A64Pilot

From Cessna’s and Beechcraft, you want to keep bladders full if possible, bladders almost always rot out on the top, not the bottom. It’s often argued if this is because of heat from being outside in the sun or not being wet with fuel. Maybe being wet keeps them cool? Either way it’s usually 15 or 20 years before it’s a problem, but hangered airplanes I’ve seen with 40 yr old bladders with no issues, so maybe it’s heat moreso? Call the manufacturer and ask what they want. I keep my bladders full, but I only hold 27.4 a side I think.

If your going to let the fine wires sit for an extended period, I’d suggest a fine spray of oil on the threads and putting them in a ziploc bag with some desiccant. That’s what about 1.2K in plugs? At 300 or 400 hundred hours on they aren’t “old”

IF you lean for taxi, be sure to aggressively lean, lean it so much that it won’t take much throttle, you do this to ensure you can’t make a mistake and takeoff leaned out, people have and have died doing so. You have the LOP leaning procedure correct, your looking to lean from the richest cylinder and easiest way to get that is to sneak up on it from the lean side. Just remember this, if your LOP, then being a little extra lean is safe, and if your ROP, being a little rich is safe, don’t get locked into trying to be exactly 25 LOP for example, be at least 25 LOP, a little extra is just additional safety. Your current monitor will I’m sure suffice, maybe not automatically but it gives plenty of info. ‘Oh and on edit, as Carusoam said TIT is very important, it’s the turbos temp limit of course. the engine has no max EGT, but the turbo does.

A Lifepo4 bank will live longer if there is a rudimentary BMS, and there isn’t much to one, so why not? Originally they were all A123 cells and that was it, no BMS BMS is another undefined word, for a Lipo or Li-ion battery they individually monitor each cell and charge each cell independently as well as monitor temp and disconnect the battery when full, something that is not friendly to alternator systems. We have to have that huge capacitor in the system, in mechanical terms think of it as an hydraulic accumulator. An alternator output isn’t really DC, it’s AC rectified to DC so therefore it’s pulsed DC, we need that battery to maintain voltage at low RPM and to supply pure DC, smooth surges etc. For a Lifepo4 bank usually all they do is regulate voltage to prevent an overcharge However Lithium technology is growing like computers did in the 80’s, pushed largely I’m sure by the desire for electric cars, but whether we see them in GA aircraft is really more desire, than capability in my opinion Most of us don’t really “need” one, lead works fine for us, and many Lithium chemistries don’t like real cold and often have to be heated, which further complicates things. Add that into that I can’t see Concorde or Gill terminating the constant income from replacements, I’m not sure it will happen. I think it’s like electronic mags, we could have had self generating electronic drop in ignition 50 years ago, but didn’t, perhaps Lithium batteries will be the same?

The Lifepo4’s will not catch fire and really don’t need a BMS, but even on a lead acid battery a BMS is useful. There are great many motorcycle and auto starter Lifepo4 batteries and have been for years, with no fires. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=lifepo4+motorcycle+battery&crid=217HFRQ68GNFL&sprefix=lifepo4+motor%2Caps%2C209&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_13 You should have a three stage charger though, like is very common on boats. I had a Balmar 614 on my boat. We really should have one on our aircraft, but not likely worth the expense of Certification, They are really just sophisticated voltage regulators is all. https://balmar.net/balmar-technology/multi-stage-regulation/ Unlike a lead acid battery, for max lifespan a Lithium battery should never be fully charged, much less overcharged, if you had a 12V Lithium battery and fed it 14V continuously. you will overcharge it, but that’s easily overcome. For example the 2010 Toyota Prius cycles it’s battery pack between 40 and 80%, it never allows more than a 80% charge and in its service life may be cycled hundreds of thousands of times. Anyone with Hybrid experience knows battery cycling in city traffic is pretty rapid because the engine shuts off every time you lift the throttle and the AC etc keeps running on battery It can be done both easily and safely, question is as it’s such a niche market and FAA Certification is assumed to be hard and expensive, can you make money from it? What’s the return on investment? Now if you want to go to actual (normal) Lithium batteries like for instance the NCA batteries Tesla uses, then yes it’s going to be hard because if they aren’t treated right, they will burn and do so with the ferocity of a Magnesium flare. When charging model airplane Lipo packs. you do so in a fire proof container, because we abuse them with very rapid charges and discharges and occasionally one does burn. It’s rare but every now and again you crash a model and the battery gets damaged and lights off. Let me tell you, you really can’t put that fire out until after the battery is finished burning. Intentional overcharge of a smallish model Lipo pack

On my 46 C-140, I put a button in the instrument panel, it’s not as inconvenient as you would think. You could make a small plate and screw it to the top of the yoke to mount the PTT and drill the tube for the wires, or run them external

Absolutely do not use them, who puts old parts in a new engine? Sell them to me for cheap because they are after all used Seriously if care is taken with cleaning them they should outlast the engine. Your shop did you a favor because they saved your plugs.

