A64Pilot

I was going to jump in a make a few mad as I assumed you were a brand new PP with just 172 time or whatever, and a complex aircraft right off the the bat is often too much for someone when they go somewhere busy and get a little overwhelmed by ATC etc. But you have a lot of helicopter time, so you have flight time and flying is flying, and a helicopter is sort of a complex aircraft, it also tells me that money may not be as big an object as it is for several as fling wings aren’t cheap. So buying at the top of the market may not be worth waiting a year when I assume the buying spree will be over I assume you have your Instrument rating? If not get is as soon as you can, maybe in your new Mooney as most are often the best instrument pilots right after training and familiarity in their airplane is priceless.

To put this into perspective, I believe the AC Spruce price is $130 ea? The OPP ones are $70? If you replace all three stacks that’s 11? I’m not sure but think I had read that number somewhere. So Lord’s sold by AC Spruce are 1,430 for a complete stack, and OPP ones are 770? So the total savings is 660? They last it seems maybe 10 years? I assume maybe longer on light airplanes and less on the heavier ones? I think mine in my J model were over 30 years old when they were replaced a few years ago, and current ones look perfect, I expect being hangered and out of sunlight they will easily go ten years, but I operate off of grass, so maybe not. I’m having a little bit of a hard time understanding why a group that seems to think nothing of dropping tens of thousands on avionics balks on 660 on parts that last a decade or longer. If they lasted no longer than tires, I’d understand I’m leaving the money signs off intentionally as I heard on here that may attract the spam bots. The astonishing thing to me is it cost more per hour for the John Deere dealership to work on my lawnmower than he local A&P rate for aircraft maintenance is, call the JD dealer and ask, then compare it to your A&P hourly rate, you maybe surprised.

Yep that’s them alright.

We have nuke plants, and if we again get the Governemet to allow better more safe plants than the old Admiral Rickover water plants they can be safe too. Solar has come a LONG ways, it’s down to less than $1 a watt now, I had a kilowatt on the boat and it covered most of our needs, if we were the type to be frugal it would have covered all of them. I don’t know about wind, how practical it really is. If we think we are going to all electric ground transportation, we are going to have to make huge increases in production. The Brazilians are producing alcohol with out using much power to do so, but they are an outlier. not every one can grow sugar cane. Corn made the Greenies and the business side happy. Just as ULSD did. The Grennies congratulated themselves how much pollution they solved, and the oil companies make more profit off of it. By the way, over 80% of the farm bill is food stamps, yeah I didn’t know that either, so when you hear huge numbers for the farm bill, most all of it is food stamps. Seems to only be 75% now, but the Farm Bill isn’t the big giveaway to farmers some woud have us believe https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-commodity-policy/farm-bill-spending/ ‘For reasons that I can’t comprehend a great many are convinced we could solve the global warming thing if we tax oil high enough, not sure how taxes decrease pollution, but a huge number of people are sure that is the answer.

Peak oil is irrelevant, if governments would leave it alone normal supply and demand forces will take care of things, oil will become more and more expensive and other sources of energy will become cheaper and we will switch to them, sure it’s likely things may change, we may not be living in 5,000 sg ft. Mcmansions and driving 9,000 lb SUV’s, but our standard of living can be the same or better. There will always be oil, but eventually all the easy, cheap oil will be gone, if it’s not already. But the more Governments mess with it, the more painful the change over will be. The crime in burning oil for energy in my opinion is the waste of so much valuable raw material for making so many important substances, sort of like burning forests for fuel, we think that nuts now, but not so long ago it was the norm, now most of the old growth timber is gone, much of it simply burnt for heat. Don't underestimate the brilliance of a few Entrepenuaers, things we are sure aren’t possible may be tomorrow’s normal, like I said I never thought a vertical descent rocket could be re-usable, and I don’t think I was alone.

