Skates97

I have a Hartzell H-1 governor in my plane. It recently started seeping a little oil, just enough that after an hour or so of flying I have a few streaks on the nose gear doors but even after a couple of hours it's not enough to get back on the belly. My A&P said "just keep flying it until it gets worse." It's been 21 years and just over 1,500 hours since it was last overhauled. I looked at the beginning price for an overhaul and factored in where it could go (including time of the plane being down) compared to just buying an overhauled one to have swapped out and decided to just buy the $1,395 one and have it replaced. The problems is Aircraft Spruce just notified me that Quality Aircraft Accessories doesn't have any overhauled units and I would have to send mine in which would mean down time. Other than the annoying factor that it doesn't take much oil to make a mess there isn't a reason to replace right now. But, it is annoying and enough to make me want to replace it. Are my only options to replace it with the H-1 (have mine overhauled) or go the route of a PCU 5000? If that's it then at $2,400 for the PCU 5000 ATH-1 I think I may just wait until annual and send mine out.

Same here, I just switch tanks and keep an eye on the fuel pressure to make sure it stays constant.

It isn't in the speeds at the end of the manual. In my 1965 manual in the "Flight Procedures" section on page 19 it says: "An enroute climb speed of 115-120 mph IAS is recommended for improved cooling and good visibility." In the 1977 C POH which is much better it is in section 3, Normal Procedures on page 3-14: "An enroute climb speed of 115-120 MPH (100-104 Knots) IAS is recommended for improved engine cooling and forward visibility." I use 120 mph IAS whenever possible but there are times such as heading north out of my home field that I have a steeper climb at a slower speed. The need to go from 533' on the ground to 8,500'+ to feel comfortable going over the mountains north of San Bernardino in about 25 miles necessitates it.

My problem is that maximum speed for flaps in my plane is 100 mph but the best speed for an enroute climb is 120 mph so I retract at 400 AGL and trim for 120 mph.

Part of the shutdown checklist for the planes where I took my PPL lessons was to put the keys on the dash for that exact reason. I have a GoPro mount on the center post of my plne. After forgetting to remove the keys on a couple of different occasions I started making it part of my routine to hang them there so I can see that they have been removed.

He didn't mention it but a quick search turned up that 18 shielded is the way to go. Under $1.00/ft and once I toss in the ends and heat-shrink I am a long way below the $37.50 that Spruce wants for the 60" pre-made P-Lead.

Great video, and I like the added heat-shrink he puts over the connectors. That is where the ground for the shielding is all frayed and falling apart on mine. His method looks like it produces a better product than purchasing the pre-made bogert one that Aircraft Spruce sells. (Not to mention that it's a lot cheaper to buy 5' of wire and make it than buy the pre-made version...)

My appliance list has them as a Slick 4370 and 4347. I suppose the longer advice goes along the same lines of when getting a hair cut, you can always make it shorter...

Saturday when I had the cowling off and was looking around (I make a habit of it as you never know what you'll see) I noticed that the ground from the shielding on the P-Lead for the right mag is barely hanging on. I noticed that Aircraft Spruce sells some in different lengths. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/slk-pleads.php?clickkey=6373 Does anyone happen to know the length of the RH mag P-Lead on a 1965 M-20D with an O-360? @AGL Aviation, @M20Doc, @N201MKTurbo? I could always pull it out, measure it, and run over to Spruce to pick it up as it is just around the corner but it would be nice to know if it was in stock prior to pulling it out.

Pulled up at the pump at Chandler one evening and thought, that would make a good picture. Only had my phone so I took a couple. Ended up making a canvas out of this one and it hangs in my office at work. I love the lighting and the reflection of the tower and horizon on the plane.

Exactly what I did during my first annual. Then since Aircraft Spruce is a mile from my hangar I went and bought a few of the sizes I needed. Just like in real estate, it's all about location, location, location...

Since you currently have a VFR only bird you should only be flying VFR which means you don't have to have the AI. Mine was dying a slow death over the course of about a year. The bearings were noisy on shut down, it would often take 5-10 minutes to stand up, sometimes it would just wobble around for up to 20 minutes. Mine is only a VFR bird as well. I just kept flying her until the AI completely gave up the ghost. Truth be told I took some friends flying for a coastal tour after it was toast and just gyrating and also made a flight from SoCal to Phoenix and back. I did change my typical flight back from AZ where I usually would plan to be over Palm Springs when it is dark to make sure that I was landing in Corona before it got dark because I didn't want to fly at night without it. (Can still legally be done but I have my own requirements). I would still be flying without it and just placard it but my altimeter decided to start sticking on that flight back from AZ. The AI had to come out to get the altimeter out so I had them both overhauled. If you want to keep flying it without the AI just placard it inop. As Jerry said, if/when you decide to upgrade and turn her into an IFR machine have a backup AI. That is what I will do if/when I go that direction.

No place special today, just some special time with my youngest son. It's been two weeks since I flew which is too long. Not having anyplace to go but time to do it we headed out to the airport before it got too hot. He doesn't quite have the bug, but I am trying to get him infected and there are signs that it is taking hold. After pre-flight, starting the engine, realizing my headset was still on the shelf in the hangar because I had taken it out of the plane because the shop was supposed to take the plane to do some work, shutting down, sending him to fetch the headset, starting the engine again, we were ready to roll. With the seat all the way forward he can finally reach the rudder pedals and wanted to steer so once we were out from between the hangars and on the taxiway I let him take over, he did better than I did my first time. Everything was good on run-up so we took off and headed for the nearby practice area over Lake Matthews. Departing to the southeast I turned the controls over to my son. Coming in over the lake at 4,200' there was another plane at 4,500', one below us at 3,000' and two more checked in on the radio inbound. I had already brought the power/rpm down to just cruise around but knowing we could out climb the other's there and that usually only the twins go up higher (everyone on the radio was a single) I pushed the prop forward and throttle in and had him take us up to 6,000'. We spent some time with him flying us around the lake and then off to the southeast for a bit before heading back. He did well flying the whole time until giving me the controls back a couple miles south of the airport as we were getting ready to enter the pattern. Once we exited the runway he steered us down the taxi-way until we got to where we were going between the hangars. Always fun to fly, even more fun when I get to spend it with my son.

