EricJ

Very often parts are specified and send out for manufacturer by a sub with a set of requirements, drawings, whatever, usually with expected tolerances, material properties, etc., etc. Usually the first batch of parts from that vendor is checked carefully to meet specs (at least the specs that can be tested easily, like dimensions, etc.), and then just spot-checked after that. It is often very difficult to detect when a supplier makes a non-obvious deviation from the specification, or deviates in a way that is more difficult to test, e.g., substitutes a softer alloy, uses a different process in a particular step, whatever. Without knowing what happened, it is very difficult to know where the problem or deficiency actually came from. Lycoming takes the hit, but it may have been a vendor that let them down. There's no way to know from where we sit, for the most part. As an engineer I've been on both sides of this many times.

My long purchasing saga is still in progress, and I've only just today gotten the results of the PPI, which also came with a copy of the invoice to the current owner from the same shop for a bunch of work that was just done. We'll see where it goes from here. It's been good to learn from the various experiences of people here.

I called Alliance a week ago and they were already out of parking space.

I may see you in Douglas. Way may be there, or Lusk, or Guernsey, or Torrington, or Scottsbluff, depending on where we can get in. I do expect it to be busy everywhere. I think Douglas may be swamped with the overflow from Casper. I've talked to somebody at most of the fields in the area and they're doing a lot of prep for the expected traffic. I think many of the untowered fields will have somebody on the radio.

There's something not right here, as the entire intent of the dye is to provide a means to visually verify that the fuel is the proper grade. If you have to drain a quart in a white porcelain bowl, rather than a quantity typical for a preflight in a preflight sample tool, then the purpose is defeated. I think the guy is giving you a bit of a tilted answer, as clearly there couldn't be anything wrong with their fuel (sarcasm alert). And mixing grades of dyed avgas does result in a clear mix. This was more useful knowledge in ancient times when red, green, and blue fuel were relatively common. When i was a lineboy for an American flying club at an Army Airfield overseas in the 70s we bought 115/145 from the Army and it was a beautiful purple color. You didn't have to worry much about spills, either, as the stuff evaporated almost instantly when it hit the ground. So knowing the proper color of your desired fuel was a good thing, and if it was clear it either wasn't fuel or you had to worry about whether the blend in the tank was okay or not. I don't think I'd be happy with the answers you were provided. Somebody independent of the fuel company might be more objective.

It's pretty easy. Take a look here: https://www.everlastconcepts.com/products/stratux-ahrs-board-fan-controler Basically, open the case, move the one antenna cable out of the way, put the board in as shown, replace antenna cable, plug fan into board (careful about polarity, which is shown), close up case. If you need to update the software, you can follow the instructions to do that or buy a pre-loaded flash card and just replace the one that's in there. Edit: Board is also available on Amazon for $14.99: https://www.amazon.com/Stratux-Sensors-Controller-Raspberry-MPU9250/dp/B06ZZCHBHT There are good installation pics there, too.

FWIW, I recently added the AHRS board to my Stratux. The board was $16 from Amazon and it took maybe a half hour to install it AND download and install the latest rev of the software.

Corn squeez'ns...

On a car the better mileage at higher gear/lower rpm is mostly due to reduced rotating friction in the engine components (bearings, cams, valve train, etc.) and accessories (alternator, power steering pump, idler pulleys, etc.) as well as potential reduced gear friction in the transmission at the higher gear. Otherwise it takes the same amount of power/energy to move the vehicle at a certain speed. Oversquare is not really a problem. If you believe it is, just change the manifold pressure units from inches to atmospheres or pascals or whatever your favorite pressure unit of measurement might be, so that it's not "oversquare" any more.

In the Stratux configuration you can set the Mode S code of the airplane you're flying, so that it doesn't show you as traffic (which can get a little confusing). Other than that there isn't any pairing that needs to be done if you're using a tablet for traffic display.

I was gonna remark about the Cessna parking brake method, that I could never decide whether that's brilliant or cheesy.

I'm glad you didn't die during the touch-and-go!

Mixing any two grades will cancel the dye, i.e., mixing 100/130 and 100LL will result in clear fuel. If it's clear, make sure it smells and feels like fuel and not water or something else.

Well, damn. Glad to hear it's getting sorted out. I'll have to find out who you're using for your mechanic work, too. I should know soon whether my hangar will be empty or not for the foreseeable future. It's looking like not, but I'm not going to try to say for sure until it plays out, if it ever does at this rate. Is the hangar you're looking at on the north or south side?

Another +1 here on using the Stratux. It's an awesome little thing and has saved my butt a couple of times already. There are a couple of EFBs that are free and are quite functional, especially if you just want to climb the learning curve and see what features you like or don't or just get used to using one. I use FltPlan Go on an Android tablet but also carry an older, spare tablet that has AvAre on it. Both are completely free, functional and useful and will get you wherever you want to go. FltPlan Go interfaces with the Stratux pretty much seamlessly. The beauty of the free EFBs, especially if you've never used one, is being able to try everything out before shelling out any $$. I may move up to a subscription-based EFB in the future, but for right now FltPlan Go is doing everything I need and AvAre is a nice redundant backup on a separate tablet. If you have a good smart phone you can also have a backup working on that, but I don't want to have to deal with a display that small for navigation. It really is nice that there are so many options out there for this, and it'll change how you fly. An EFB with the Stratux is the sort of setup that'll make you wonder how you ever got by without them.