A64Pilot

Change is inevitable we have to increase efficiency by whatever means, if we don’t we are going to go broke or be driving tiny little economy boxes that can’t get out of their own way. Fuel cost over time isn’t going to do anything but become more expensive. At some point Solar etc will become cheaper than fossil, that’s when it will make sense An EV isn’t “better” because it’s electric, that honestly is I think not the issue, it’s “better” because it can be as much as 95% efficient where as ICE is I guess in the 20’s? A Hybrid is the answer for many, not as efficient as an EV, but can be twice as efficient as straight ICE. Toyota has hybrids figured out, not many have. The downside to a Hybrid is they are very complex machines, a complete ICE vehicle AND a complete EV with all the complexities of both, but Toyota at least can handle that as their Hybrids have excellent track records. Used to be the Prius was the only Toyota that you could buy in the US that was built in Japan, I hate to say it but that might have something to do with their reliability. By the way what is this “Kool Aid”? Insurance in Fl is a mess and I think is largely due to the lawsuits being brought against insurance companies in fl Nearly 80 percent of all homeowners insurance lawsuits filed in the U.S. over claims derive from Florida, but the state accounts for only 9 percent of claims that insurers pay out. https://therealdeal.com/miami/2023/07/26/more-sticker-shock-ahead-as-floridas-property-insurance-crisis-worsens/#

The car dealers are leading the charge against EV’s most will tell you not to buy, many if you want a test drive will tell you they don’t have one charged etc. Why is this? If you have any dealer friends ask them how much they make from their service dept, many will tell you that its the profit center, that they make good money in servicing. Problem is there is very little if any servicing for an EV, no oil changes, transmission servicing, brakes last hundreds of thousands of miles etc. Sure there is some warranty work, but warranty work pays poorly. EV’s still have shocks and tires etc but from a complexity perspective they are simple things, no emission controls. fuel systems transmissions etc. So if a dealer sells a gas car often he has a service customer, if he sells an EV he won’t usually see that car again except for warranty. That wipes out his service profits. There is a HUGE reason for the whole industry not to switch to EV’s in the short term, only reason they were headed that way was promises of Government subsidies etc. The Japanese are fighting against EV’s in Japan, to switch would just about wipe out their economy as most parts manufacturing goes away and must switch to other things and they don’t want the pain switching would bring, so they are playing the hydrogen game which has been a successful delaying tactic for the last 20 years.

EV sales are down. I don’t think Tesla, but he has significantly reduced the price to keep sales up. He’s a business man, if he could get more he would, so he’s reducing prices to keep sales up. Elon thinks it’s people can’t afford new expensive Auto’s and they way forward for EV’s is to make them at least as cheap or cheaper than ICE to buy. Cost of ownership is already there. I tell you what I think is going on because I saw it when we had a Prius, gas prices go down and Prius prices were low and the lots were full of them, three row SUV and Pickup trucks were priced at a premium. Gas prices go up and SUV and Pickup sales went down and the little Prius sold well. People didn’t really want the Prius, they had rather have the Luxury SUV, but when gas was high they didn’t want to ay the price, so they bought a Prius because what they wanted cost too much to drive. So why are gas prices low now? Because we are pumping more crude per day in the US than anytime in history, which drives gas prices down, and as our economy is hugely affected by energy costs interest rates and inflation go down, cheap energy is good for the economy and expensive energy bad for it, and fossil is the source for the majority of energy. I like the technology of the Tesla, love the autopilot etc., but in truth that could be put into a gas car just as easily, most of the technology can, not all maybe but most. But what sold me on a Tesla is the $8.50 cost for a full tank, same reason we bought the Prius. Back years ago I can remember having to reset the fuel pump when filling up my Diesel pickup, because the pump would stop at $150. I believe depending on the results of this next election those time are likely coming again, yet my EV will still cost $8.50 for a “full tank”

The guy who did my estimate on the hail damage repair said they have an algorithm, x number of dents per panel and they replace the panel, Tesla apparently sells the panels cheap so instead of fixing them they replaced I think all of the ones damaged on our car which was most of the car. Insurance company will of course go the cheapest way to fix the car

Your right but if the pack is busted most likely the frame etc is too, and the car totaled excepting some unusual circumstance like I don’t know a manhole cover flipping up and getting the pack. The newer Tesla’s are supposedly going to make the pack a structural member, meaning I think it likely it would be even more expensive to replace Call your insurance company and get a quote, but don’t compare it against a much less expensive car as that’s not apples to apples.

Again another myth. Unfortunately ours got hail damage this Summer and had a lot of repair work as in hood and several panels replaced. According to the body shop Tesla parts are dirt cheap but they charge a higher labor rate due to the “special” training in involved, it washes out. I think the special training is likely BS but who knows. They do charge a higher labor rate on a Tesla. Before buying ours I had heard that insurance for one was stupid expensive for the reason you said, so I had USAA quote me a Model 3, a BMW 3 series and an Audi A4 I think it was as those are very comparable cars. I didn't want to get stung with more expensive insurance. The Tesla was a little cheaper than the BMW and Audi but not by enough to be real significant. If you google is Tesla insurance more expensive you will find many hits saying it is due to high repair costs but it’s not my experience. Tesla won’t sell parts to any body shop though they have the be Tesla certified, I think though so does BMW as the shop that repaired our was also BMW certified.

