GeeBee

Interesting. No long bodies.

Yeah, I think I did my Ovation for about 180 bucks. Very reasonable.

I use this guy up in Maine. He produces a really nice product, with the ends nicely finished. Measure precisely as he builds them precisely. I suggest using 2 inches rather than 1.5 on the doubler on the ends. His hose is top quality and his work is first rate. My IA was very impressed. http://www.fairpoint.net/~kinney/

The Cheyenne 400LS has a serious deficiency, Garrett engines. Other than that it is a great airplane.

The problem with investing in hangars is airport ground leases. Generally, after 30 years, your "investment" reverts to the airport authority. Also some jurisdictions reassess your lease every 5 years and worse some do it not on the current land use but on "highest and best" which means, "if we wiped out the airport, how much could we get for this land". That kind of reassessment and lease stipulations make it hard to pencil out a pro-forma on a hangar. I am looking at building some T-hangars right now at a new airport being developed and I am "attempting" to guide the municipal powers to be into something that makes sense. It is difficult to get non aviation oriented elected officials to understand the values in play. One big stick we have here is the "personal property ad valorem tax" which taxes the value of your airplane at the same rate as a home. When I point out the value of these airplanes and that they will contribute to the property tax system with no children to educate, little in police and fire services just pave the roads and runway their eyes light up!

Absolutely necessary to get a good fit. When I change airplanes, I go get a new pair of glasses (trifocals) to fit the airplane. Also measure with a ruler in mm up from the bottom of the lens where things are in your field of view. Then measure from your eye where those things are in inches. This helps the eye doc greatly in fashioning a pair that work for you in that airplane. The advice to "be prepared to spend a ton of money" is absolutely true. I have three pairs. One regular everyday trifocals, clear trifocals for the airplane and sunglass trifocals for the airplane. Go with amber lenses for the airplane if you have a glass panel so the colors pop and of course NO POLARIZATION. Do not be afraid to take them back to the doc to have new lenses made if your first attempt does not work. I go to the doc every year and change out at least one of the three pair. There used to be a great eye doc right at the entrance to JFK who had a cockpit mock up that you could sit in and he would fit you. He is gone now, but it seems like something some enterprising DO would now for business especially with the business going discount via Visionworks etc. Equally so, I may need cataract surgery before I hang up my spurs. (thanks to arctic crossings), if I do I may go Prelex as I have heard nothing but good outcomes. People are seeing better than 20/20 with it with no flashes or scar tissue. Then...no glasses needed!

After running a fleet of C402 freighters the biggest problem in turbos is shaft coking. Another reason to move to unleaded fuel. Shaft coking is nearly non-existent with synthetic lubrication.

When you find out, let the Federal Reserve Board know because they are perplexed as you.

The paucity of travel and recreation associated with travel has led to record savings rates for Americans. It is currently 33%, the highest since the metric was started in 1960. The result is a boom in housing, cars, boats and yes airplanes. I live on a lake with a dock. I have unsolicited offers for my house, brokers wanting to buy my boat and some calls on my Mooney. There is simply a huge amount of cash (about 6 trillion) out there ready and wanting to buy something...anything.

Doing the same thing in my shop at home. Incredible difference in lumens and bulb life.

The problem with having your own airstrip and having asphalt is you don't get enough rolling over the asphalt to maintain. Asphalt has to be rolled upon regularly to flex it and renew the seal. If you made the runway part of your driveway, that would work. Concrete is really expensive.

My solution

Most aviation supply houses has a check box to get a pedigree on the part for an extra cost.

I've seen worse on over zeolous soft field technique with 172's and it just ground the tie down eye a little bit.

When I hear of 2, 3 weeks, a month of down time, I've wondered if a progressive maintenance schedule might be more suitable than an annual for these airplanes. One that gets every thing needed to be done in one day while doing a quarterly oil change. Also think it might minimize maintenance induced errors due to the smaller work scope. I think it would only work if your IA was on airport. I welcome any feedback on the idea.

Arrests in the US are a matter of public record and on the web. We don't need a rumor of arrest to understand what is going on.

You are correct now. We found in the 90's when GPS started being biased into the FMS, that there was a lot wrong with a lot of charts in foreign locations. Places like Guatemala, Honduras, and a good part of Africa never resurveyed but simply pencil whipped their lat/long data as WGS 84 compliant. It started with flying VOR approaches with a raw data monitor. It turned out that the USA paid these countries for resurvey, but they simply pocketed the money.

