So far I've only flown in fall and winter but sustained Vx climbs at 100% power are an option now. Wish I'd done a series of flights under controlled conditions so I could report exact numbers. Installation did require recalibrating (increasing) my fuel flow, though, which is part of the reason it's hard to tell exactly how much of the reduction is due to the intercooler. I'm seeing CDT/IAT differences comparable to the other poster, so 20-25 degrees can probably be attributed to the intercooler. More qualitatively, on my plane it is the difference between climbing at 400 or climbing at a slightly higher rate at 380, which is probably a meaningful difference for cylinder longevity. It only needs to save me a couple replacement jugs to pay for itself. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The black plane in the first post is mine. The biggest change I've noticed is the CHT drop. It has dramatically expanded my performance climb options, especially on hot days. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a 231. It has the semi-automatic wastegate (Merlyn, and also an intercooler now which drops the MP limit to 36 or 37 depending on how cold it is and how well the intercooler seems to be working at the moment). The Merlyn prevents bootstrapping and possibly saves some wear and tear on the turbo and that's about it as far as I can tell. It doesn't prevent overboost or maintain a constant manifold pressure like a proper automated wastegate (252) does. In practice, increased workload only shows up in two places, takeoff and go-around. The 231 is difficult to get maximum takeoff performance from because the engine takes time to make maximum power and won't make maximum power unless the aircraft is moving. Unless I have a LOT of runway to work with, I generally use the short takeoff procedure all the time. Specifically: Line up. Hold the brakes. Slowly advance the throttle until I see about 30"-33" MP. Check the instruments (I'm not moving yet, I have a moment.) You won't be making maximum RPM like this. Ease off the brakes. As you begin to roll: Ram effect will boost MP. The increased MP will cause the fuel system to deliver more fuel. The increased exhaust volume will spin the turbo up, providing more boost. The turbo will boost MP. If you started at 30", you'll be forgoing some power early in the takeoff roll and might need to give it a tiny bit more throttle (If you aren't sure you've moved the throttle, that's probably enough, if you are sure you've moved the throttle, you're probably looking at overboost.) If you started at 33" you will be generating more power more of the time but might need to reduce throttle slightly to avoid overboost. If you run the throttle forward of 33" under static conditions, you will need to pull throttle during the takeoff roll to avoid significant overboost, you'll need to make more than one adjustment, and since any throttle adjustment causes a sympathetic change (the turbo will spin down causing MP to continue to drop past where you stopped moving the throttle after a little latency) you'll probably be chasing the MP until you're down the runway. Hypothetically this is what you need to do to get maximum takeoff performance, but if you pull the throttle too much you may end up doing worse than if you'd settled for 33" and letting it boost itself up to maximum. Overboost isn't catastrophic without the intercooler. There's a mechanical pressure relief that opens at 43" and the POH allows overboosting to 43" for as long as 10 seconds. You won't exceed this if you're paying attention. Intercooler installation does not call for modifying the relief, so it still opens at 43" and you're now 7" over instead of 3". The intercooler dramatically improves cooling and takes a huge chunk out of CHTs and every 231 should have one, but it does make operating the engine more complicated. Go arounds are worse. You need throttle immediately so you don't have time to do the standard four to eight second gradual advance from idle to 3x" MP as on takeoff. If there are no obstacles you can settle for something that gets you positive climb while you deal with the rest (pitch up in landing configuration at full throttle in a K model is very pronounced and requires a lot of forward pressure on the yoke, which you need to be able to provide with one hand because you need the other one for throttle and possibly the trim wheel.) If there are obstacles, the margin for avoiding chasing overshoots and undershoots while getting closer to maximum power is challenging. While this sounds complicated and may be offputting, in practice it isn't that bad. You'll want to practice go-arounds while in landing configuration with full up trim more often than you would with a 252. You'll need to practice performance takeoffs more often than with a 252. Once you get used to it, your intercooled, Merlyn equipped 231 is basically a 252 for half the money. The biggest single drawback to the 231, and it is a big one, is that they cannot be fitted with FIKI TKS. Personally, I don't feel the 252 is worth the premium otherwise. Most of them are kind of portly, the Encores don't generally give you the ~1150 pounds of useful that you'd expect on paper (231's typically have a useful in the 900-950 range, add 230 and you get 1130-1180, also with an Encore at gross you're asking 220hp to lift 230 more pounds than you're asking the 231's 210hp to lift, I'd expect the Encore to outperform a 231 at the same weight but not necessarily carrying the same payload.) At least with the Bravo you get enough extra power to give you serious improvements in climb and, if you don't mind the fuel bill, 200 knots in addition to your FIKI TKS. The 252 makes sense if you NEED FIKI TKS and really prize efficiency (making the Bravo less desirable), but you pay a substantial premium on acquisition price. Last I checked, FIKI Encores go for more than FIKI Bravos. If you don't need FIKI, maybe buy a 231 and spend the money you save to go fly it.

