jaylw314

make sure your battery has a 2.1 A output, the standard 1.0 A output is not enough to power and charge an iPad.

Most turbocharged cars today have turbine blades that are lubricated by engine oil and cooled by engine coolant, so the warm up/cool down is not necessary. My car has a 4 cylinder engine factory turbocharged to 300 hp (a Subaru WRX STI), and the user manual does NOT recommended any warm up/cool down. Still going strong 12 years later. I remember a friend, though, with an old turbocharged Volvo who did have to cool down for a minute before shutting down. Presumably, that turbo was not water cooled.

Just so you know, the range I mentioned was for someone looking for a 201 with IFR GPS, autopilot with altitude, engine monitor and no damage history. Those are all high demand items and that makes good planes hard to find among the lemons--the good ones just don't stay on the market long. I ended up finding one with all that but ended up only finding one with a factory remanufactured motor once I looked in the $120k range. If it was a mid-time engine, I probably could have spent $90-100k, but there just weren't any in that range on the market. 201's are popular for a reason

For comparison, I was looking initially for 201's in the $75-90k range, and found 3-4 lemons (both airplanes and buyers). It was only when I moved into the $90-120k range that the search became more productive.

Remember, after 2020 without ADS-B Out, you can still request ATC prior approval for rule airspace as long as you make the request at least an hour beforehand

The theory is with more aft CG, the horizontal stabilizers need to produce less downforce at any given speed to maintain level attitude. I'm not sure what proportion of the wing lift this is, so I'm not sure what amount of speed change to expect.

Dumb question, maybe, but is it actually fuel? Are you parked under a dripping hangar roof?

AOPA's AIr Safety Institute has a YouTube page with all their previous videos too, just search for "Air Safety Institute" there

I've found plugs a few times that were lead fouled. Having the engine monitor lets you easily identify which specific plug is fouled, saving you the time it takes to pull all of them or a trip to the shop. No major stuff but not minor either. Your LOP numbers don't sound too far off. Your fuel flow is consistent with 65% power, so you should be ok leaning to any setting, as long as you don't have one rogue injector richer than the others.

I thought the F/A-18 had two seat training variants (as did many other fighters)?

Good point, and interesting comment about the encoder warming up, I'll have to test it after a longer flight, thanks!

Eww, not to second guess, but it's somewhat risky having a shop that's done recent work on the plane do a PPI--they may not be motivated to uncover squawks, especially related to any recent work done. Not that it is automatically bad--I had Dugosh do my PPI and they found no engine squawks, and I only realized later they had done the installation of the remanufactured engine 4 years before. Luckily it turned out ok

Mike Busch suggested in one of his webinars that the primary goal of the pre-buy should be to identify major issues or deal-breakers, and he suggested minor squawks should not be the focus. As a seller, I would not feel compelled to fix anything I did not want to since I did not pay for the pre-buy (and because I'm the owner), which is the way I think it should be. As a buyer, I might use minor squawks as ammunition to try to negotiate a lower sale price, which would also be an appropriate strategy. But as a buyer, walking out on a deal because of unfixed minor squawks would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.

For a pre-buy, it should be made clear the ONLY things to be disassembled are inspection panels, cowling, belly panel(s), interior panels, and things that could be disassembled by an owner (spark plugs). Flight controls, structural elements, or things that require certification, e.g. pitot/static, should NOT be disassembled, since reassembly requires them to be done in what the A&P thinks is an "airworthy" fashion, and this opens the plane up to the possibility of being grounded. Reassembly would also require a log entry, which should NOT be allowed as part of the pre-buy. The former are all elements the owner could put back himself if an A&P refused to reassemble the plane for whatever reason.

IMO, in the piston singles, it's maximum and minimum airspeed that puts you at risk for getting behind. Even though all of them can be flown at similar airspeeds, faster planes will be flown faster by their pilots, which means less time for any given task. At slow speeds, a fast plane can't be flown as slow, meaning less time for any given task. That probably far outweighs any complexity, which can be overcome by checklists and procedures.

Had time to test the KT-74 this weekend. The first test it failed because of a minute's worth of bad altitude reporting? It wasn't possible to figure where that happened, but the second time it passed. Now, though, the altitude preselector (KAS-297B) is wonky. When I select a vertical speed, the autopilot starts the climb or descent, then stops and starts. The flight director actually indicates the climb or descent accurately, the plane just doesn't follow. Everything else on the KFC-150 seems to work, including the altitude preselect function. Moderately annoying. I know they worked on the static system (they troubleshot a static leak), but not sure how this would affect it since the altimeter and encoder seem to work fine, and I think the KAS-297B only gets the encoding signal (no static line) and autopilot info. I think I will wait a while until I have financially recovered before chasing this down.