Actually Jepp does not copy the chart, nor does the NOAA. The source document is the FAA 8260 or the foreign equivalent. Here is an example for the KSFO ILS 28L. https://www.faa.gov/aero_docs/acifp/2015121527331001001-SFO/CA_KSFO_ILS OR LOC RWY 28LSAC2_A25A_F.PDF There is also no guarantee in many foreign countries that the obstacle location is correct because the often have not updated the location to the WGS 84 datum. Which is why I don't fly anything other than published routes in third world countries.

Not possible. Many airlines have specific operations specifications for airports that are tailored into the Jepp charts, by Jepp for that airline. In addition, airlines do not carry charts for every airport, but only those in its ops specs and Jeppesen tailors the coverage for the customer airline to reflect those specifications. If the airline were to use government charts they would have to open up a library for that purpose. Cheaper to outsource it. Finally, within the Jepp coverage there are airline specific pages which contain operationally pertinent information such as operation of de-ice pads, gate charts and operational frequencies, as well as engine out climb procedures which Jeppesen creates and distributes for the customer airline. In short, too much proprietary stuff goes in to an air carrier's Jepp subscription to use government charts. As to preference, I do think Jepp does a better job. Terrain is shown better, briefing strip is better, charting is more intuitive. and taxi chart is superb. That said, the financial incentive is enough to leave me with government charts right now.

Some airlines are not approved. You can't use an iPad on the flight deck unless it is in your operations specifications. Then there is a whole other issue of managing it, both by the company and the pilot. The update downloads have to come from the company and usually you are verboten from loading on any personal applications to the iPad. It is a closely managed process via Ops Specs and Flight Operations Manuals. Apple has a very nice enterprise manager that allows the company to control the iPads and what updates they receive. I can also tell you the story of one airline that decided to go MS Surface over iPads. You see the iPad already has blanket FAA approval as a hardware item. You just need Ops specs to put it into service. However, said airline wanted the Surface because it was cheaper per unit. They spent months testing and getting FAA approval for the Surface and setting up a management of the units which was difficult because the security of them did not meet FAA specs out of the box like iPad does. They were finally distributed. They had a hardware failure rate of about 20%. Other airlines that had iPads had a failure rate of about .03%. The airline after a year scrapped the Surfaces and went to iPads. The support lines went silent, well 80% drop in support calls, and out of 15,000 iPads they ordered, 3 went bad. Simply put, it is not as easy to use iPads in airline ops because you have issues of security, management, pilot performance, training etc. You would think Jeppesen charting costs would go down, but Jeppesen has made sure they are not going to see a decline in revenue on electronic charts vs paper.

I can tell you several airlines utilize the big Anker charging brick for their flight crews. Mine did and I could easily fly a trans oceanic crossing with it with an iPad burning the whole time. It is an easy and low cost solution. If you are going to install a charging part, it seems everyone but the Appareo Pro is a little behind as Apple has now gone to USB-C cable end rather than USB-A. While they stayed with the Lightning connector on the equipment side so your old cables will work, the USB-C is nice because it can be inserted into the power port in either side up and it still works. It is also a smaller plug.

Go to overhead switches if you have no other panel options. It may make you feel like Roger Ramjet to throw some switches on the overhead but they are a PIA. I hate having to look up as I taxi clear to adjust my lights. There is a reason why transport jets have panel annunciations of overheads and dark panel concepts. Sure they put light switches on the overhead but much more forward and lower than the Mooney switches. An easier and more efficient way to gain panel real estate is to go to a glass panel. Keep as much as you can forward of you.

Is Jerry Baxter still at LAC?

The thing about spade terminals is a proper one has a lock, in that the female portion positively grips and the male portion and locks in place with a click. Unfortunately that feature can be worn out by too many assembles and disassembles at which point both ends need to be replaced. What EricJ is talking about (fork terminal) has absolutely no captive feature other than the torque of the screw and hopefully a internal tooth lock washer (in which only 25% of the teeth engage). Fork terminals are also prohibited on boats let alone airplanes. I will also add that blue/white ground wire is not only improperly terminated, it is improperly routed, secured and likely to chafe.

It sounds weird, but when I had the same problem in the SuperCub, I cleaned up the battery ground on the advice of others on the SuperCub.org forum and it worked. Headset went crystal clear. I've experience it on other aircraft as well and cleaning up the battery ground, both the terminal on the battery and the cable to the airframe has worked. Do not forget the engine to airframe ground as well.