jaylw314

You know, the funny thing is I tried doing that a few weeks before, and I noticed the GS needle seemed to wobble freely and return to its hidden position, but it still failed to work afterwards, so I assumed that ruled out a sticking needle. Maybe it started working as a delayed reaction after smacking it around? As an aside, can the KI-525A be repaired, or is it on BK's exchange-only list?

As a follow up to this, I dropped the plane at the shop to do its annual and told them about the INOP glideslope. I talked to the IA about replacing the KI-525, but I asked if there was a way to bench test it to make sure. He was actually pretty excited, and said he'd always wanted an excuse to get a diagnostic transmitter. He also had a spare 530W to compare it to. When I landed and stopped on the shop's ramp, I ran the 530W self-test one more time, and lo and behold, the GS moved. Not half-scaled like it was supposed to, but it crept up a little. A couple days later, my IA called and said they couldn't get the GS to fail. When they ran the 530W self-test in-situ the first time, the GS went to half-scale. They used the diagnostic transmitter to test all the receiver functions and everything worked fine. They wiggled the harness and connectors around, then took out the KI-525 and tested it on the bench with their 530W and harness, same thing. They re-racked my 530W as well with no change. Maybe taking it to the shop scared it into working again? Like taking your cat to the veterinarian, somehow they just KNOW. On the flight home, lo and behold, it picks up the GS perfectly again. I'm under no illusion that it won't fail again sometime in the future, but now I have no idea where to look. My IA said his gut feeling was that there may be something intermittent with the 530W, but there's nothing to troubleshoot if it's working now, so it looks like replacements/upgrades will be kicked to later down the road. I'll be avoiding IMC to minimums for a while until I'm confident the GS is reliable

Thanks guys, I'm trying to find where I saw that suggested. I think I saw it in one of Mike Busch's webinars, and when I saw it, I tried to find a reference for his claim but couldn't find one.

AFAIK, the aircraft becomes unairworthy once a year, and it takes a completed annual and IA's signature to make it airworthy again, so practically IA's do get an opportunity to ground your plane once a year. The only thing you can really typically control is whose shop its in when that happens. I imagine the aircraft becomes unairworthy once the annual inspection actually starts--is that correct? I'm not sure what impact that would have if you tell the IA not to complete the annual and try to take it to another IA. I assume it's simpler to have him complete the annual with discrepancies (he wants to get paid), get a ferry permit, and take it to another A&P to correct those discrepancies, even it it's just to say "pshaw". You could even take it back to the A&P who did the pre-buy, since it doesn't have to be an IA.

Ooof, that's morbid, but funny!

Can you imagine realistically keeping situational awareness with 6 other aircraft in the pattern at twice typical pattern speed? I would hope that standard practice would be for every aircraft to have its own spotter on the ground, but I suspect that is not the case. Even in a normal traffic pattern, it's so easy to get tunnel-visioned on just one other aircraft.

Has anyone compared the back seat between the short and long-bodies? I imagine the rear seats are farther from the CG in the long-bodies (although the higher weight might make up for that). FWIW, my wife complains of nausea more from turbulence than from maneuvering. She can take circling for whale-watching for a long while, but the bumps from turbulence tend to upset her stomach quickly. That's why I tend to reduce MP/RPM during descents instead of bombing in at top speed, although I do that when I'm on my own

I think so, but not 100% sure. My experience without nosewheel steering has only been in a few RV's

It's hard to think of any particular advantage of nosewheel steering--I mean, free-castering nosewheels are MUCH more maneuverable on the ramp than nosewheel steering. I'm always a little embarassed when I pull into the FBO how much I have to swing out from the marshaller when parking. I think the only time nosewheel steering is an advantage is early in the takeoff roll during crosswinds.

A good soak in some half-strength Simple Green and a pressure washer is usually a less unpleasant experience...

