GeeBee

Actually a 2940' runway does not leave much margin after brake work. You can take a lot of energy off a taildragger without brakes. I've landed Beech 18's without brakes, but you need some pavement and 2940' is not enough.

Left brake will always win over rudder in a tail dragger.

I have to say, I know Dan personally. He has some very sharp edges and it is very sad, because he had so much to work with, so much aviation talent and yet he applies it all in such a perverse way as to make himself an anathema to any well mannered and thoughtful person. I think he has some personality problems that really need professional attention because no normal person acts as irrationally as he does, even for money.

When you replaced the alternator did you check the drive coupling with a torque test and/or did you replace the coupling?

I've seen many aviation operations, in particular airlines chew up managers who failed to grasp the necessity for implicit trust which is gained only by ethical conduct. They think managing is an art transferable to any industry. Which brings me to the famous Captain Robert Buck answer from a reporter who asked, "Captain Buck what is the greatest threat to aviation safety". Captain Buck replied, "The Harvard MBA".

I remember that video. He hooked up a spreader rig and lifted the airplane at the firewall and the aft wing root, slightly nose down, controls locked. He had lines from the wing tips to keep it from spinning. Worked brilliantly. Meanwhile:

Eh, we used one of these if you can get it through the filler hole.

Most carb'd Lycomings will give a cough if you ram the throttle for a go-around. As near as I can tell, it is the lag in the accelerator pump. Had a lot of them stop my heart for a beat, but never had one spit out the bit. As to paying again for installation. Welcome to aviation. While it seems perverse, having worked in auto parts I can tell you the auto shop may cover the labor to replace a defective part they installed, I can also tell you they make between 25 and 50% on the part they sold you. The price you see at say O'Reilly's is retail-retail which is what the auto shop charges you, trade prices are not shown. There are no such margins in aviation. Aircraft Spruce usually gives 10% to the trade for some but not all items. I recently paid for the installation and removal and are-installation of an alternator after only 100 hours of service. Hartzell/Plane Power sent me a replacement, which I promptly sold but all the labor was on me.

There are some questions here if the top wing wing tension bolt let go before maximum design loading. If so, look for a lot of moaning from the Bonanza community as they got the same issues as the Beech 18 and the earlier King Airs. Can anyone say, "spar strap"?

Business Ethics is a standard course offered and required both at the undergraduate and in MBA programs. If you want to see what happens when a business loses its way ethically look at Boeing. It largely started during the USAF tanker competition when their CFO was bribing AF officials for information on Northrop’s data, extended with the 737 Max debacle and has culminated with the door blow out. All of it can be traced back to management’s lack of ethics in pursuit of profit. Ultimately their lack of ethics have failed the people thy were supposed to protect. Their shareholders, their customers (ask Southwest why they can’t fly their planned schedule) and the innocent souls who boarded their airplanes. Trust is only earned by the ethical. Right now no one trusts Boeing.

Likely springs. Did you Tri Flow them?

When ever I see a dog eat its own vomit, I think of the air/oil separator.

Agree but that sensitivity has an upside. Fuel contamination shows up quickly. I was saved by it once in a 737 when a sweater of a worker who worked inside the tank truck was left in the tank before it was filled. That all said, I also have a capacitance sender in my boat and the difference in fuel level between straight unleaded gas and unleaded gas with ethanol is unreadable on the gauge.

I was in KUCY over the weekend and met Justin Wright owner of Red Avionics that manufactures a capacitance fuel probe and gauges. Right now he is making them for the experimental market but said he is moving toward certified. Interestingly his first project is a Mooney M22 that he plans on getting field approval. From there he plans to move on. He says his FSDO is being very cooperative towards this end. He makes everything there at KUCY, even the circuit boards. He says his units are compatible with most major avionics including JPI and Garmin. It looks to be very exciting as they are highly accurate and have zero moving parts, no float, no float arm. We will see, but it looks really interesting and exciting. https://www.redavionics.com/s/shop https://www.redavionics.com/buyers-guide

Deleted post

I have AGMs in my boat (3 of them) and my airplane. Trickle charge is the key to long AGM life.

