dominikos

no, it’s not a bait topic but actual question I asked myself for sometime… I really like idea of building a plane and not being restricted by FAA on what I do with it… I keep log of my under A&P supervision activities and have another 1,600 hours to meet &P part of the A&P certification. I went to Oshkosh and there are three planes that keep getting me interested in experimental world… Velocity, RV 10/14 and Sling HW. All doable… but then the reality sinks in… Velocity and RV are the same engine tech as Mooney. Sling is slower but is HW which as I get older is not a bad thing and allows for easier access to the back seat. But coming from Oshkosh, the reality sinks in. I can get to M20J forever plane for under $200K - new paint, new avionics, refreshed interior and engine overhaul. Anything in experimental world is $250K, and will still have the same/worse performance. And design is still less robust than Mooney… So, came back home from Oshkosh, envious of Rotax 916 and planning my M20J interior upgrade and looking forward to Dynon AP. It’s hard to beat Mooney and that’s what I will stick with… and yes, I did fly non-stop from KOSH to 6R3 (Houston) on one tank in six hours and still had 9 gallons of fuel left. And my UL is almost 1050 lbs.

I will add my name to the list of those interested. My plastic ones broke and would rather replace it with eye ball vents.

Was that a Mooney pattern? Mine is 4234H

With engine monitors it looks like LOP vs ROP and %BPH is a bit a fluid concept and red box. if I keep CHT under 400 and happy with fuel flow and KTAS I should disregard the rest? I fly with Dyson reporting LOP and making sure that CHTs are stable but O don’t get the speeds I want. Hence attempt to figure out better settings to get the higher speeds

I have to admit that I equated LOP and economy cruise. Now you guys sent me to a drawing board. I need to do redo some of my tests. I guess the observation that matching POH %BPH give me good performance on LOP still stands but now I have to redo my tests to match POH economy and best performance cruise numbers. Will do at 6,000 sometime this week and report back

sigh.... and that's Texas for you... and Florida....

just to be clear... I'm just trying to figure out how much off POH my plane is. Old engine (1500 hours), old paint... etc. went to do a few landings in prep for OSH - first time flying in - any takers to join as a spotter on the fligth from texas to OSH? anyhow, I thought to myself... it is hot, POH wants me to do adjust for temperature... what if instead of playing with MP/RPM I will aim for %BPH. I have Dynon as EIS, it actually has a profile for my Lycoming... what if I try for %BPH. I saw that in POH, if I get %BPH, the speed does not change between the settings. A page for my POH ('78 M20J below). I know, I know... only 2000 ft but that's what a flight was today... and here is my dynon screenshot... actually two. first, shows me not adjusting for temperature... the speed numbers are below the book and then, using % of power, the numbers are almost spot on (picture 2). Should I always aim for the %BPH instead of MP/RPM?

On Sunday, 5/21, had a lovely, well executed flight from Houston (6R3) to Tampa (KSPG) - 5 hrs, talked ATC into some shortcuts. Left at 6:30 am which helped to avoid summer buildups in Florida. KSPG is my fav airport in Tampa Bay Area.

I’m a big fan of my Tesla’s FSD. helps quite a lot in daily driving. but it ain’t perfect… two days back, was going at 75 mph (okay on Texas highway). I saw it coming fast to the car ahead of it, got ready to disengage and suddenly it decided to break really hard, started to beep, and displayed “system error, take over immediately” message. Fortunately, allowed for this to happen with no car behind me… there is a difference between critical systems and business software. As we deploy more trained neural networks with no option to fully test them, I would still expect human oversight. but who knows, tech progress might surprise us… I would still want to fly my own plane but when AI takes over, I might not have a job to pay for it…

I’m planning to clean terminals this Saturday, add extra wire to alternator and test again. I will report back after the weekend. are there any more terminals to check?

Valid point... My battery is probably reaching 4 years (need to check the logs). For now, feels like adding battery minder actually might have caused an issue, but we will see.

Reading about the benefits of battery minder, got myself one. Left it connected directly to the battery for a few weeks and went to take a plane for a flight today. On my Dynon, battery read low (11.9V) and was showing negative charging (-27A). Never got fixed in a short flight around the field. The battery is Concord, batteryminder is 12V-8A CEC2. I don't have a separate connector for battery charging (will add) so had it connected directly to the battery terminals. Appreciate pointers if anybody run into this before. If it helps, this is what's preceding the battery. My theory is that either it somehow damaged relay or the connector to battery got loose.