The first step to any airplane ownership is to throw all rational financial thoughts out the window and only focus on the fun of flying.

This is very likely. If you are on a shared IP (most likely unless you are paying extra from your hosting service) all it takes is a couple of bad apples on the same IP and it ends up on blacklists so anything coming from it, including your emails, are tagged as spam and don't make it through filters. They won't even get to the end users spam folder.

Emphasis on "safe" is the key to a lot of upgrades getting approved by the copilot. After my first 4 hour flight I had the ancient seat foam replaced with Confor Foam, made all the difference in the world as far as comfort goes, and not very expensive.

Kelly McGillis' character was based on an actual consultant, tall, blonde, call sign was "Legs."

That scene always seemed a bit hokey to me when I saw it. There were a few things that scene that didn't make sense to me until after watching the director's commentary. Pete Pettigrew was a Top Gun instructor, actually shot down a Mig, and was the technical consultant on the film. The flat spin scene was based off an actual event. They had to find a way for Goose to die, Maverick to blame himself, and yet have the Navy ultimately find him not responsible. Pete went through accident reports and found an incident where an F-14 ended up in a flat spin (both pilot and RIO ejected safely in that incident). Pete explained that in a flat spin in an F-14 the pilot is too far away from the center of the spin and gets pinned towards the panel and can't reach the ejection handles. The RIO is closer to the center of the spin and has to eject them. There is also a area of low pressure that develops above the plane and the canopy can get hung up there so the RIO is supposed to blow the canopy, and after a moment to give the canopy time to clear he punches them out. In the movie they have Goose blow the canopy and eject too close together causing him to collide with the canopy. As to the flat spin heading out to sea... The famous stunt pilot Art Scholl was out shooting back drop plates to be used in scenes. He was off the coast shooting in an inverted flat spin and something went wrong. His last words on the radio were "I have a problem - I have a real problem." If I remember right they said his plane went down though some thin clouds and was never found although search and rescue was launched immediately. They talk about there being no actual competition (it was added in just for Hollywood) and I believe it was Pettigrew again that said if there was a competition that nobody would ever graduate because they would all kill themselves trying to win, that's how competitive they are. They also talked about some other things that were not realistic, including the whole hangar classroom scene when you first meet Kelly McGillis on base. The technical advisers would tell the director "that's not how it is" and the director would say "but that's what mom and pop in Oklahoma" want to see. In the commentary they point out all of the unrealistic things that were added in the movie but they also talk about the scenes that were based on actual events and I was surprised by many of them. I didn't watch the commentary until about 6 months ago. My 14 yo had never seen Top Gun so we rented it from the library for a dollar. My wife (who I think had seen the movie once 30 years ago) was amazed at all the one liners from the movie that for some reason come up in my vocabulary on a regular basis... I heard "So that's where that came from" more than once as we watched it. After watching it with my son we decided to watch it with the commentary and I am glad we did.

We were getting almost no airflow out of our overhead vents. If you put your hand up at the top of the windshield there was a decent amount of airflow coming out of the headliner. I removed it and found the ductwork in a sad state. I used aluminum foil tape to seal everything up nice, removed the piece at the front that somewhere along the years was bent up (possibly when the 201 style windshield went in?) and replaced the old tired insulation while I was in there. Final result was great airflow through the vents. Mich less expensive than replacing the actual duct work.

If you have never watched it with the director commentary it is worth doing. You watch the whole movie with not only the director but the guys from Top Gun that assisted with the technical aspects and setting up the different sorties, they talk about the reason they did different things including the aerodynamics of the "flat spin" that killed Goose and why they used that, the guys that did the cutting and editing of the footage, etc... There are a number of cameos in the movie by the pilots that did the flying as well as Top Gun instructors that advised on the set and they point those out. I enjoyed it possibly more than just watching the movie itself.

And she likely got half the plane when he got tired of her...

If my 14yo son is with me he sumps the tanks as part of pre-flight. He checks it then brings it to me to verify. No kneeling or rolling required... I keep a pair of leather work gloves in the hat rack to keep my hands from getting black from the hose when fueling the plane. If he isn't with me I will toss one of them on the ground and put a knee on it to sump the tanks, easy enough and keeps my pants clean.

First time I did it I budgeted two based off what I had heard. It only took about 10 minutes to remove it and examine it, thankful to find that it was clean. Thinking it was proceeding well in my mind I revised my initial time estimate... It went back in fairly easily, safety wire was put on the bolt, then it took about an hour to get it down through that stupid little hole in the bottom of the case so I could finish the job... Had I not revised my initial time estimate it my frustration level would have stayed fairly low. There was a number of breaks during that hour that I was trying to get the wire through but when I finally did I had learned some things. Next time I think I can get the whole job done in 45 minutes to an hour.

Or a whatchamacallit... But then those look like this, not what the OP has in his plane.

I have had mine on for about a year now and it hasn't bubbled at all. It doesn't seem as clear as when it first went on, just a little hazy (maybe my imagination) but no bubbles.