I have a 231 and like the relatively low operating costs (as complex turbocharged aircraft go) but as soon as you start thinking "You know, FIKI TKS would be a significant improvement in dispatch" and your start thinking about putting significant money into a panel, you start looking at Bravos. Yes, they aren't quite as pretty as the K or Acclaim, the panel is absurdly tall, and the TIO-540 isn't my preferred engine, but the airframe is valuable enough that putting a decent panel in isn't insane, it may already have G1000 if you get a later model, the electrical system is very robust, useful load is very good even with FIKI TKS, and most of the places you can pull weight out of a 231 you can also pull weight out of a Bravo. Also (probably because most people come to the same place, where they'd really prefer something which didn't have the thirsty Lycoming, the high panel, etc.) They are an insane value. I pretty much constantly think I should sell my 231, take the loss on the repairs and upgrades I had done, and buy a Bravo. Then I look at my fuel consumption spreadsheet and decide I should keep the 231. Then there's a 3000' thick cloud layer at 2000 AGL, which coincidentally is also the freezing level and I know I could never fly my 231 through it and I start the second guessing process all over again. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Also in WA. $65 a year, cheaper than car tabs, the primary leverage they have is most airports want a state registration number to lease you a hangar. As another poster mentioned, it supports a lot of really great state airports. The one that gets me is the use tax. Charged at the rate of sales tax, required upon first use within the state. Not sure why WA deserves 7.5% of the value of a used aircraft. Someone already got their sales tax in 1980. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The FAA is under the impression that every ignition system developed since the magneto is less reliable.

I'm trying to get a breakdown now. Everything was working fine when the bottle was pulled, this is supposed to just be the standard three year hydro test per the maintenance manual, which references the DOT regulations. Nobody has said anything about a replacement bottle so I have no idea how the quote could be anywhere near $1600. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, that all sounds reasonable. I had the bottle and regulator pulled (functioning fine, 300psi in the bottle) and the quote I have for hydro and checking the regulator function is a completely outrageous $1600. Not including shipping or labor to remove install the bottle. It was also supposed to be two weeks and done locally and its been four already, I just got the quote today, and my oxygen tank is inexplicably 1000 miles away. A new composite bottle is cheaper. Maybe someone screwed up and added an extra zero to the end. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I need to service my oxygen tank for the first time since purchasing my plane and both the time it has taken and the quote that I've gotten seem excessive. For people who have had this done, how much does it typically cost and how long is average turnaround?

Makes perfect sense. Self driving cars exist. Self driving cars which any sane person would trust with their life don't.

You're not thinking of this from a human error perspective. Driving a car gives you, personally, a lot of opportunities for error. Software gives hundreds of people millions of chances for error. Even though a lot of the technology behind self driving cars relies on machine learning, results from those trained algorithms aren't perfect and the learning process itself requires data which is marked up by humans. Or data marked up by machine driven processes which has been trained using machine data marked up by humans. With self driving cars you're making a choice between who to trust your life to, yourself or a few hundred programmers. It isn't that the programmers are necessarily bad, most are very good, it's just that they're human and software provides massive room for error. Also, keep in mind that one of the major companies working on self driving cars is Google, and Google is an advertising company. You going to trust your life to software written by an advertising company? Hard pass.

Don't need to. We have one in our parking garage at work. I don't work on that project, but I am a programmer, and I've seen other people's code. I'll take my chances with my own reflexes, thanks.

I seriously doubt we'll see self driving cars within the next decade. They're hard to get working under ideal circumstances. Cars need to operate under sub-optimal circumstances. Like at night in fog and driving rain with half the sensors broken. I doubt anyone is going to get close to that level of reliable autonomy anytime soon. Self-flying aircraft are easier in some ways since the only non-fixed obstacles are other aircraft and most (but not all) of them will be reporting their position within a few years so there's less to hit, and the regulatory structure is already built around grounding them if there's a meaningful equipment failure. But the FAA won't even certify 60 year old ignition and fuel injection technologies for our aircraft on grounds they require electricity. They won't certify an all electric aircraft for at least another 200 years.

