EricJ

I don't think I've ever seen one unpainted, either, fwiw.

On-board weather helps, too. I try to stay away from purple stuff, at least. We don't get a lot of experience with that stuff here in the southwest, though, so it's not very often that it's even been an issue for me.

Basically, yes and no. No from the standpoint that you can't put anything "non blessed" on a certificated airplane, but Yes in the sense that there has been a lot of interpretation and guidance on what "blessed" means, particularly for "vintage" or orphaned aircraft. AC 23-27 is one example of guidance specifically provided for these cases. Additionally, there is a fair amount of room for creativity in Owner Produced Parts, and the ability to put a stake in it so that nobody makes you take it back off via the VARMA process, which is also specifically for "vintage" aircraft (it's the V in VARMA). These are all FAA efforts to make it more practical to maintain aging or "vintage" or orphaned airplanes with little or no factory support. All of this applies to part substitution, but can often be interpreted to apply to repair or overhaul, since the overhauled or repaired part could be considered a substitute for an original. Your IA is the guy who's opinion matters on all this, since he's the one that signs the logbook. VARMA is a path to verify that something that might seem sketchy may actually be approved, so that an IA with a different opinion doesn't make you take it back off later. Coordination and cooperation with your IA is key, since they can even "supervise" you doing the work and then sign it off if they're satisfied that things were done correctly according to the regs and various guidances. Some IAs are much more flexible on this than others, since some of it does require interpretation or understanding of the various regs and advice. We've been a bit surprised sometimes on how pragmatic the FAA reps can be on this during public presentations, so it really does need to be done carefully in consultation with the people you work with (i.e., your IA). So, imho, you can get there from here, but it isn't always easy, and it takes being careful about navigating the regs and guidance in a way that is supportable for whatever you're trying to do. My personal standard is that if I'm okay with standing in front of a judge explaining why I did something, then that's a reasonable path.

An acquaintance I used to race with bought a UH-1H out of a museum and flew it around for a while. He was not a very responsible-type of person and flew it in what was evidently a bad configuration in ways it should not have been flown, and he was told as much by more than one person. Repeated mast bumping ultimately caused rotor separation and when the rotor came of it sliced the crap out of the airframe, including chopping the tail off as well as neatly slicing off the entire right side of the helicopter which separated with the main door still in its tracks. If you want to go down a rabbit hole of learning how not to do things with a Huey, you can follow the links through the NTSB report to the supporting documents, etc. https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/wiki.php?id=160816

No, by a factor of nearly six!

I installed this in the airplane the other day and did a two-and-a-half hour flight with it. It's nice! The flight timer feature is really nice, and sticky, so even after you shutdown it retains the last length of time that the master switch was on. It also shows its input voltage, and since it is wired directly to the battery it is a nice alternate view to your battery condition. The stopwatch timer, clock, date, etc., are easy to use and access and the display is easy to read. I checked current draw on my bench and in the aircraft, and it was consistently about 0.00065 A (0.65mA), which is what the manual says it should be. I bench-tested the draw on the LC-2 that I took out, which was only 0.00011A, so quite a bit less. Neither is going to draw your battery down significantly, and it is roughly the same as the battery's self-discharge rate. Edit 4/12/25: Today I noticed that the flight timer just accumulates time while the master is on, so if you fly multiple legs with shutdowns in between, it'll still accumulate flight time for all of them until it is reset. Resetting it is super easy, too. This seems really useful to me.

Yes, those guys. I fly behind their engines from time to time, including breaking in the freshly overhauled units, and they've been reliable.

No, just drip some oil around the shaft.

Might need a new o-ring or something, but probably needs some attention. You might try dropping a little light oil in it, which often helps.

I was thinking today that the thing missing in getting in-flight data from ADS-B or XM or wherever else is the inability to communicate to FSS. My usual interactions with them are to report ELTs, forest fires, etc., and many use them for PIREPs as well. Putting those burdens on clogged ATC channels doesn't sound like a good idea.

An A&P can "supervise" a repair done anywhere, which is why electric motor and alternator shops are often recommended for such things. There's no regulatory problem with this. This is done for all kinds of things, like welding, etc. "Supervision" includes inspecting the repaired item.

I think it's usually targeted to an area where there are known problems, or trying to catch someone specific. At a Wings meeting several years ago about "How to survive a ramp check", the FSDO guy pointed out that if you're even reasonably in good shape they're not looking for you and don't want to have to spend time on the paperwork a violation would create. They're looking for the guy without a license or medical flying an airplane that hasn't had an annual for ten years, and apparently there are enough of those that those cases alone keep them busy. The only other real take-away I got from that meeting was to keep your seat belts in good shape. They can't go in the airplane, but they can have you tug on the back seat belts (which apparently many people don't maintain), and sometimes they get violations from that when the belt or latch fails.