Years ago the FAA funded a pretty big study with a few universities etc to determine why just out of the blue a very experienced Capt would do something totally out of the ordinary for them, like land way long and run off of the runway, the same runway they landed at a few times a week, or the guy who drives the same way to work every day for years, one day runs the stop sign that's always been there and he stops at every day, but today he doesn’t and has an accident. A lot of money was spent and all we got from it was an Acronym called SLOJ or Sudden Loss of Judgement. ‘Apparently none of us is immune to rarely just getting stupid, we aren’t over worked or stressed just one day we put our foot in the gas in the car with it in reverse when we want to go forward or whatever. ‘The fix for SLOJ was to have more than one person present and to train the junior pilot to speak up and say something and the Senior pilot to not be overly aggressive if he did. ‘But as we often fly single pilot about the best defense is always following a checklist, but even that isn’t infallible

I wish I had a picture of the Thrush shock, the pucks aren’t flat, the middle two inches or so are, but the rest of it gets thinner at an angle, Looks like a discus Being shaped like that initially only the middle flat portion takes a load, but as they compress more and more of the puck makes contact bringing more and more elastomer into contact as the shock is compressed, this makes it very progressive. 1960’s design. ‘There has always been a lot of variation in batches too, some split early, but the ones that don’t last a long time. Crop Duster pilots are all Engineers, if you don’t believe me ask one, one of the field Engineering things I have seen are combine springs in place of the pucks, a steel spring has no dampening and in my opinion doesn’t work as well as the elastomer puck.

I think quite a lot, but how would it affect when something broke? There is a point when the biscuits squish just about all they can and then they pass on the forces of course. But the drop test is a very quick sudden huge impact, maybe some softer pucks could absorb more energy, maybe the impact is so fast that the pucks pass the energy through, or maybe they would make it worse? Prohressively wound springs are normal in auto suspensions and the mountain bike guys years ago discovered progressively hard elastomers give similar results I think computer modeling has matured so much now that you could probably determine the best durometer or mix of durometers and whether or not you have a valid stack without dropping an airframe, sure you would have to drop one to prove the computer, but your not dropping several. You can reuse an airframe for a drop test, but if it breaks did it break because it was weakened from previous drops? I assume that back in the day when Mooney designed the system, computer analysis wasn’t possible. Plus surely the same pucks for a C model if they are optimal for it, surely aren’t for a much larger heavier aircraft, but they have the same pucks? Unfortunately it all boils down to desire and money, I don’t believe the design has matured to where there is no room for improvement, just the money to improve the design just isn’t there.

If you look at the stats, the Rotax has the highest failure rate, but I believe it has a lot to do with the aircraft they are installed in and who maintains them, maybe a Lycoming in an Experimental and maintained by the owner may not fare better? ‘I believe that Rotax and maybe the FAA requires you to attend a Rotax maintenance class before you can maintain them, if so then they are trying to improve the knowledge base. Liquid cooling has lots of issues, everything does but drag isn’t necessarily one of them, many WWII fighters, Mustang and Spitfire as an example actually picked up thrust and speed from the heating of the air and its resultant expansion and acceleration going through the radiator, called the Meredith effect maybe? So far as BSFC an aircraft engine is actually pretty darned efficient, sure there can be gains, but maybe not as big as you may think. It’s not that auto engines aren’t good, they are, it’s just that airplane engines aren’t bad, not too long ago they were much more efficient than cars, largely because they can be designed to operate at a very narrow RPM band and at set outputs. Comparing an auto motors BSFC to an airplane isn’t an across the board comparison unless you compare them at similar output, and when you do there isn’t much difference.