2nd that. Flew with Mark, great background and mooney experience!

Thank you for explaining this. Somehow, I didn’t realize this dependency of AHRS. Regardless of my particular situation, there is always possibility of either pitot or static port getting clogged. In HDX manual, they explain how GPS ground speed is used as replacement. Have you ever came across emergency procedures for partial AHRS failure? What really got me today was how fast it happened and how confusing the indications were.

one more pointer, here is a table explaining where pitot is used by Dynon HDX. That’s quite a lot…

fair warning, this is a bit of venting post to help me to think what went wrong. a quick background, I’m based in Houston, so don’t really deal with freezing levels. instrument rated, a few hours short of 400 flying hours. We flew today to northern Arkansas for a college tour. With lower temps, I should have turned pitot heat on. I thought about it earlier but my checklist does not call it out. I checked POH right now, but does not call it out either. As we started the descent, at some point we got a bit of ice, but I knew that we will be shortly through the clouds and the temperatures were warmer below. Suddenly all indicators went berserk. Before I completely lost speed indication and got a message to check for pitot heat, the airspeed went through some extremes. I have Dynon HDX with a backup D10A (similar setup to G3X with G5) and kept the wings leveled but was completely thrown off. This went away as I completely lost airspeed and got a message suggesting to put pitot heat on. Fortunately for me, we just got into opening between the cloud layers and was able to see ground through a scattered layer below. It helped me to compose myself. I reported issue to ATC, got permission to circle while waiting for the pitot tube to heat up and continued on the approach once I regained air speed indicator. Rest of the approach went fine, a bunch of deer crossing runway didn’t faze me at all. what I’m thinking: need to better understand how my HDX behaves when something goes wrong. I was definitely complacent and really got thrown off when this started. develop strategy for emergencies and practice them - pitot one is a hard one but perhaps can be done in simulator part of the strategy is to memorize and include engine settings in my flow. I don’t do it in any standardized way, roughly know the settings and what to expect but definitely could be more structured update my checklist to include pitot heat as needed on take off and landing be much more conservative when planning descent through clouds up north and/or in winter time anything else? curious what others learned from similar experiences… Thanks, Dominik

Happy New Year y’all! Time to start a new thread… got out there today to get in my first flight for ‘23. IFR approach into Lufkin (KLFK). This is going to be a great year!

and only KI-209 is left from this list. I have a few more parts that I will post in the near future.

updated list, GI-106 is on its way to a new home.

That’s why I delayed departure by 4 hours. There was no way I would be able to get back to the field. I only took off after Tampa went IFR which was a short hop from my departure airport and I could see tower at the end of the runway.

This weekend I was flew back from Florida to Texas. Due to fog and low viz ended up leaving 4 hours after planned departure time. But that’s not what my question is about. When making the decision to fly, I kept seeing flight category for airports en route to be LIFR. This gave me a pause as in case of emergency, I would have to do LIFR approach. The flight conditions were fine, the clouds were from 300 to 2000/3000 ft. I flew at 8,000. But seeing that I have 300 NM of LIFR conditions below me didn’t feel good. The destination was IFR/MVFR and was not a problem. I ended up doing the flight, finishing with IFR approach to KMEI and staying there overnight due to a moving front. so, here is a question. With LIFR prevailing for 300NM of flying, did I make a safe decision to execute the flight? In case of mechanical emergency, it would be difficult / impossible to make a safe landing. The question is not about my ability of doing LIFR approach (probably still an issue) but handling emergency. How do you guys make decision in such conditions? Do you plan for worst case scenario (engine out)? One could argue that flying over LIFR conditions is the same level of risk as night flying over forested area such as Florida panhandle. appreciate any thoughts and stories on this.

sentry sold

Thank you for the offer! We will see how the college applications work out

flight from Houston to St. Petersburg for Thanksgiving break with a short stop at Auburn for college tour.

refreshing old topic. Added Foreflight Sentry ADS-B. KI-209 - $400 Garmin GI-106A - $900 - SOLD KX170B - $100 - SOLD Foreflight Sentry ADS-B - $400 - SOLD Turn and Slip coordinator (1394T100) - $150 - SOLD would really like to clean up the closet. Any takers?