0TreeLemur

During the recent annual on our '67C, my A&P flagged the rudder free-play as being out of spec. The service manual on page 6-7 lists the free-play limit as 0.08" (80 thousanths of an inch!). He observed three push-rod ends in the empennage seem to account for most of the excess free-play. Has anyone dealt with this problem? Looking at Fig. 29 in the parts manual, which is not real detailed, aft of the tail cone rear bulkhead there are bushings and possibly Heim bearings that could be worn and produce free play. Is it best to just replace push rods? Looking for experienced advice so I can start to identify what parts I might need and where they can be had. Thanks in advance, and Happy New Year!

Sheesh Hank, you have $625 labor in them! I'll have to fly to Eclectic just to see what a pair of those look like!

All done under a hood. Instructor said it included 0.6 h actual, but I didn't notice. I was under a hood that won't come off. Anybody tried prescription foggles for up-close vision?

The AHRS AI seems to be fine. Once calibrated at cruise, it behaves smoothly and generally agrees with the vacuum driven device. The "calibration" of the AoA requires specification of two numbers: cruise AoA and peak Cl AoA, which of course depends on flap setting. I went out last weekend with my son to attempt a calibration, but it didn't go so well for reasons unknown. In level flight, the AOA should be pretty close to the pitch angle which we measured with a smart-phone inclinometer app. For instance, using the input cruise AoA (3 deg.) and 12 deg. max Cl. AoA (approx.) the thing never really seemed to agree with the smart phone inclinometer. There is no separate flap setting, so I guess you might want to calibrate it for landing flaps. We didn't get that far. I'm hoping the company produces a good video explaining the process, because I either did something wrong or the algorithm in the firmware for calculating AoA from sensor data has a bug. Sorry, I'm probably not going to get any video just now, I'm in the throes of IR training. -Fred

All AV-20-S functions are working except I'm having trouble calibrating the probeless AoA function. Not sure why, it seems straightforward, but I need to contact the company after the holidays and things open back up.

In 2018 I flew 116 h, which is about 10 times more than in 2017, and infinitely more than 2008-2016. Life is good.

My A&P installed a Davtron temp. probe in the access panel that lies just forward of the left fuel tank. Minimally invasive, far enough from the fuselage to not be influence by engine temperature, and not too hard to route the wire up to the left-hand side of the panel. The probe was about $80.

Five guys with over 100,000 hours of aviation experience between them, sitting around watching dials, gauges, and switches.... Ten seconds from flare with the gear tucked snugly into their beds, and the gear warning horn switched off. Fat, dumb, and happy. Yessir-ee. Sounds like "mayhem" from the Allstate commercials. If not for an idle eye roaming over the panel! That's the advantage offered by experience, habit/routine, and non-distracted opportunity. You gotta believe that if it can almost happen to _them_, we are majorly screwed without a lot of extra attention, and even then... All it would have taken for them to miss the opportunity would have been SFO tower calling up just before the captain realized the gear were up, with: "Uh, JAL 994 heavy, were going to need you to uuuh exit the runway at the first high speed you can because we want to get our stripe painting crew uuhhh back out there." Anyone who says they'll never do it might. It won't affect our insurance rates because it is already built into the actuarial tables that determine our insurance rates! Those cats don't sell insurance when they haven't quantified the risk! I'll NEVER leave a laptop at an airport security checkpoint. I never thought I would leave a laptop at an airport security checkpoint. All it took was a cranky security employee at BDL to yell "Hey! Keep it movin'! " when I was the only person in line, and I got mad/distracted, and walked away pissed-off- without my laptop. I figured it out half way to ORD. Godspeed, ya'll, and happy 2.019E+03 But for the grace of.... Fred

O. M. G. Do us mortals have reason to be afraid? Yes. Thanks for posting the link this compelling story @PT20J

Here's what I did and you can do it too. Get your wife/girlfriend/signif. other to go up with you after you return from a trip with say less than 10 gallons on each side. Climb to a few 1000 ft AGL and orbit the field. Switch to the emptiest tank and ask your passenger to watch the fuel pressure gauge and tell you when it starts to rapidly decrease. When that happens, switch to the other tank and land. You can calibrate the senders on that empty tank knowing what zero means. Then, take it back up and repeat for the other tank. I've learned that there are two potential issues with removing the sump drain valves. First, the piece they are screwed into, which is riveted into the tank, might be corroded and can fail. Second, someone might have attempted to fix it and done a poor job. Running a tank dry is much easier, and IMHO, fun.