Properly done there shoud be two entries for the disks. ‘One to certify them as an OPP, and the second installing them. Being an OPP makes them legitimate as an aircraft part. Its in the Mike Bush article as it is in others. ‘This article is almost 20 years old, but explains it better than most https://www.aviationpros.com/home/article/10387511/owner-produced-parts-how-they-affect-maintenance

The Certification costs have to be spread across the fleet, and maybe sales are slow due to cost already? ‘Then there are a whole lot of people like me that don’t like high RPM geared motors, call us old farts if you will, but I don’t like that gearbox and the issues that come along with it. The use of automotive style inline or V8 engines often drives a whole redesign of the aircraft as they won’t fit under the cowl made for a boxer engine.

It all breaks down to profit margin, often with small less expensive cars and trainer aircraft they don’t sell for a high enough price to give a decent margin. Think about it, a small efficient car has the same or similar parts count as does a luxury SUV, but you have to sell ten to get the profit of one Luxury SUV. ‘The same for aircraft the parts count is very similar for a small Mooney with a four cylinder as it is for one with an IO-550, and the pricing between the two is way more than the difference in engine cost, it’s what doomed the J in my opinion On an Ag plane, everyone said that a low cost 400 gl airplane would sell like hot cakes as they expected it to cost 1/4 less, but except for a slightly less expensive engine, the cost to manufacture a 400 gl was the same as a 500 gl. So in other words could you get a high enough price to make money with an LSA as I think that would be its market, not being a trainer, but then LSA sort of fizzled didn’t it? Years ago Maule thought they would get into the LSA market with a Rotax powered M4, I bet it’s still at the factory, but what they ended up with was a two seat pig performance wise, only built one.

Take your airplane in dead smooth air with it trimmed perfectly and just let it fly hands off, it will develop a Phugoid, meaning it will slowly climb and descend and speed up and slow down, all on its own To Certify an Airplane for Canada it has to be demonstrated to fly some amount of time in level un accelerated flight hands off, it may be two minutes I’m not sure. FAA doesn’t have this requirement. So when I was doing the Certification test flights to Certify the S2R-H80 for Canada I adjusted the aileron servo tabs as precise as I could and very early one morning went out and let her fly for quite some time hands off, and it slowly started accelerating and slowing, just a few MPH it wasn’t much and it wasn’t divergent. I’d never noticed this before and called my Mentor who was the Flight test DER and he laughed and said it’s a Phugoid, pretty much all aircraft will do it, but most never notice it as it’s so long period and such a slight thing that pilots dampen it out and never know it. ‘I am not saying he’s in a Phugoid, but it’s possible if he or the autopilot wasn’t adjusting to maintain altitude. But if true AS is changing and ground speed isn’t, and especially if indicated isn’t, then it’s an instrument error, but if all three change, then of course it’s real.

It’s usually not that hard, it is in the drawings, so if you have those you have the material specs. Somehow though you have to determine materials to make a part, Aluminum composition can be determined by electrical conductivity for instance and level of heat treat by a simple machine that applies a measured amount of pressure and the depth of the dent is measured. ‘I believe durometer is the same, pretty simple to determine, a device pushes a measured amount of force and displacement is measured. Apparently even Amazon has durometer testers https://www.amazon.com/s?k=durometer+tester&crid=16Q15UVBYADUO&sprefix=durometer+%2Caps%2C226&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_5_10 It’s not tough or expensive to verify durometer, of course I’m sure you can spend a whole lot more, for much more accurate calibrated instrumentation too. ‘I toyed with but never did on Thrush biscuits what the mountain bike guys do with their suspensions, that is different durometer biscuits, a couple of softer ones should soak up the small bumps well like pavement frost heaves. ‘But changing the durometer is a major change and would require new landing gear drop tests, even tire pressure can cause one to fail drop tests and a Thrush’s landing weight is much less than it’s takeoff weight due to landing gear drop tests, there is no excess strength, so it was one of the many things I didn’t get to try

I would hope that whoever your paying to inspect the aircraft would though, assuming of course the records weren’t somehow destroyed, but to me undocumented maintenance and gaps and or missing records is reason enough to keep looking, others have different opinions.

