ilovecornfields

I think Greg is at Advanced Aircraft Troutdale (TTD). He'll do a prebuy for you as well but you have to get the plane up there. He has a ferry pilot he works with who might be able to fly it up for you as long as the owner agrees. If the only issue is the old engine and leaks and you offer a good price they might let you do it. It's about a 4 hour flight. Top Gun is pretty meticulous. No one is perfect, but if they did the last annual that's definitely a good prognostic sign. As long as the owner fixed everything they found...

@Jerry 5TJ previously posted a graph here showing the propeller RPM vs. standby alternator output. On my plane if I turn off all the external lights, the standby alternator will run everything at 2300 (except pitot heat and TKS). If I want both of those on as well I have to increase the RPM or I show a discharge on the ammeter. Did you check if you blew a circuit breaker when you switched the standby alternator on and off?

I'm not an attorney, but I did my "research" on the internet and found out that @ZuluZulu speaks the truth (he's an attorney and I use Google so obviously we're both equally qualified to comment intelligently on this and should expect our arguments to have equal merit). I grew up hearing "you can sue anyone for anything" and it wasn't until I took a business law class that I realized this is just not true. From Wikipedia: (Frivolous litigation - Wikipedia) Frivolous litigation is the use of legal processes with apparent disregard for the merit of one's own arguments. It includes presenting an argument with reason to know that it would certainly fail, or acting without a basic level of diligence in researching the relevant law and facts. The fact that a claim is lost does not imply that it was frivolous. Frivolous litigation may be based on absurd legal theories, may involve a superabundance or repetition of motions or additional suits, may be uncivil or harassing to the court, or may claim extreme remedies. A claim or defense may be frivolous because it had no underlying justification in fact, or because it was not presented with an argument for a reasonable extension or reinterpretation of the law. A claim may be deemed frivolous because existing laws unequivocally prohibit such a claim, such as a so-called Good Samaritan law. In the United States, Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and similar state rules require that an attorney perform a due diligence investigation concerning the factual basis for any claim or defense. Jurisdictions differ on whether a claim or defense can be frivolous if the attorney acted in good faith. Because such a defense or claim wastes the court's and the other parties' time, resources and legal fees, sanctions may be imposed by a court upon the party or the lawyer who presents the frivolous defense or claim. The law firm may also be sanctioned, or even held in contempt.

I have a KFC 225 so I can't comment on the GFC 700. For mine, I put in in FD mode, HDG/GPSS, altitude arm at the cleared initial altitude and 1300 FPM climb (I'll do 1000 FPM if my son is with me because he complains every time the VSI goes past 1000. He will point to the VSI and give me a "thumbs down" and frowny face. Without fail.). When I takeoff I go immediately to the instruments. Positive rate - gear up, 85 KIAS - flaps up, then AP on. I assume there's a minimum altitude approved for the AP but I don't want to know what it is (bonus points if you can name which "Hazardous Attitude" this is an example of). This helps cut down on the workload. I try to hand fly the departures at least once or twice a month just to convince myself I can do it. I'm not very familiar with the Paine 6 Departure. Is 2000 the initial altitude they usually clear you to? I also don't have FLC. Not sure if it's better to initially set a ROC or airspeed. If you forgot to retract the speedbrakes, gear or flaps which mode would get you in trouble faster?

I went with the hat rack option. I didn’t like the idea of using the TKS door since it leaves a space for things to crawl in.

Go Hawks!

I wasn’t aware of this. So if you’re on battery #2 with the backup alternator on and you select gear or flaps down then nothing will happen? I would have assumed the gear and flaps would run off the battery.

I keep Snoopasaurus Rex (aka Snoopy) in the backseat and he organizes that area for me. If there’s anything loose, he eats it.

I don’t believe it. I watched a video of a famous YouTuber in a Cirrus declare an emergency when one of his two alternators went out in severe clear and demand vectors to the nearest airport because he had no clue where he was. How can a plane fly without an alternator? Wouldn’t it make the engine stall? Of course, it was the same YouTuber who can’t figure out why his plane is giving him a warning for extending full flaps with ice and makes his passengers severely hypoxic because he doesn’t realize the air gets pretty thin as you ascend…..but I digress. I guess I should probably stop getting ground school lessons from YouTube. I’m not going to criticize anyone who made it on the ground safely, but I’ve learned something from each of my “emergencies” and it seems like the OP will as well. I’m glad he shared his experience and planted the seed for an interesting discussion.

I think he already mentioned the attorney was an amateur poker player.

Some might ask the same question about you, sir.

We did have a thread recently on MSCs. At this point, I’m not sure the designation means much to me. I did recently have work done an an MSC but not because of its designation as an MSC. I went there because they are professional and do good work.

When I approached my current mechanic I told him that I heard he was reluctant to work on Mooneys but I was hoping he would make an exception. He said “I have nothing against Mooneys. It’s the owners that drive me crazy!”

If you have an Apple device the MMOPA FRAT tool is pretty good. And free. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mmopa-frat/id1206155543

I’m not advocating the use of an attorney but this is one of those times when it’s nice to have the AOPA legal services plan. I signed up before I bought my plane (not necessarily for the purchase, but for the flying that came afterwards).