A stickler will say it needs to be exactly what's on the TCDS, but others would likely be fine with using more plies than the TCDS specifies, as you are suggesting. When I was a teenage lineboy in Europe our American flying club got tires from the Army, somehow, we weren't supposed to ask. They were something like 10-ply, and somebody skidded a tire down the runway once and we verified that there were way more plies than the stock tires. They worked fine, though. I don't know about ramp checks, although I doubt it'd be an issue to find a tire with more plies than the TCDS requires. A more likely concern would be a stickler IA having a problem with it. I have, however, seen some FAA reps say that "...at least equal to..." means it has to be equal, it can't be better. So there are definitely some oddball interpretation that happens.

Yes, 27, but it's essentially just two spherical rod ends connected together. Those are generally standard parts, so if you can figure out what each part is you can just replaced the rod ends. Sometimes those have the part number on them, or you can take the dimensions and figure out what it is. McMaster-Carr is a good place to start when looking for those: https://www.mcmaster.com/rod-ends

You can disconnect the control cable at the governor and see whether it is the governor or the cable that is having an issue. FWIW, in my case the cable and control feel were fine. It wasn't evident that the governor had an issue until it failed runup. Control feel was always normal.

You can go to Superior Air Parts website and download a document called "Engine Management 101", written by their VP after many years in the engine and cylinder production businesses. I attended an AMT webinar that he presented recently and learned some new things about cylinder testing and maintenance that I've already found pretty useful. He had good notes on engine operation to manage temperatures, etc., and also says that CHTs that are too cool can be detrimental. https://www.superiorairparts.com/

The other day somebody on FB was looking for a replacement alternator belt and said they couldn't find the one they needed at aircraft spruce. They posted a pic of an installed Gates belt with the PN showing...and several people noted that you can get those at many auto parts stores, amazon, etc., etc.

I contact them to report forest fires or ELTs, which I've done probably a half-dozen times in the last five years. I don't think I've contacted them for anything else, but it's always been nice to know they're there, especially in the event of an equipment failure or something.

So I bought one of these, with the USB connection: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/flightdatafc50.php It arrived yesterday and while I haven't put it in the airplane yet I put it on my bench and powered it up, mostly to see what the current draw actually is and whether the USB port affects that. I had only downloaded the manual for the non-USB version, but have since downloaded the manual for the version with the USB port. There is a power wire for the direct battery connection, and a separate wire that powers the backlight and the USB port. The backlight/USB port wire connects to switched power so it only draws when the master is on, so even if you leave something plugged into the USB it won't drain the battery. I did confirm that powering it with the battery connection alone it draws 0.00065 A, or 0.65mA, just like the manual for the USB version says. That's not gonna bother your battery for a long time. It's super easy to program and I set the time, date, etc., without even reading the manual. That's light years better than the LC-2, which for me requires reading the manual regardless of what you want to do with it. It does a lot of cool stuff, including a timer that's easy to use, and a flight timer that records how long the switched power has been turned on, plus the G-meter, and plus a display of the voltage at the battery connection, and OAT if you connect a probe. The USB port can also be used to access a data logger, do software updates, etc. So far I think it's a really nice clock and very impressive for the price. Here's the support page with links for manual downloads, etc.: https://www.fdatasystems.com/support They make some other cool stuff, including a CO detector that can interface to other integrated electronics, etc.

I'm seeing a shop that was asked to repair or replace a cable and did that. In order to do it the tech had to clearance a non-stock panel. This is not really that far out of the ordinary. Whether there was a communication issue is being told only by one side, and many of us have had enough personal experience with Don and his shop to know that what is described would be fairly atypical. That doesn't mean there wasn't a mistake or failure at the shop, but I think it does mean that this particular horse is a bit over-flogged, imho.

Kurt spoke at our local IA seminar last month, as previously mentioned, and went in to a lot more detail on the effects of G100UL fuel on materials, including some slides on some rather extreme swelling of gaskets and o-rings. He made some very significant points on issues related to that fuel while still being reasonably diplomatic. I came away with an even less favorable view of G100UL.

I just ordered one of these since it should be an easy replacement for my decrepit LC-2. We'll see how it is. I'll post a pirep if I remember. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/flightdatafc50.php

I think that was the guy from Eagle fuel cells, the folks who make many of the OEM and replacement bladders. Since they're in the middle of the materials compatibility concerns his perspective was interesting.

That'll probably drop gross weight for a lot of airplanes. That seems unlikely to be popular with GA. With the warbirds they can just not carry ordnance any more.

You can get large tantalum caps these days, but they're expensive. KEMET makes a 1200 uF cap that can handle 50V, but it looks big and even at Mouser you have to call for a quote. You could put two or three in parallel, but I'm guessing they're expensive. They make a 3900 uF cap, but it's only rated to 15VDC. You can get film caps that size with >1kVDC rating, but they're over $200/ea. So, dang, the CBs may be stuck with electrolytics. It is admittedly the more practical approach.