After some thought I’ve sort of come to the conclusion though that as an A&P my function is to determine airworthiness and properly install. ‘That’s why I would require the manufacturer of the part to attest to the fact that they made it and state so in the logbook, my opinion without some kind of evidence of how this part came into being, it’s an unapproved part, with the manufacturers log book entry, that legitimizes the part. If you attest to the fact you built it, I don’t believe it’s my responsibility to ensure you did. My responsibility is to determine its airworthiness and properly install it. My hesitancy is what if the part fails and causes an accident, I can see how I could be facing a lawsuit for not determining the airworthiness of the part correctly as that is my job, and it failed so it wasn’t airworthy, so I believe I could be found liable. But truthfully the bottom line is, I can see my exposure, but don’t see what the upside for me is. ‘I’m speaking to parts that are available from the aircraft manufacturer, which often isn’t the case, for my neighbors Stinson Reliant, he doesn’t have much choice so that is a different case. ‘Now these thoughts are just my opinion, other people are entitled to theirs as I am. It’s the determining the airworthiness of the part that is what I trip up on, how do you do that without the factory specs. The crop duster I built also has elastomeric biscuits, they are pulled together as opposed to being pushed together. We had them manufactured to our specs, and when we “bought” them in other than filing the “certs” we also of course measured the things and had a machine that determined their durometer or how hard they were and sometimes some failed. It was a simple thing similar to the one we used to determine Rockwell harness of heat treated metal. As an A&P I don’t have Mooney’s specs for how hard the elastomer is supposed to be, nor do I have a way of testing these. But if they came with paperwork attesting that Mooney’s specs were xx to xx durometer and these meet that spec, then that would make me feel a whole lot better. Then I can say it’s a legit part via the logbook entry and I have paperwork attesting to its airworthiness, in that it meets the aircraft manufacturers specs.

It would take money of course but auto gas can successfully run in some pretty high compression engines, look at bike motors. A modern high compression, high power aircraft engine running off of car gas can be built, but would it ever pay for itself? An automobile fuel injection system would solve most vapor local issues (high pressure fuel pump in the tank) You can’t run high compression on car gas without a Modern combustion chamber though and that would almost certainly require liquid cooling, again look at bike motors. A good friend of mine Dr Ralph Kimberlin worked on the Toyota airplane, what happened is they realized that they would never make money with the tiny production rate. Toyota builds 13,400 automobiles per day according to the Internet, how many airplanes would they have built? Now biz jets sell, there is apparently no shortage of money to buy biz jets. But even then how much money has Honda tossed into the Honda jet and how many are there? I don’t know the answer, but strongly suspect they won’t turn a profit for a long time if ever. A Jet-A engine is logical, but with small single engine aircraft approaching seven figures a small turbo prop might be what succeeds, but the DOD hasn’t paid for one to be built yet like they did the cruise missile engines, but maybe with Drones they may?

No, that’s actually not a difficult Engineering problem, of course what it took was Li-Po or Li-ion batteries, Although I have not kept up, but the Tesla used to use something like over 7,000 panasonic 18650 cells, the same battery I use in flashlights, so it’s not any kind of Engineering marvel, just they were the first to actually do it large scale, and that is an Engineering marvel, plus the software etc to manage that battery pack, keep it within temp limits etc, but it was an application of existing technology. Which actually is what Space-X is, I don’t think there is any actual new technology, just very smart usage of what’s there ‘However what has gotten under my skin is the belief that electric cars are the savings of humanity, with no thought of where the electricity will come from therefore instead of building efficient vehicles, we are headed down the SUV and pickup road with electrics, which is illegocial if the purpose is to be “green” The average US house uses 877 KWH per month, the upcoming Hummer electric which I admit is not the average, but it will have a 200 KWH battery pack, due to inefficiencies of charging if you use all of its capacity once a week. then your using as much electricity as the average house, it will be a 9,000 lb vehicle. It just changes the form of energy used, not the total, i’m fact I bet it’s an increase. I had assumed that when the “real” auto manufacturers got involved like say GM and Toyota, then you would see real practical electric cars. but that’s not happening it seems. my next car will be electric, I had planned on a used Nissan Leaf, nit because I liked it, but because a year or two ago when I was looking you could get a used one with 10,000 miles or so on it for 5K or so. I guess many bought and didn’t like and no one wanted a used car because the Government would pay the first 5K on a new one, but nothing on a used one, so the depreciation was horrendous, perfect CB car. ‘I don’t need range, I’m Retired and trips of any distance I plan on flying and renting a car at destination, then flying home, so a cheap short range electric fits my needs.