I have never understood why FBOs tow aircraft with abandon with tow bars. If you are using a tow bar, better do like the airlines and have someone riding the brakes. The only way a large aircraft should be towed without a brake rider is with a cradle tug agin, like the airlines. I've had two runaway jets. One I was pushing back from Dulles and the tow bar disconnected and I hear "Captain!......" from the tug driver (as the headset is ripped off his head), I then saw the tug and tower distance themselves in front of me. I gently squeezed the brakes so as not to put it on it's tail and we re-attached. Other time in Dublin Ireland in an A330 the signalman gave me the "chocks in" signal which means release the brakes. As passengers were disembarking I heard a loud banging noise. I did'nt like what I heard so I sat down in my seat just in time for the airplane to jump the nose wheel chock, the ground crew failed to chock the mains (a requirement for "chocks in"). The aircraft started to roll back. Good thing I was there. There was two 767s parked right behind us, the Airbus would have totaled them both. Turns out the ground crewman was a new guy and the station manager wanted to fire him. I asked her not to and said, "He learned a hard but very valuable lesson and I don't want to have to re-teach it to another FNG."

https://www.gatechecked.com/delta-air-lines-hangar-foamed-out-after-fire-suppression-system-fault-2879 Delta also had several airplanes damaged in 2015 in ATL from an errant fire suppression system foam the airplanes.

So very true. It is very difficult to collect and on really big judgements, bankruptcy by the defendant is always in the cards which is why you should be temperate in your demands.

Broken record? That means it happens a lot. Maybe that should tell you something. Maybe you missed the one where American Airline's insurance company tried to blame a 9 year old girl for being the victim of a perv flight attendant. Want to tell me how wonderful they all are again? "The airline on Wednesday said in a statement about the filing, "Our outside legal counsel retained with our insurance company made an error in this filing." https://abcnews.go.com/US/american-airlines-backtracks-filing-blamed-9-year-filmed/story?id=110466927 The insurance company knew exactly what they were doing to avoid a payout and were only to happy to put forth such a legal defense as to blame a 9 year old girl. The record is broken because the same recording keeps happening.

In the state of Georgia, it is the law, called "diminished value".

Simple, every business seeks to minimize expenses and maximize profit. In the insurance business there is only one way that happens. You can't cut enough salaries, or heads, or overhead. The real expense is....claims.

The ice on the bottom of the wing is environmental icing. Icing from a cold soaked fuel into moist air. That is why you see MD-80s de-icing in Florida in the middle of the summer, until wing heaters were installed. With regard to being high on the approach, practice sometime with a safety pilot, gear down, flaps up, at best glide speed a full cross control slip. On a long body you can get about 2500-2700' FPM out of it. You can lose a lot of altitude really, really fast. I too had a problem with soluble water in the fuel in the winter. 99% pure IPA works wonders, but it is hard on the tank sealant. Make sure when you add it you are adding it in the fuel stream as you refuel. Do not just dump it in the tank because you will find your tank sealant wearing fast below the filler port. I have found 1 to 1.5% is more than enough. (Thank you Paul Kortopates)

Insurance companies, like people are different. Some are ethical, some are not. Assume is spelled that way for a reason.

They are not evil, but their business makes them that way (Thank you Jessica Rabbit). You speak only as the policy holder. Have you ever been an aggrieved victim? My barber was out jogging. A woman insured by USAA driving from behind lost control of her vehicle while changing her radio, he ran all the way up into a yard of home but her car still managed to strike him on the front lawn. USAA denied all liability despite police citations to the driver, then said, they only owed him medical bills and not lost wages because he was over 65 and could draw Social Security. They also denied him expenses of his barber chair rental. Only when they were shown the doors of the court house did they want to settle. Dealing with him fairly, justly and responsively would have been far cheaper, but more important, the ethical thing to do.