Whatever app or receiver you use, if you turn off any options to "hide ownship", you should be able to see your own aircraft on the display. If there is no N number displayed on your return, your ADS-B transmitter is not working, since it should be transmitting your N number all the time.

FWIW, I use a 10,000 mAH rechargeable lithium battery with a USB port to power the stratux. That way I can put it in the back seat out of the way. The battery lasts at least 8 hours continuously. The antenna has a magnetic base, so I stickied one of those metal plates from a magnetic cabinet latch onto the window, so now I can just pop the antenna on the window when needed. Don't have to worry about any magnetic interference with the compass with everything in the back seat

The two MSC's I did pre-buy inspections with simply had a flat pre-buy fee which was due once they gave me the report. While not written in the contract, I had the expectation they would come after me as the buyer for the invoice. They had my information after all, since I had to make the arrangements. I think it is completely reasonable and expected that the pre-buy should be paid for completely by the buyer--that way, the buyer owns the information in the report, not the seller. It's cleaner that way, and it means there's no ambiguity about making the sale conditional on the results of that inspection. The buyer simply gets information he needs to determine if he wants to proceed, and information to renegotiate the sale price.

When you hook up your tablet to the Stratux, go to your internet browser and go to the address 192.168.10.1. This goes to the Stratux setup (I believe it can copy a link to your home page). If you go to the Settings tab, there is an entry for your Mode S code.

Generally, an engine-out 180 turn will take about 300-500 feet depending on technique, so if the plane was initially heading north, it would lose 600-800 feet. That decreases range by about 1 mile if the glide ratio is 1.7 miles/1000 ft. The downwind glide would add 1.7 miles of glide range, so it would be doable from 10,000 ft.

Well, they're not approved for aviation use for starters. The oxygen regulator is a pressure regulator, but calibrated in LPM flow rate, so it's unlikely to be accurate at altitude. That's why I use the MH valve and flow meter also. I set the regulator to 2 LPM, and use the flow meter to set the proper flow (and have visual confirmation of flow) love. At 12k MSL, I got about 7 hours for 2 people from a D cylinder. Using a CGA-540 valve means no questions asked filling with O2 at the local welding supply shop. They can be leery of filling medical cylinders, and the CGA-540 valve is their standard. My D size cylinder (240 L) costs $12 to fill there. The guys there always ooh and say about how nice my cylinders are. It's a little creepy

I thought the STC requires the install to be done by an FAA avionics shop?

AFAIK, there are no FAA regulations related to portable oxygen systems. There are no minimum requirements or TSO's that need to be met. The only person who will have a problem with an out-of-date cylinder is the supplier you buy the oxygen from. On the other hand, if you fill a current tank and then transfill to an out of date tank, I suppose nobody would know. I think aluminum cylinders need to be hydro tested every 3 years. I think it cost about $10-15 at my local welding shop. It's cheap and I think that is important since aluminum does fatigue. I don't know if steel or carbon fiber cylinders have different limits, though I bought oxygen cylinders here. Order tanks with the "low-profile valve" option, so the regulator sits vertically instead of horizontally http://www.cramerdeckermedical.com/category.php?category_id=2 with this regulator https://www.lifemedicalsupplier.com/compact-regulator-opa520-0-15-lpm-cga-540-barb-outlet.html with the MountainHigh needle valve/flow gauge http://www.mhoxygen.com/index.php/portable-constant-flow/constant-flowother/79-xcp-mh3-a-mh4-flowmeters and Oxymizer cannulas http://www.shoplet.com/Drive-Medical-Conserving-Nasal-Device-Continuous-Flow-Oxymizer-Adult-Mustache-Style/MCK22413900/spdv?gclid=Cj0KCQjwq7XMBRCDARIsAKVI5Qa5BY6RkRwEhmHVqDkyeZ5JztjgX_XWiAF9lkl-MjpwbVExaCN0_o0aAhs0EALw_wcB Total cost was about $250 for one person and tank. Two people and one tank would be $350 (with two needle valves and two oxymizers)

Thanks for the feedback so far, guys. Taking that into account, I feel a little better that my cost is not wildly inconsistent with others' experiences. I still have a hard time with the argument that the install took 30 hours, but I suppose that's neither here nor there for me.