My confusion stemmed from the fact that the governor is an oil pump and while it does take oil from the pressurized engine oil pump, it is a tiny volume and I'm surprised that it affects engine oil pressure in a noticeable way, compared to the change in rpm. Although it was better said by @Shadrach

Man, that really kills your useful load....

I'm confused. Doesn't the drop in rpm indicate that something is happening? Isn't the drop in oil pressure just a symptom of decreased rpm?

Any news on the date for this event? The last question was whether or not we can move to 26 January. I'm ok with that. Should we set up a poll?

@Oldguy thanks for the photos. Pardon my French, but that interior is GORGEOUS!!! Sadly, the $30k remains hypothetical.

OK- if I gotta spend it all, then add a paint job and put the rest into protective puts on Bendix-King stock as recommended by Mike Elliott.

Kind of a boring list, but I just got her panel up to where I want it for the foreseeable future: 1. Replace those ugly crazed green side windows with grey tint with side scoop vents 2. Pay somebody who has mad skills with leather, fabric, carpet and plastic to re-do the interior and make her look like new on the inside. New plane smell required. 3. Have an MSC inspect and repair everything they find 4. Put the remainder in the overhaul fund to reduce my hourly cost of operation because I pretty much like the rest of her

My attorney would argue that "Permanent" means that is affixed to the aircraft in a way such that it is "lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely", which is the dictionary definition, as opposed to "Temporary" equipment everyone would agree an iPad-like device typifies because it is intended to be installed in the aircraft on an occasional basis and is not assured to be installed during every flight. The flaw in the interpretation of "Permanent" put forth by @Marauder stems from the fact that the Davtron M811B that I replaced did not display the time "Permanently" by his definition because it has modes to show the engine time, stopwatch, or whatever time it was set to. The Davtron M811B would not pass @Marauder's definition of "Permanent". However, because the M811B is certified, it is clear that a clock that meets 91.205.(d).(6) can have different modes other than showing the current time. I have found the flight time display shown in the photo above very useful, as it helps me switch fuel tanks at the desired interval. In a high workload environment, I could easily switch the display to the time and leave it there, and need no other function on that device. Unless a vacuum failure occurred in IMC. In that case I would (1) declare an emergency, (2) switch the AV-20-S to display its attitude information, and (3) ask the controller what time it was if I needed to know. BTW- I am not a lawyer but I have worked with a few from time to time, and I find them wonderful people to interact with and learn from.

Here's my take on this. I replaced the Davtron clock with the clock/timer in the Aerovonics model AV-20-S that shows seconds, as a minor modification as is allowed by FAA letter 100S-GA-10-53. This was confirmed as a minor change in non-transport category aircraft in FAA letter 100S-13-31. The attached photo shows the format for the timer display, but the GMT and LCL time display options look exactly the same with HH:MM:SS as required by FAA 91.205.(d).(6) . Period. Incidentally, this AV-20S clock/timer that shows a digital representation of hours, minutes, and seconds, is also capable of showing a bunch of other information. But it is fundamentally a clock. The FAA has said that a clock need not have only time-keeping functions in order to be considered a clock. It is widely accepted that the time representation on a GPS would be accepted as a clock if the seconds are shown. Therefore, the AV-20 is a suitable clock for the purposes of 91.205.(d).(6) regardless of any NORSEE approvals. I think a decent lawyer could convince a jury of that so I'm not worried about it.

Howdy Mike, This is what fit my '67C. If you don't have bladders, this is what you need too, I think. https://www.mcfarlaneaviation.com/products/product/SA53S/ There was a pretty in-depth discussion of this here on MS earlier this year if you search. Good luck, Fred

Thanks, mate. We just returned from spending Christmas on Dauphin Island off the coast of Alabama near Mobile. On that flight I found that the coolest thing about the AV-20-S is that because it is plumbed into the pitot-static system and has an OAT sensor, it computes true airspeed in real time. I used to calculate it when I was curious and had time, which was not often, using the accessory on the Garmin 430W. Having it on the panel in real time is really interesting because it can tell you something is "different" much more directly than indicated airspeed. Happy New Years to all! Fred

Truth he speaks!

Does Obi-Wan talk to you from that hologram too? What happens if you illuminate it with a laser?

That's a funny lookin' aircraft- the leading edge of the tail slopes backwards!?!

Santa brought us our kids, and a new clock with lots of cool lagniappe for our bird. The PC switch is unplugged because I'm making one of my sons fly. Ho Ho Ho!