EricJ

If it's not the breaker itself whatever the fault is should be reasonably obvious in the (large) wires from the breaker to the load buses. Tripping a properly functioning 50A breaker takes a significant fault that is likely to leave a mark somewhere. There may be three or so large wires running from the output side of the breaker to the buses supplying other breakers. If there is an electrical fault tripping that breaker, it'll be one of those wires or connections, or one of those bus bars touching ground somewhere. It's the sort of fault that I wouldn't want to be flying around with any more than I had to.

Looks nice! The cowl flap hinges are a potential problem area.

He was an experienced traveler, as was I at the time (this was about thirty years ago). He had ID, including his NZ driving license, just not his passport. I vouched for his identity and why he was here, which is why they were interested in how much money we were paying him. Regardless, it was my car they were going to seize, and I was threatened with jail as well. Some of the hispanic tech ladies in our lab were calling me El Coyote after that.

He wasn't a student, he was an employee of a company we'd acquired. They were here to help with some technology transfers. When that sort of thing happens they split you up, so I don't know the details of what his side of the interrogation was like. They kept asking me how much his salary was, which I didn't know. He was apparently required to have his passport on him, but he didn't know that (nor did I). That seems to me to be similar to the sort of mistake that this guy made with his airplane. It was an easy thing to get wrong under the circumstances, when you thought you were okay. It's enough for somebody to get their foot in the door if they want to make an issue of it for whatever reason.

Lots of public highways go through reservations all over the country. I fly into airports on tribal land fairly frequently, but they're public airports not marked PVT. I grew up in SoDak and owned property there until recently and have lived most of my life in AZ, and in both states a fair percentage of the land is reservations. I've spent lots of time on the reservations in both states, and in AZ there are places where you need permits to go on the reservations, but it's usually not too big of a deal to get the required permits. This really isn't much different than special use areas off the reservations. The canyon area this guy was visiting is one of the reservation special use areas that requires permits just to be there, so that was already a similar thing, and hundreds or thousands of people go there every year since it's a very popular area. It's also possible and frequently happens that somebody runs afoul of some local authority or pissing match between authorities off reservations as well. This case doesn't seem to be any different from what I can see, so from that perspective this isn't a tribal thing it's just a typical thing of running afoul of somebody who wants to exercise their authority. I had the US Border Patrol threaten to seize my car because we stopped at a checkpoint when I was taking a foreign colleague (Kiwi from New Zealand) to Tombstone just to do some tourist stuff. He didn't have his passport with him, so the threats were that I was going to get busted for transporting an illegal, they were going to seize my car, arrest me, deport him, etc., etc. This was not on a reservation, it was on a US public highway. We were detained for hours. Because he didn't have his passport on him. It's not a tribal thing, imho. You can run into it anywhere.

I've had that happen, too, and I'd already been watching the slower traffic that I was catching up with for a while, so when ATC called with the alarms going off I just said, "traffic in sight" and did whatever it was that they were asking. That seemed to restore calm.

How long did it stay at 20A? You could disconnect everything and check the open circuit voltage of the batteries just to make sure nothing has gone wonky, like a dead cell or something.

It's supplying a load somewhere. Is the battery the only thing in the circuit?

You could put a piece of plastic tube or hose over the knob and make it as long as you want.

Exactly. The breadth of experience of an A&P is totally dependant on the context of their background. I know a number of A&Ps who got their certifications by experience letters and taking the tests, and I helped a friend study for the tests to do just that a couple years ago (he passed). It is very possible that you could put a fairly simple sheet metal project in front of many of them and it'd be the first time they'd tried anything like that. OTOH, Most A&P schools do cover just about everything at least briefly, and some of the instructors at the school that I went to would make that point, that by the time you got out of that school you'd touched an example of pretty much everything. Most A&P schools use some variation of the same sheet metal project in that class, where you build a small 'control surface' from bulk sheet metal, and by the time you're done with that you have reasonable confidence to tackle basic sheet metal fabrication and repairs. You also have an appreciation for the sorts of details and nuances that make an experienced practicioner very valuable.

I think the main risk of the "clear of all runways" call is that somebody paying partial attention (which is very common), or just hears a garbled version of that due to radio noise or interference, may hear "all runways are clear", which may not be the case. The potential ambiguity of how it might be understood is a risk. I've only heard somebody make this call once or twice, and it's also a little odd for a single runway field. I think it can cause a little distraction that way, too, since then you're trying to sort out what the heck you're talking about for a moment. It's not a big deal, but I think "clear of all runways" is not optimal and certainly not better than just "clear of the runway". Just my dos centavos.

Absolutely. I was attempting to make a double joke, as "Reviewer 2" is a subject of many jokes and memes for doing horrible things (mostly incompetence) during the anonymous review process.

Is that expensive or not? Sounds like it might be a nice option.

I think Reviewer 2 is gonna have issues with those.

If they had actually seized or damaged his aircraft it could have gotten very sticky. I suspect that may be why they didn't.

Yeah, there are a number of airports where you'll willingly take a tailwind rather than change runways. Telluride and Sedona come to mind as well. For many of these sorts of airports the preferred landing and takeoff directions are opposite to each other, so if it's breezy you'll either be landing or taking off in a tailwind much of the time.

The temperature only goes up to 40C, too. That's insufficient for much of the southwest in the summer.

Civil forfeiture could get your aircraft seized regardless of where you landed if you had more than $10k of cash on you. Your chances of getting it back were very low. That started during the Reagan administration and was in place for a long, long time. I seem to recall there was a Mooney that was seized at one point not too many years ago. Edit: Found part of it: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59148fd7add7b0493456c563 In this case the main thing remaining is how much fine will ultimately be assessed, if any. I think there's also a question of if they do impose a fine, whether he really needs to pay it if he never intends to return to that jurisdiction. He's going to be out his time and expenses, regardless.

I can't tell colors, especially secondary or trim colors, at any reasonable distance, so that isn't very useful information, especially since most airplanes are generally white, so it doesn't narrow it down much. Type is helpful to know what the general shape of the airplane is plus how fast or slow it might be in the pattern. Plus with ADS-B you can be looking at local traffic before you even get there and be prepared for who's who based on tail numbers. For these reasons I find type and tail number to be a best practice from my perspective.

+1 that it depends on the gradient of the runway (uphill/downhill), and the terrain around the airport. At a towered field you may not have a choice. I think I landed with a 5+ knot tailwind the other day just because it was moving around a lot and I think they were trying to decide whether it was time to switch runways. They switched not long after I landed. It wasn't an issue, and I think I even wound up turning off at my usual exit...definitely touched down a bit further than usual, though.

Apparently it worked the first time...there's an oddball filename that appears at the end that looks like it was intended to be another pic. Looks good, anyway! Nicely done.

Looks nice. I think your last pic didn't post for some reason, though.

Nothing wrong with any of that, I think. But at a poorly marked, unfamiliar airport, "clear of the runway" tells traffic following or waiting to take off that you're out of the way, which is really what they are most likely to want to know.

That might be misunderstood to mean that all runways are clear, when they might not be.

I find that one useful as well, and also stopped using "active" and just substitute "runway". It does make it better, I think.