Starting is just a few seconds, it’s not the same at all as continuous high discharge, Lifepo4 is almost impossible to make catch fire. It’s downside is it’s much less energy dense than most lithium chemistries, but is catching up. All the standard range Tesla’s as of the beginning of this year are now Lifepo4 banks, the other cars are still NCA as LofePo4 long range banks would be too heavy. Either way cycle life is almost irrelevant as a starter bank isn’t really cycled, yes there is a rather large current draw but the time interval is so short that there is actually very little Amp Hours removed. Read this, it may help https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/articles/battery-articles/lithium-battery-overview.html

Thanks

I would like contact info of the insurence guy, a telephone number or Email if possible, anyone have it? I’m up for renewal and think my quote maybe a little high so I’d like to get a second opinion.

Your not going to foul a plug full rich at high power. The difference in fuel burned at 100 ROP and 150 ROP for the time your going to be at high power is negligible. I mean from takeoff roll to 8,000 is what maybe 12 min if your heavy? Everything I’ve owned full rich takeoff EGT is well rich of 150 ROP anyway, so target EGT is safe on them. Besides I believe at 150 ROP it’s making its max power, at 100 ROP power will be slightly less? A little rich isn’t going to hurt anything at all, a little lean possibly could. The good thing about climbing is if you get busy doing other things and forget about leaning for a few minutes, the engine gets richer and if anything is more protected. If your a ROP guy and descend at high power, then you need to pay close attention as of course it’s getting leaner as you descend, if you descend LOP, then it just gets even leaner and won’t hurt itself, of course your not at high power LOP anyway. Remember below 75% power you can’t do anything with the red knob that can hurt the engine, above 75% power you can, and do so relatively quickly too. Personally I use 65% power for an additional cushion, besides I’m after economy over speed and that means lower power settings LOP.

Not many realize that, there is honestly nothing “new” about the new way of operating these engines Even if you go way back to the way we were taught to lean engines, that is slowly lean it until it begins to get rough or loses power and then enrichen just enough to make it smooth again or regain power, that puts you LOP in engines that can run LOP, (not all will), and for those that won’t probably right at peak. Then finally while modern digital engine monitors are nice to have, they aren’t required, these engines were operated for decades safely and efficiently without them. I’m not against them at all, just you don’t “have” to have one to safely operate LOP. I normally have one, just haven’t yet in my Mooney but plan to. Back in the mid 70’s my Father would climb his 210 to 10,000 or so and lean it as far as it would run smoothly, he was no genius, almost anyone who was after economy did so. those that were after speed ran it at best power. Fuel has changed, we went from 100 to 100LL, but other then that I don’t know of anything else that has changed in the last 45 years or so? I’m sure Lycoming recommends nothing less than peak because as you go LOP, the power goes away and Lycoming doesn’t want the reputation of a weak engine, which any spark ignition engine operating LOP is.

Lithium is a catch all name, like plastic is. There are many, many different Lithium chemistries,and even in those chemistries, “doping” has become common (doping is adding a chemical to increase performance) so even in the basic groups there are now subgroups. So point is you can’t group all Lithium batteries together, there are large differences in them. LifePo4 is a very, very safe chemistry, it was invented by the good folks in Tx, but somehow China owns the patent and therefore the source of almost all Lifepo4 cells is China, but I believe that patent runs out this year. The price of Lifepo4 cells is less than $80 per KWH, and surely 1KWH is enough (54 KWH will drive our Tesla 270 miles) So Lifepo4 aircraft batteries will come, my bet is the first affordable viable replacement will have a Concorde label on it as they are currently manufacturing them for the Military, US Navy I believe, and the Navy is the most conscious of all the branches on fire. A Lifepo4 battery could be like an LED light, that is one may well last the life of the aircraft as they can last up to 10,000 cycles and my suspicion is that reason may be why we don’t have them now, there has to be a lot of business in replacements, and if you made a battery that was so good it never needed replacing, thst may really hurt your bottom line?

I believe sometimes it’s a ground loop, and or any shielded wire as I believe the high voltage of a strobe emits RF? Whelen is among the best, but you pay for quality. AeroLeds is or was any way seemed to be a good buy but it’s been a few years for me. Don’t toss your old strobes, many will want the parts

I’m surprised the FAA didn’t require Mooney to re-pull the wing when they increased the wingspan with the tips. Maule with the M-6 needed to increase the aileron size, they wouldn’t give up flap length and if they added a foot of wingspan to get 6” more aileron, the FAA would require them to re-test the wing, so they changed the wing tip from a swept down tip to a Horner tip and got the 6” longer aileron without an increase in wingspan. There are quite a few that will argue that a Horner tip is lower drag than any other, and may be on paper.