That 90/10 rule might not be too far off. One of my colleagues who has been involved in backcountry flying for decades describes it as a “self-cleaning oven.” I think he’s on his third overhaul on his Skywagon (made it past TBO each time) and has never had an issue. Others who share his passion have suffered different fates but it seems that they are constantly being replaced by those fearless flyers “living their best life.” As long as the overwhelming majority of accidents have to do with pilot actions and behavior then the risk pool will be unevenly distributed. I’m pretty good at statistics (although not nearly as good as Prof. @aviatoreb) and I openly discuss this with my family when we fly together. I’ve often scrubbed flights I probably could have made because I didn’t think the risk was acceptable given the reward. Not to put words in anyones mouth, but I think what @jaylw314 was saying was that we can acknowledge the risk and take thoughtful efforts to mitigate that risk instead of just saying “I’m not scared of dying.” Nothing wrong with not being scared of dying but if you’re one of those people who is willing to tolerate a higher level of risk then you should be honest with yourself and acknowledge your higher likelihood of dying or injuring yourself and others. I’m not passing judgement on those whose risk tolerance differs from mine, but I think you owe it to yourself to be intellectually honest with yourself and your passengers regarding what degree of risk you are taking. I’m pretty sure those two nurses in the Learjet that recently crashed in SEE had no idea how much risk the pilots were taking on their behalf, without their informed consent. If your goal is to give general aviation negative publicity and bring on more oversight, regulation and airport closures then this is the way to do it. The mayor of El Cajon has already announced an investigation into the dangers of the airport given the two recent fatal accidents (even though the previous accident airplane was actually flying into MYF). Everyday at work I see the results of someone taking a risk and having it end poorly. My wife used to make fun of me because anything fun you can think of I can think of a way it can (and has) ended horribly. Doesn’t mean I don’t take any risks but it does mean I try to be deliberate about the ones I take and make efforts to mitigate those risks and honestly communicate them to those taking the risks with me.

Maybe one of the A&Ps can comment (like @kortopates) but would pulling the gascolator drain in-flight get rid of those ice crystals?

There’s no straight-in to 27R. The LOC-D is CTL and has a 6.88 Degree slope. I can do it as a “straight-in” if I drop the gear, deploy the speedbrakes and dive for the deck but it’s not really “stabilized” and seems like it would be a non-starter in a Learjet (then maybe it isn’t- I’ve never flown a jet). It seems like this is an unfortunate example of how getting away with something in the past makes you more likely to do it in the future. I’ve been reading aviation accident reports for over 30 years. It used to baffle me how “high time” pilots would crash and I would wonder how I had any chance of surviving if these people with thousands of hours more than me couldn’t. Now that I have more time I’ve realized that “experience” isn’t always a good thing. It’s the quality of that experience and the lessons learned, not necessarily the quantity. As @ZuluZulu mentioned, in a nice VFR night this is easy to do (I did it several times in November and lived to tell the tale). With marginal weather in a high-performance plane I don’t thing their “experience” helped them. Just the opposite. Someone like @ZuluZulu would have diverted to Ramona, rented a car and driven home mildly inconvenienced. This more “experienced” crew probably convinced themselves that because they got away with it the past they could do it again (perhaps under less favorable conditions) and didn’t make it. “A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.”

Tiger King was awesome. It was only slightly more bizarre than what was actually going on in real life at the time.

No. Winter in Oregon.

I would agree with this. It climbs pretty well up to 10k feet. Above 15k you’re only going to get 500-600 fpm. I haven’t flown mine above 16.5k. I have the 310 HP STC as well.

Just saw that the mayor of El Cajon promised to investigate if there are “underlying issues” with Gillespie Field. If that plane burned 100 LL they probably would blame it on that! https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/2-nurses-2-pilots-killed-in-east-county-san-diego-plane-crash/509-d4d48e95-3069-4102-9d74-2ab81fb9e638

What is an anti-authority attitude? Pilots with an anti-authority attitude do not like being told what or how to do things. They tend to believe that the rules don’t apply to them. The pilot might not use checklists or perhaps disregard the advice of their instructor. This pilot might say or think, Why should I listen to you?The solution for this attitude would be for the pilot to tell themselves, Follow the rules, they are usually right! Maybe a good time to remind ourselves of the difference between safe and legal. If circling was NA at night then cancelling IFR and effectively doing a circling maneuver may have been legal, but it wasn’t safe. It looks like they may have outsmarted themselves by focusing on the wrong thing.

I’m not familiar with that company but some medevac companies do shifts since most of their flights are unscheduled. They may not have flown much, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t awake or on-call for a while. Or it may have nothing to do with it.

I did my night currency at SEE last month and made left traffic for 27R (27L is closed at night and the lights are off). That hill has been there forever so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone based there (which they were). Given the time of day, the short flight and the fact that it’s registered to a medevac company in guessing fatigue and being behind the airplane are the likely causes of the crash. There aren’t a lot of novel ways to crash an airplane. We just keep perfecting the old ways.