I was confused until I saw Future of Flight on the list, then I became REALLY confused. This list can't have been made by anyone who actually went to these museums. I've been there and I wasn't terribly impressed. FHC and HFF are both more interesting (the planes actually fly!) and they're both also at Paine. You'd also have to have missed the Museum of Flight restoration center, which is not really a complete museum experience but it is pretty unique, especially when viewed as an addition to the Museum of Flight, which is the big one in WA, also better than Future of Flight. Also they somehow missed the Museum at KMMV? It has the Spruce Goose... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've got one that was just pulled off my 1980 M20K at annual and replaced with LEDs. PM me and we can sort something out. It is unpainted. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Market's weird. Acclaim is faster, more comfortable, safer, more efficient, has better engineered landing gear, and (subjective) is better looking. Cirrus will, inexplicably, sell more inferior planes than Mooney will sell superior ones. Same thing happens with cars, too. Toyota will sell more Corollas than Mazda will sell 3's despite the 3 being a vastly superior vehicle in every way. Most consumers are bad consumers.

Me neither, but I have also noticed that leaning is trickier since getting the pressure adjusted. On the ground at idle I don't seem to be able to lean as aggressively as I used to, and it seems to require a little more fiddling to get it leaned out in cruise as well. I don't have experience with flying it without the intercooler and at correct FF (it was low before I went in) so I'm not sure whether it is due to the combination of changes or just the FF adjustment. I can still get it to run lean, though, it just isn't quite as easy.

I'm in the camp that has a vintage 1980 BK panel with the sole upgrade being a new Garmin navigator. Essentially, I'm exactly the target customer for Skyview since I have the one piece they don't provide, none of the pieces they do, and an airframe that really isn't worth enough to warrant a multi-screen G500 TXi and GFC 600 setup, but is kind of too nice to go with the 172-tier GFC-500 and G5 duo. That said, whoever gets something reasonable, either Skyview or a comparably priced G3C (the G3X, except Certified rather than eXperimental) certified for the M20K gets my money.

Process is basically the same, the difference is the MP at which 100% horsepower is achieved. Without the intercooler it is 40" on a standard day. With, it is adjusted based on temperature drop across the intercooler. Ballpark, you should be flowing around 25GPH at 40" on a standard day without the intercooler and about 25GPH at ~36" on the same day with the intercooler. My fuel flow was low before the install. LASAR fixed it when the intercooler went in and between the additional fuel and the intercooler my CHTs are like 40dF cooler in climb. 100% power climbs at 90KIAS on a standard day yields a bit over 1000FPM climb and CHT below 380. At 115KIAS using book standard climb power settings (with MP adjusted down, of course) I can set the cowl flaps in trail, climb at over 500FPM, and still stay cooler. The intercooler was worth every dollar and pound of useful.

I emailed Dynon to ask how much of an engine monitor install's sensor wiring could be reused with Skyview. They said that the only sensors which could be used would be the thermocouples for EGT/CHT and possibly a fuel flow transducer. Pressure and temperature thermisters would have to be the ones that they certify for the system. Probably the best option would be to go with an inexpensive multi probe secondary for now just to get the CHT/EGT data while minimizing wasted labor rewiring things.

That speed sounds really good for a TKS, hot prop, three blade. You're burning a lot of fuel and with that GAMI spread you really ought to be able to run leaner. I've got a 231 with Champion massives all around and probably a worse spread (no engine monitor) and I can run fifty to seventy five lean. I don't get anywhere near that speed (two blade hot prop no TKS, with intercooler and Merlyn) at 65% and 8000', but running LOP I'm showing 10gph. Given your fuel flow I also wonder if your MP gauge is off and you're running more like 70% power.

Does anyone have experience with the electric hot prop? I'm trying to find out what the expected performance impact for the boots on the MT is.

I had similar flows. Got fixed at annual as part of the fuel pressure retuning for the intercooler install. I see 25GPH on takeoff now, I can pitch for 90 knots, and climb at 1100FPM at 35" with CHTs down around 370. It's like a whole different plane.

It's weird to think, "Hey, and you'll probably be able to resell the old ones" about a landing light. Too bad I'll probably already have Sunspots in mine by then.