AH-1 Cobra Pilot

Taut line hitch.

Seems to me to be a scientific impossibility.

Before my Mooney, I owned a C-152. I had the annuals performed by a mechanic my dad and I have been using for 30-40 years. Those annuals were great; took about 3 days and cost $600. He did the pre-buy for the Mooney, and let me know both the good and bad about it. He had already retired from regular maintenance, though, so I had to find a new venue for the first Mooney annual 5 years ago. Imagine how I almost shit my pants when I got the $20,000 estimate! I worked it down to just short of $11,000, and it included some things that most people would never notice, such as the labels on the seat belts had worn off. Who knew that the seat belts were defunct without them? Lots of other silly, little things, such as decals, plus a few more important items that could possibly have lasted, such as flexible engine baffling, that added up quickly. The lesson was that the shop was just a few doors down from the local FSDO, so they are ridiculously thorough. (Does anybody really believe I would have better survived a crash because my seat belts had the labels intact?) For the last two annuals, I have used a shop at a nearby airport, run by a maintenance sergeant I knew in the ARNG. During the last annual, he called me, apologizing profusely for not catching it last year, that the prop had been installed, (long before I bought the airplane), 180o off! He noticed that while working on a leaking prop governor, so the proximity, no doubt, had much to do with it being found. There is an old adage that what the boss inspects is what gets done. All mechanics operate to some degree by that principle, so the only way to cover EVERYTHING is to have more mechanics work on your plane.

He deserves to be wracked as bad as he is about to get.

Klixon switch?

The funniest part is that the ball was going to miss the goal anyway!

I did not smell anything out of the ordinary. If anything, it may have seemed to smell a little less strongly of fuel, but that is so subjective it is easy to dismiss. More and more diesel pumps have DEF, (Diesel Exhaust Fluid), colocated. It is basically liquid urea for cleaning the particulate filters in the exhaust system. With fuel delivery having to account for that, now, I could see some getting mixed into other products, including 100LLL.

Update: The second jar has also lost its blue color. (Unfortunately, I do not have an updated picture.) It took much longer to change, but it also has more sediment than it had in the pictures posted above. It would appear that the biological contamination was more concentrated in the sample taken 10 days earlier, right after I landed. Both of the samples came from all three drain points, so it is not possible to tell if the contamination was only in one tank. I did not sample the tanks before take off, since it had no time to settle and since I watched the first 15 gallons go in. The same guy refuels my plane every time I am there, so I had no concern about him putting in something besides 100LL. Unfortunately, I believe the first 15 gallons went into the left tank, but I do not remember which tank fed the engine on takeoff. I switched the selector at least once trouble-shooting, so there is no telling where it was. If that first 15 gallons from the bottom of the truck had biological contamination, it may have concentrated in the bottom of the left tank before putting in the rest of the fuel, so if I had run the left tank on takeoff, perhaps it partially plugged the filter screen. My mechanic disassembled the fuel system, and could not find anything obvious in any of the filters. I am still waiting for the injectors and other parts to be returned from testing. If they show no dysfunction, we will reassemble and see how it runs. I am also thinking about adding some anti-biologic poison to the fuel system. Any recommendations?