Wing tips on the average general aviation airplane are purely decorative, they are pretty much functionless, but they do add ramp appeal and I’m sure may help sell airplanes. I Seem to remember that Lopresti in a interview was asked about the performance increase of the upswept tips, and he skillfully shifted it to they reminded him of someone named Stacy and she has such a pretty nose or something, this is memory from long ago so I may have it wrong. I’ve also read somewhere the someone at Mooney claimed they reduced turbulent flow over the outer aileron and they improved aileron response. But I’ve not heard that they increased cruise by X kts or climb rate by X FPM. Winglets for example are only effective at high angles of attack, and general aviation airplanes simply spend very little time at high AOA, now airliners cruise at high AOA so they are very effective on an airliner. By the way, my J has the upswept tips. On edit, there has been some work with winglets on Ag airplanes trying to reduce wing tip vortices with mixed results. When an Ag plane is spraying its possible that the spray can be caught up in those vortices and cause drift, or off target application, both bad things. Second edit, I think I found that article,and it was Stancie not Stacy? https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/06/the-magical-mooney/

You can do anything you want to with the red knob at less than 75% and not hurt anything, and depending on RPM that 75% number can occur well below 8000 ft, but 8,000 is conservative, so safe to use it. Personally I like to use 65% as my max to add additional cushion, plus I’m after economy and range. I run usually between 25C to 50C LOP, I use C as that’s what the gauge is calibrated in. Using the rule of thumb of when LOP one GPH equals 14 HP, I know as long as I’m LOP that 9 GPH or less is 65% or less power. 65% power is 130 HP and 9x14= 126. (200 HP 360) As long as 9 GPH is correct LOP, that makes ensuring your safe easy, cause it takes out the calculating MP vs RPM, charts etc. Just stay LOP and less than 9 GPH (200 HP 360) of course, I assume but do not know that a 390’s BSFC ought to be real close to a 360’s?

We used or have a saying in the Army, before you do something, think how well it will go over with the accident review board. Kind of tough to justify waterskiing, but it can be fun in the right airplane, I don’t think I would like to try a low wing, and certainly not a nose wheel. My Maule had patroller doors so the tire was in line of sight. I can’t imagine the nose wheel gong into the water would end well?

Not watched the video’s but water skiing as long as you know what your doing isn’t that big a deal. especially with Bushwheels in a light aircraft, it’s very common in the bush community to waterski just before a gravel bar, it can really shorten landing distance. Google this for some interesting images, a T6 isn’t light and those aren’t bushwheels T6 texans waterskiing On edit when the wheels touch there is a bang like you hit hard but didnt.

This, Conti’s have low tension rings, this means they rely on cylinder pressure to push them against the cylinder and create a seal, newer cars are also the same way. So low pressure compression tests like we do on aircraft often just isn’t enough pressure to create a good seal. I’ve seen perfectly good running Conti’s have compressions in the 40’s occasionally, then later be in the 60’s. The SB does a better job explaining than I can and of course is the official word https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pdf/servicebulletin.pdf

The FAA issued an AC and one of the things covered in the AC was takeoff performance, the old way was for a pilot to horse the thing off of the ground and get it to 50 ft as quickly as possible, the new way has the pilot takeing off and climbing normally, actually the FAR didn’t specify a method. Being an AC it’s “advisory” not regulatory, but I’ve been told recently thet you can’t win that argument anymore. This came up recently on an aircraft I built with a GE turbine, it’s now being Certified with a Pratt&Whitney under the theory it’s the same, but takeoff performance numbers are greatly different due to how the methods used in obtaining them, so the current owner called me all upset thinking he wouldn’t get Certification.

During Winter I run a de-humidifier, last summer I Installed a mini-split and use a humidistat for Summer They don’t pull as much power as you think and the dehumidifier pulls about 5 gl of water s day from the air. I did some looking on the internet and both 6061 and 2024 aluminum’s rates of corrosion graph gets steep at 65% RH, so I keep the hanger at 60 or below. Your tools etc will last much longer too. Oh and I’m in Fl, Fl is humid just like the rest of the world, actually I think much more humid in Winter then the Great White North.

Your correct, but both result in a destroyed piston. I believe it’s simply pre-ignition, not detonation

Don’t run a hotter plug, a hot plug can cause detonation. a cold plug will foul but cause no damage, so if anything err towards cold.

Not saying it’s the case for a Mooney, but many aircraft’s fwd CG limit is where they exceed 61 kts stall at max gross weight, they will still fly fine and land fine, just a tiny bit faster. Often that rearward shift as weight increases is riding the 61 kt stall. Sometimes it’s a nose gear structural limit. It’s not often any kind of stability limit. Aft CG on the other hand, is very often a stability limit, most will NOT fly fine beyond aft CG limit. My Maule was out of CG fwd with low fuel and just two heavy people up front, I liked it that way because it made is so I could really load heavy before going out of aft CG. Being a tailwheel I think it’s fwd limit was from a nose over possibility, it certainly wasn’t 61 kts nor a nose wheel limit as it didn’t have one. So many things may be the cause of the fwd limit.