You willing to make the logbook entry that you produced or participated in its manufacture IAW the FAR? If the answer is yes, then I would consider it for a part that was either not available or really stupid expensive. But without a logbook entry saying you produced the part, no. Would I buy a airplane that had owner produced parts that are available from the factory? No.

Yeah, I get the impression that you have had very little interaction with the FAA. You tell them you only have to show one years worth of records if they ever ask and see how it goes, they are going to be suspicious. I suppose you only have one years worth of logbooks? Yes, last years “records” would have that info, last years records are the logbook, how many other records does your airplane have? But with only one years worth I can’t show how many hours are on any component except the engine and the prop and airframe, so if an AD comes out and says any fuel pump or vacuum pump or prop governor or whatever with over xx hours on it has to be replaced, since you can’t determine how many hours are on it, your buying a new one, or are you just going to sign it off without records showing it’s hours? This is a silly discussion, only a fool would only have one year of maintenance records. You go ahead, I’ll make sure the maintenance history of my airplane can be tracked all the way back to Kerville.

I have a tendency to agree, but that goes with being rich I think I would say his real talent is finding people who can accomplish impossible feats, 10 years ago I would have laughed at you if you said a booster could land with nothing but engine thrust as that was silly 1950’s movie nonsense. ‘But I was sitting on my boat as close to the launch facility as your allowed to be when his super heavy or whatever it’s called three booster rocket launched, the launch was neat, but the two booster coming back was really, really impressive.

I thought that they were pretty much gone too. What with people suing anything and everything I figured that was the reason, but I have never seen anything new, an old cop car and or something similar used to be the norm. I thought Uber was the new courtesy car?

I had forgotten you were a turbo, for a NA motor on break-in flights I stay full rich and down low, well below 5,000 to keep the power up high, so doing that full rich fuel flow matters. I don’t have turbo experience A couple hours of that and they are broken in, meaning oil consumption has stabilized, usually to about 1 gt in 10 hours. ‘My current motor which is a 400 hour Gann overhaul I believe is burning less than 1 gt in 10. I think I would run it rich and as high power as I could and not exceed 400 myself, and decreasing power for a while to let it cool, and go again? Is the oil temp normal or is it high too? High oil temp could come from tight clearances

And or a phugoid, which is normal for almost all GA aircraft. but watch your GPS speed to see if it’s changing about the same rate as the true, if it is,then it’s real, if not maybe not. A phugoid really becomes noticeable in real smooth air. hands off flying, hands on we compensate without knowing and many don’t know what a phugoid is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phugoid Don’t read too much into the accident part of this, a phugoid is a normal thing in most GA aircraft and is at most sometimes an annoyance On edit, the phugoid I’m speaking of is a long period slow thing, just a very slow climb and descent so slow that a passenger wouldn't notice.

There are all kinds of statements from lycoming about one running hot during breakin. Thsts not been my limited experience though, what’s your GPH on takeoff? Sometimes rings have to be fitted by filing, my last ones didn’t, New Millennium cylinders and pistons on a 540. That motor I could and did run at full throttle for break-in, but it was a 235 HP 540, so full throttle was only 2400 RPM and not really stressing anything either, not like an angle valve motor.