I can only presume you have never worked in, nor studied, manufacturing. The examples you give are the result of assembly lines, not the one-offs that all aircraft modifications are. The first car coming off an assembly line costs $1,000,000,000. That accounts for all the research, engineering, experimenting, prototyping, tool design, tool making, equipment purchase, automation, factory set-up, parts and inventory preparation, etc. needed to create the line. Since you make another 100,000 cars, the billion gets divided and each car carries $10,000 of those costs. Add another $10,000 for materials, marketing, and labor, and you have a reasonably priced $20,000 car, (x100,000). If you can figure out a way to do these aircraft mods in an assembly line, you will have lots of business. Good luck. Even if a junior mechanic has a pay rate of $12/hour, he will be paired with an experienced mechanic making $40/hour. Add your perks at 30% and your overhead of 30%, and these two working on your plane cost $87.88/hour, or about 182 hours for $16,000. 4.5 weeks to do this job seems pretty reasonable. My GTX-375 install took longer and cost less, although I believe the shop's idea was to take a small loss to gain the experience, as it was their first install of the 375. I cringe at someone trusting his life with Chinese made equipment. I was in Beijing before the Olympics. The guides pointed out all the new buildings being built to accommodate the expected tourists. I swore they looked 50 years old. They used inferior gravel in the concrete, giving all the buildings rusty shit-stains running down their sides. In our "4-star" hotel, my wife noticed the tiler had installed a broken tile. It was obvious, and you had to wonder, did the tiler want to save the nickel a new tile would cost? (I doubt he was the one paying for the tile.) Or was he just so damn lazy? (Probably not, as it would be harder to install than a good tile.) Or is it the culture? When another company was found to be putting melamine into baby formula, because it is cheap and melamine shows up as protein in purity tests, I think you have your answer. Do you really want an airplane made on the cheap in such a place? One more example from a slightly different place: A Marine major I worked with called the Philippines "the place of not quite right." If you have been there, you most likely get it. One of my sailors moved to the Philippines after he retired. He told me the story of building his house. He wanted some concrete blocks made, so he hired local labor to mix and pour the concrete in his small mixer. He already had a pile of sand and cement near the mixer. He told them he wanted the blocks made with one scoop of cement for five scoops of sand. The said they always made it with a 1:9 ratio. He told them he wanted the blocks stronger and had already bought and paid for the materials, therefore do it with the 1:5 ratio. They agreed and he watched them putting in one scoop of cement for every five scoops of sand. He left and came back a little later to find them putting in nine scoops of sand for every scoop of cement. I remember Made in Japan being an epithet, or at least an indicator of inferior product, in the 60s. That changed profoundly by the 80s. Given the government, and thus the culture of China, I doubt they will be able to duplicate Japan's quick rise. Unfortunately, same goes for the PI and many other places.

Two weeks ago, I took a trip to a nearby airport. They have the cheapest gas around, so I always fill the tanks there. The operator put in about 15 gallons in the left tank, when the truck ran out. I left to do some business, and he refilled the truck and finished filling my plane sometime after. I returned to the airport a few hours later, paid for the 51 gallons, and left. On departure, after climbing a few hundred feet, I noticed a definite decrease in power. I was still able to climb pretty well, so I climbed within gliding distance of the airport. I checked all my systems, (mags, fuel pump, switched tanks, prop, mixture), without any positive change in the output. Since there are airports every 8-10 miles all the way home, I could glide to one if the engine quit, so I decided to take the plane directly to my primary mechanic. I made it without issue, but on the roll to taxi, (throttle mostly/all the way retarded), the engine quit. We immediately started checking the obvious things. Removing the fuel lines from the injectors: plenty of output. Sumped the fuel: no water or contamination; it smelled and looked right. We tried to restart the engine, but it would not start. My mechanic drained some fuel from the tanks and gascolator and kept it on the side, then checked screens, etc. and found no obstructions. He sent some of the fuel system into Central Cylinder for evaluation, and checked the mags/electrical system; it was good. After about 10 days, he noticed the fuel. As you can see from the pictures, the first drain looks clear and has something growing in it. The more recent sample still looks appropriate, except it now has some white, biologic-looking sediment. My mechanic drained my tanks and left the fuel sit in a container. It still looks like fuel, but does not smell as strong as I think it should. He tried burning samples of the samples and some fresh gas from his own pump, but did not notice any obvious difference. He also mixed some 100LL and Jet A just to see what that would look like, but it is green. (He also tried to light the Jet A, but to no avail.) We called the FBO that had filled my tanks, and he said nobody else has reported any problems. He also said the trucker who delivers his 100LL only hauls 100LL. Has anyone ever experienced anything similar to this?

Has anyone tried this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CDI9JX0/ref=sspa_dk_detail_4?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B01CDI9JX0&pd_rd_w=qaUai&pf_rd_p=48d372c1-f7e1-4b8b-9d02-4bd86f5158c5&pd_rd_wg=y5GCn&pf_rd_r=KXZRNDK4ZW7K9YVBKS4D&pd_rd_r=6c2cb655-0362-4634-9618-c912d2cdb8a8&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExWFlBMjVMU1dYVjRNJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODY3NTQwRTUxR0hRM0k1VDlNJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA3MTMzOTEyUU9EWUEwMlNLSjdYJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfZGV0YWlsJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

You got me thinking about that... Here are some average numbers: 100 recharge cycles will reduce the battery capacity to 85%. A year of storage at 25oC will reduce the capacity to 80%. So, if you start with a battery worth 2 hours of flying and fly the plane for 100 hours/year, in two years the batteries will only give you 65 minutes of flying time. Electric aircraft will need a 'fuel' gauge to tell how many minutes of flying remain at any particular power level. Psychology papers might be written on the effect of continuously seeing that gauge creep lower every time you fly.

