0TreeLemur

Good thing to send the KX-155 in for work. They are notorious for having leaky capacitors that cause decreased performance over time. After I bought the plane, the KX-155 in my a/c was really weak and noisy according to the staff in the local tower. So, I sent it to a shop in Wichita specializing in rebuilding them. They replaced a bunch of leaky caps, re-balanced the radio, swapped out a volume knob, and now it is like new. All that for about $750. Worth it. The KX-155 is a great bulletproof radio.

This problem stinks. Ugh.

I read this thread with heavy heart. So sad. During my instrument check ride, while shooting an ILS under the hood, I was "in the groove" with trim perfectly set for my 90 kt descent with no flaps (too fast for flaps in my '67C). At 200 ft my examiner said "go around". I advanced the throttle forward in about 2-seconds and was shocked by the amount of nose-up pitching moment caused by all that nose-up trim. Hope I don't do that again. (somehow I passed). It is not at all hard to imagine that with 300 HP and a lot of nose-up trim, it might be impossible for a human to push the nose over and prevent a departure stall. To help get it all right on departure, I've been practicing the following pre-takeoff flow, from floor up in a counter-clockwise direction: 1. Fuel FULLEST TANK 2. Trim T/O 3. Flaps T/O 4. Cowl flaps OPEN 5. Prop HI RPM, mixture RICH 6. Landing Light & Strobes ON 7. Fuel pump ON Go. Do this flow every time to avoid forgetting anything.

There are letters in pdf format from the FAA here and there online saying that they don't get too bent out of shape over the definition of a clock in a certified aircraft. If it is permanently installed in the aircraft, displays time to the nearest second, and can be seen by the pilot, it is an acceptable clock. The AV-20S does that. I think it is an excellent timer, with the nice feature of having a backup AHRS attitude indicator.

If a radio is required, you need some way to listen to it. If your intercom is working and you have a headset, you are covered. In my a/c the speaker is a convenience so I can listen to comms without headphones. That is pretty much only possible when not in flight. In flight it is hard to hear the speaker.

Read a paper the other day wherein a research group in Australia describe development and testing of a Lithium-Sulphur battery that has a charge storage capacity of over 2.7 kWh per kg of battery mass, which about half what is needed to fly a Mooney as far on 1 kg of battery as you can on 1 kg of 100LL. This technology gets us close. Article here: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaay2757 Assumptions: 100LL = 33.4 kWh/gal = 12.25 kWh/kg Otto cycle efficiency: 40%. Effective energy density of 100LL: 4.9 kWh/kg of flight power. Having read literature that is skeptical of electric aviation, I'm pleasantly surprised.

at an airport?

Yeah, 32 minutes of stock footage so "she can tell you 'bout the plane crash, with a gleam in her eye..." is plenty. The helo time to capture that footage cost over $1000.

Avacado green seems to be coming back "in".

I've got Windows XP running in VirtualBox. Growl.

Not true in my case. In late 2017 we bought a tired '67M20C that had a shotgun panel and a KLN89b GPS. While serviceable, it was not approved for approaches. I sold my Hewlett-Packard RPN calculator collection just to upgrade to a 430W, and haven't looked back. In fact, I bought it two years ago from @Avionics Source. When I asked an avionics installer for a quote, they suggested I upgrade the transponder at the same time to meet the ADS-B requirement. So, we branded both calves with one iron.

Maybe this guy needs... Dare I say it.... Bladders?

The skill of the current generation of weather models decays over time. From one to three days they are generally decent at forecasting winds and clouds, and so-so with precip. The current generation of models have some skill at predicting the location of precipitation only out to about 5 or 6 hours. After that there is a large spread from one run to the next. Weather forecasts from 4 to 7 days they are fair-to-middlin', with weaker events like popcorn convection being harder to predict than weather associated with strong cold fronts. Current models can sometimes portray strong frontal systems like the one now affecting ArkLaTex up to Michigan up to about 10 days in advance with maybe a few hundred miles uncertainty in their location that far out. Same thing with some deep lows that can get spun up, like hurricanes. Beyond that, as @Immelman wrote, you gotta go with the climatology/probabilities.

I've been keeping track of reported TAS values for C models since I've been lurking here on MS. It seems that the average is about 143 kt, with a std. dev. of 2 kts, for various degrees of airspeed mods. Having 3 blades is inescapably known to knock a couple of kts off cruise speed. Power setting and those habits are really important, and I think that accounts for a fair bit of the variance. This small variance caused by the various speed mods pales in comparison to the average headwind that I fly against... So, I'm happy with what I get. Remember, power=drag*airspeed. Planes having similar power, will fly at the speed that similar airframes get. When considering drag, there is no magic, like there is in the case of lift.

The wingwalk on Lil' Sister was painted on but faded/dirty and with missing bits here and there. I re-did it after we finished the interior redo. I used this product https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/randolphwingwalk.php?clickkey=6290 which is a real hard thing to stir. Enamel paint with grit. Looks real nice. Taped off with blue painters tape and applied with a 4" roller.

Thanks for the link. I agree with your assessment- small warheads, high accuracy. Scary. The videos I've seen online look like some kind of interceptors in the boost phase. I just assumed they were Patriots. Wouldn't the US position Patriots near potential targets? Were the 5 that broke up in flight failed propulsion systems or intercepts?

There was nothing in the NOTAMs on that day for the ILS. The more I think about what happened, I think it was an attempted slam dunk that went missed because of a new IR pilot.

Yes, the loc was steady, but the gs was really erratic. The MSA in our area is 3700. They held me at 4k until established, and max fwd. speed until 5 mile final. More I think about it with me being a relatively new IR pilot, this was a setup for me to have missed the real GS and then momentarily caught the false GS, which I quickly went above.

Paul, that sounds like a good New Year's resolution: "This year I vow to fly more." I'll second that. I want to do three long cross countries. I've talked with my co-pilot about trying to touch both shores in one trip. Florida to the Pacific Northwest and back via Arizona would be one. I think I'll have a trip to Wisconsin. We do plan to visit Gettysburg and Yorktown sometime soon (weekend trips).

Cool stuff @201er! That $100 is not too bad. Now that I know that it is possible, I might do that myself some weekend. Did you have to do anything super-secret to not get shot down by missiles, or is that just DCA?

yes I used the tank sealant remover from knot2u that has a citrus smell. Worked well.

My door is flush. I've asked the shop doing the annual to try and adjust the top hook to close the gap that remains based on some hissing that is happening at the ~10 o'clock position looking outward.

Thanks @Marauder. I always thought that a new audio panel is for music-listnin' wusses. Now I want one.

In the summer of 2018 we landed in Cedar City, rented a car, and toured all around southern Utah and northern Arizona. We did a lot of driving but we saw a bunch of national monuments: Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, Escalante Staircase, Capitol Reef, Moki-Dugway, Monument Valley, and Glen Canyon. That took 4 days. Overflew the Grand Canyon on the way out.

Your poll is incomplete. I would almost never make a large avionics purchase from a random person on eBay. When I bought a 430W in 2018, I searched the classifieds of aviation www sites, found one that seemed to be a worthwhile purchase, called the seller to discuss, and made a deal. That option is not on the poll, so I didn't answer.