Oops, no I was talking about the 2-blade Hartzell scimitar prop. The 3-blade was a couple thousand more

Out of curiosity, how is the trim switch positioned on the stick in the Cirrus? Is it on top where it can't be accidentally pushed while wrestling with the stick? I recall one particularly tense approach where I got slam dunked in IMC with pretty heavy rain. After some pretty big changes in altitude and speed, The tower asked if I had a hot mic, and I realized every time I tried hitting the trim switch, I was also holding the mic switch because I was so tense. The brain can do some pretty strange things under stress.

I'm guessing @kortopates was thinking more in terms of avoiding populated areas and ease of rescue, since most of the (few) undeveloped areas in San Diego proper are steep canyons or rocky hills.

At least in the legacy Hornet, IIRC there's no switch for just dispense chaff or flares, it's one of the countermeasure programs or nothing. Seems like that would get annoying in practice

I can't tell you how many times I've misspelled the 'Blue Angles" All the Blue Angels must be 'men from Brussels'

I'm not sure about the E & F versions, but the legacy Hornets had a big red countermeasure "slap switch" on the wall next to the left hand that would run a fixed program that included both chaff & flares.

While the cost calculations are relevant, the part that cost misses is the margin from reserve fuel left on landing. I'm not sure you can apply cost to that--how many accidents from fuel starvation are there where 'unexpected headwinds' are part of the chain?

Ooof, that comment gave me flashbacks! Prop repairs must be done by a prop shop, so you're kind of held hostage by them if they're sketchy. FWIW now, @Cody Stallings is our resident prop shop superguy. That's kind of funny, when I needed a new prop, the Hartzell was cheaper by about $1.5k, and available a couple weeks sooner than the Macauley. That was before the shipper ran it through with a forklift, though Performance-wise, they're about the same, although I think noise/vibration is actually a little more on the Hartzell after dynamic balancing both.

Is that because of strength limitations of the control surfaces, or just to ensure that you don't need to be full of muscles to fly the plane? I've never seen primary training in a Cirrus. Do students generally get this focus on the autopilot during their PPL training? There's a lot of flat area to the north near Miramar MCAS, if you don't mind the guys with guns... If you do, is that landfill north of the 52 still there? To the south, there's always the parking lot for the former Jack Murphy Stadium (is the space called anything now?). A little further south, Balboa Park is a big green square, and while the western half isn't good, the half east of the highway is Morley Field and the golf course. On departure, though, it seemed like when I was a kid, a couple times a year somebody crash landed in the parking lot of the Target (while ironic, I think it was a K-Mart back then). Does that still happen? No trim wheel does eliminate the additional complexity of running cables and pulleys back to the tail. IIRC, the RV-10 is designed with one electric trim motor with no manual backup. I gotta imagine the trim forces are manageable, in the short-term anyway, with runaway trim. Whether a student pilot would be prepared for that is, sadly, a different question

LMAO

They did 'explain' this earlier saying heavy 'GPS jamming' meant they had to use the Super Hornets with laser-guided bombs instead of F-35's. Of course, that makes absolutely no sense at all outside Hollywood.

It's a bit of a myth that it's biodegradable or compostable. It's pretty dang stable even after a couple years buried in soil. It's really only biodegradable under industrial composting conditions--and, of course, none of them accept PLA. Realistically, I just toss them into the fireplace on top of the firewood. At least it's more carbon neutral than other plastics. More importantly for cabin doohickeys, though, it's quite UV sensitive and breaks down fast in direct sunlight, in addition to deforming in summer temps.

Oof, they wouldn't survive one day in the summer. I accidently left a PLA toy in the backseat one afternoon, and it was toast. Do they make a glow-in the dark ABS? They must, like those glow-in-the-dark Legos?

LOL, I've never used anything other than a steam gauge turn coordinator, so I didn't register what that was showing until you pointed it out

Never flown multis, but from the "Pilot Flying Handbook" : This results in the ball being uncentered (to the right in this case) despite the both rudder and aileron in the same direction (right), with no slip and no heading change. I'm sure helicopter pilots will chime in and point out that in straight coordinated flight, the ball is also uncentered for similar reasons due to the tail rotor.