EricJ

...and some communism thrown in here and there, too. But these things are true of almost any country.

You're right. And the US isn't a capitalist society, either. ...runs away...

I may have a similar issue. My left side cowl flap hinges are janky and both flaps have a little bit of play in the actuator. I get a lot of cowl vibration at high speed, around 180mph (descent), and the main cure for it right now is just slow down. I do think it needs some attention.

When I was a teenage lineboy at the American flying club at Ludwigsburg AAF (Germany) in the 70s, the German flying club on the field hosted a fly-in and Erich Hartmann came, and even came into our club house and bought a couple of books we had in stock. Adolf Galland also flew in with his wife and his dog in their Bonanza. They were both very cool, nice, and easy to talk to, especially about flying. I was totally geeking out about it, and it was the sort of thing that was lost on my friends at school. I wish everybody had cell phones with cameras back then.

Looks like a nice airplane to me! Nicely equipped and looks to have been reasonably taken care of. That said, there are a lot of important details you can't see in an ad, but I'd say that one looks promising enough that if it appeals to you go take a look. You're the arbiter of what value means to you, and if you haven't you can educate yourself by looking around at what else is out there. Price does seem a bit high for a C, but it has a nice a/p, recently resealed tanks ($10k right there), etc. If it is not corroded and has been maintained decently with no deferred maintenance, it might be a nice find.

Believe me, she's already punished me more than enough that I'll never catch up. She goes by "Drama Queen", which is totally fitting for this bird.

Each dongle should have an antenna connector on it. If not, I think I'd just get the preconfigured dongles with antennas and call it a day. https://www.amazon.com/NooElec-Dual-Band-Foreflight-FlightAware-Applications/dp/B01K5K3858/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1514597849&sr=8-11&keywords=ads-b+sdr+usb In this particular kit you can plug a micro coax cable (provided) into each dongle and then plug an antenna into each, matching the proper antenna to each dongle (they're marked). Alternatively you can use the Y cable to connect to each dongle and use a single antenna with a broader bandwidth, but you'll lose some performance. Or use this kit, which has just enough to make it work: https://www.amazon.com/Stratux-1090ES-UAT-Radios-Antennas/dp/B01M7NMWCD/ref=sr_1_13?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1514598068&sr=1-13&keywords=stratux+case Another issue is that you have a plain vanilla Raspberry Pi case rather than a Stratux case, the benefit of which is that it has places to mount each of the antennas. https://www.amazon.com/Stratux-Case-Fan-White-ABS/dp/B072ND582W/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1514598148&sr=1-3&keywords=stratux+case If you get the regular case, you can also put a fan in it, an AHRS (for, like $15), and/or plug a WAAS gps antenna into it for another $35. Edit: An even better case for aviators, with cool diagrams and stuff showing how it all goes together: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075V1KTYJ/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?psc=1 The mission creep is real with these, but at least it's cheap.

Got a source? The M20J panel is a frustrating example of 1970s engineering before Design For Maintenance was a thing, or at least getting that switch out makes it seem so. Finally got it out, and the axle seems fine and I couldn't see anything accessible that was causing the jam, so something must have broken internally. If I get a replacement reasonably soon, I can send my failed one to @Ah-1 Cobra Pilot if it's still useful to maybe press that axle out and reuse it.

Yes. I figured he had TAS/TCAS which may be how he knew where I was. I, however, do not have TAS/TCAS in my beater. Around here there's enough ADS-B traffic and towers that I just figure I'll get nearly everything on the tablet one way or another including TIS-B. Apparently not, though!

My understanding is that if anybody with ADS-B out is around to stimulate a tower transmission, anyone can receive the TIS-B/FIS-B transmissions from the tower and benefit from them, whether they have ADS-B out or not. I don't have ADS-B out (yet) but get traffic/wx/etc frequently even in remote areas. I did have a jet (looked like Beech Premier) pass me and turn in front of me the other day while I was between Deer Valley and Scottsdale (so I'm pretty sure he came out of Scottsdale). The notable part was that I'm sure he saw me because he passed and turned in front me, but he did not show up as ADS-B traffic on my tablet. This place is always thick with traffic and most of it shows up on the tablet, so it seemed a little strange to me that this guy didn't. Personally, I'm looking forward to the mandate being complete.

The other day the klixon switch for my strobes jammed in the OFF position. It's physically stuck, and won't move. It's been working fine and worked fine during pre-flight, but when I went to turn the strobes on at take-off the switch was jammed and has been ever since. Is this a common thing? I haven't taken the switch out yet since the ground bar is in the way and I haven't had time to really dig in there and get it out. Not sure what I'd even be looking for unless it was something obvious. If it's a known common failure mode I'm interested in the common wisdom for whatever it takes to get it going again.

Yes. Just be aware that most of the Stratux dongles are frequency specific, so get the one that you're missing. I see that the antennas are often labelled specifically, too, and if they're tuned for a particular band and you use it in the other it may degrade performance.

They're connected in series, so the sensed resistance is the sum of the resistance of both senders.

A passenger asked me the other day whether the Sensorcom readings are altitude dependent. It says it's reading ppm, but I don't know whether a person's sensitivity to a particular ppm goes up or down with altitude or stays the same, or whether the sensor reading itself has any altitude dependence. Does anybody know?

Since there's always variation in what is the 'local altimeter setting', and especially what might actually be set in the Kollsman windows of a population of airplanes flying in a region, it's informative to me to see what the transponder is actually reporting. It goes back to the reason of why the transponder reports pressure altitude rather than what your altimeter is reporting to you on its display.

L-3 Lynx is winning the compatibility war this way. Good on them. Apparently Stratus/ForeFlight want a closed system.

I have a TT31 and like it a lot. The timer function is an easy way to track flight time. The reported altitude display is also nice since I fly under the Phx Class B frequently.

It was visible from here (Phoenix area) but I missed it. I've seen previous launches from there from here, but was bummed to miss this one.

I learned to fly as a teenager in Germany in the 1970s, when the Luftwaffe still flew their F-104s at low altitude. You could be practicing turns about a point or something and one would go underneath you. Plodding along in a C-150 I was startled by one that had come up behind me, and it startled me because it was so close I could hear it. It scared the crap out of me because there were always two, a lead and a wingman, and I hadn't seen the second one yet. Thinking back now I suspect they did that stuff on purpose. But, yeah, potential collisions are probably the most stressful part of flying for me, and it's a constant issue around here with all the flight schools, plus the MOAs, drones, etc.

I'm guessing Arthur Godfrey's 'Too Fat Polka' is not on your playlist.

I bought a Lightspeed Zulu3 recently and have been really enjoying it. No complaints at all, hardly know it's there, it just works and lots of nice features (like auto-off to save the battery, etc.).

What you really want is that the airplane and the fuel container are at the same potential. If the airplane isn't electrically grounded to earth, then it may be at a different potential than the local earth reference (e.g., a rod or pipe stuck in the ground), so grounding the container to earth reference may not be productive, either. When the fuel truck comes he doesn't care whether the fuel truck or the airplane are at earth ground, just that they're the same, so running the clip between the truck and the airplane accomplishes that. Since they're both on tires that insulate from the ground reasonably well they still may not be at earth reference, but if they're at the same potential as each other there won't be a static discharge spark when any pieces of them touch. How to do that with a plastic container? I don't have any good ideas, since plastic isn't very conductive.

I'm a North up guy, too. I don't think it's that rare.

Maybe mine is weird, but it will do closed, half, or full open. I leave it at half a lot depending on temps or for stuff like pattern work.

Pfft. Doesn't even have carpet or a glare shield.