You should read the article. A little skepticism is a good thing.

I remember about 20 years ago, the highly successful inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen announcing a "revolution in transportation"! What did we get? meh. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2020/06/29/the-demise-of-the-segway-is-a-cautionary-tale-for-technological-optimists/#2c971d991173

If not bullshit, perhaps more akin to the guy who looks for his lost keys under the street light. I would also like to build a unique airplane, and since my expertise is in aerospace rather than batteries, I see the appeal. Battery technology to make it real is most likely at least 20 years out, so work to incorporate the full system into an aircraft is somewhat premature. I do not regard it as fundamental research when someone makes excessive claims about what he is about to accomplish when he is not doing any work on the thing, (batteries), that will actually bring about the revolution.

Well, the best batteries of today, lithium or silver-zinc, have an energy density of 460 kg/kJ. The supposed aircraft will do 135 kts and have a 3-hour endurance and a payload of 450 lb.. For simplicity's sake, we will presume motor of about 100-hp, even though a C-150 never made that airspeed except in a dive. 100 hp = 74.6 kW. Presume 50% power for best endurance. 74.6kW x 50% x 3hr x 3600s/hr / 460kJ/kg = 875.7kg = 1930lb of batteries. (1930 + 450) x 3 = 7142 lb TOGW. Does this seem like reality or bullshit to you?

What always kills me is to fly over fields of idle wind turbines on the hot, calm days when everyone runs his air conditioning at full blast. You do not have to be wealthy or connected, just willing to take the tax breaks and other incentives that, (only then), make the ridiculous things economically viable. I have no doubt there will be government incentives to take them down when that time comes.

The problem is hydro power only accounts for 7% of total production. You would need lots more hydro in the same location as the wind turbines. How much land would be flooded to create these? Probably more expensive than batteries in total cost. The ingenuity of certain systems is amazing, and the economics must make sense even though they cannot be great. For example, some generating plants produce ice during off-hours in order to cool the air input for gas turbine generators to make them more efficient. The fact that there is no 'ice lobby' pushing these solutions to the contrary of reality is what makes them great. What makes me sick to my stomach is all the tax payer subsidies for so-called solutions that just make things worse, such as wind and solar energy and premature electric propulsion nonsense.

No. I first heard of that method of energy storage about 45 years ago and could not believe it then. I found an estimate of the conversion efficiency of about 75% for the energy production. I would estimate it a little better for putting the water back into the reservoir. That means you are already down to 50-60% of what you put in, or about 40% back out. Pretty crappy battery, but at least it is large-scale and relatively cheap to implement.

Of course they are spectacular; spectacularly shitty!

While working in the basement of the Pentagon on the night shift, we would often explore similar, esoteric questions. At the time, (about 10 years ago), replacing gasoline with wind-created electricity for all vehicles in the US would cost the entire economy, about $15T, to build enough wind turbines. Since wind is unreliable, you would also have to build coal, gas, or nuclear plants adding a little less to that price as well. So, what do you think? $30T to replace the petroleum system we already have in place? In the same vein, replacing gasoline with ethanol would require adding the entire areas of Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio to corn production. Just another absurdity that shows how good oil production and distribution really is.

We just took a fairly long trip last week: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N468W/history/20200708/1410Z/KBAK/KLNK My fuel burns for the first three legs were 35.14, 33.5, 32.25 gallons. (I have not refueled for leg #4, but it will be 33-35 gallons.) I ran ROP at 2500 rpm and WOT at both altitudes, yielding 20.4" at 11,000' and 22" at 8,000'. Some knucklehead mounted my outside air temperature probe on the engine cowling, so its accuracy is poor, to say the least. You can judge for yourself...

Who the hell is Frances Borders?