No, it takes lift to wheel barrow, if anything negative lift will add weight mostly to the mains the faster you go, mostly the mains based on where the center of lift is. negative lift is still lift, just in the opposite direction. I would suspect with no knowledge that there is still positive lift just not much of it. on edit reading your above post to wheelbarrow the wing has to be providing lift, just the tail is providing more, enough to put the aircraft in a dive if it had altitude, but as the nose is on the ground it lifts the arse end, remember in level flight the tail produces negative not positive lift, positive lift is pretty unusual in anything resembling normal flight. If the wing were providing zero lift, then the tail would have to lift the weight of almost the entire aircraft, something I doubt it could do at takeoff or landing airspeed.

Cowl plugs and a good blanket, the old type thick quilted furniture blanket maybe will do wonders. any old pillow will work as a cowl plug of course. The new furniture blankets aren’t any good for this, sleeping bag would be great and might be a good thing to have in the airplane anyway. Being in a hangar meaning no wind along with an insulated cover and cowl plugs will I’m sure get you there if left overnight. Many have to do it outside, not everyone has a hangar. I don’t think heating the hanger to 60 f for a few hours would do much, forced hot air into the cowl flaps will given enough time. A 60W old fashioned drop light placed inside the cowl is more heat than you would think

Pure sarcasm, In truth as they way it’s being measured has changed over time just as the way unemployment measuring has changed and I’m blaming no political party as I think they have both done it , but the only way I can judge what it is, is based on what things cost me, and it seems in the things and services that I purchase it’s gone up a lot, I’d say seem to be almost 10% a year for the last three. Just like the war on fossil fuel, about how we are reducing our consumption etc. Did you know that right now as in today we are pumping more crude in the US than at any time in history, even than in the last administrations days? Why, and why isn’t the climate activists protesting about that, they should be having fits? Many sources, but this one is the US Government. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M I know this will be considered old man get off my lawn ranting, but the seemingly total control of what the average citizen is told and believes is I believe reaching Orwellian levels. So why are we now suddenly producing record levels of oil? Answer seems pretty obvious as this is 2024.

I used to pretty much never insure anything, I understood the betting against yourself thing, but I did insure the house, everything else I could “eat”. House though would be tough and the cost / benefit ratio at the time was pretty good I think, although the overwhelming majority owe on their house as I do now and have to buy insurance. As I’m now older and living on retirement funds etc. I can’t “eat”mas much as I could before. so I now have life insurance, an umbrella policy because these incessant injury lawyer ads worry me, the ads alone must run into the tens of millions, so they are raking in the dough of course, and I don’t want to end up living in a trailer eating cat food because some crook stole my retirement funds. I think as we age we become more risk adverse and as someone who has in the past never insured their aircraft you are more careful if it’s not insured. My Mooney is insured because I worry about the gear, a gear up could happen and while I’m an IA I probably could repair that in my affordability range of it happened at my home field, I surely don’t want to sign up for that amount of work

I’m sure but they said in the last year. I know Fl is sort of “special” with more than its share of fraudsters running up insurance rates. There have been in the past people driving around neighborhoods telling home owner that they can get them a free roof for example, if the insurance won’t pay they sue them. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/roofing-scams-florida-property-insurance-hurricane-rcna29649 But this claim was for the US as a whole, My insurance for everything has gone up significantly, but 30 to 40% is nuts. Thank God inflation was only transitory and ended a couple of years ago I still place the majority of the blame on crooked lawyers though.

I’d honestly call the Auto guys, being in Tx I bet there are many as when I lived there hail wasn’t rare. It’s cosmetic as you say so in my opinion they don’t need to be A&P’s Then as crazy as this sounds but being out in the hot summer sun seems to make the dents diminish in size, I know that sounds nuts but I watched in on my VW back in 1980 when I worked in the oil fields. I think I’d ignore them before I went the bondo and paint route myself. If the dent in the leading edge can be accessed from the backside a good sheet metal guy might could “spoon” it out, surely could the the cowl

I mounted mine high and drained it into an aft cylinder heads oil drain back tube (Lycoming) But I don’t think it matters where it drains back to, you could even fit a catch can if you believe it’s something that shouldn’t go back in your engine. There shouldn’t be much oil unless you have excessive blow by. Worst case if the M20 were to fill with oil it would just cease to function as a seperator and your blow by would go out the tube as if the M20 weren’t installed. Ideally in my opinion your crankcase vent should go up hill as much as possible before going down for obvious reasons

I wouldn’t say they are worthless, they do work, but probably not as well as the Airwolf, but they are a lot less expensive too. The issue with moisture is sort of problematic, the trick is of course the separator has to be kept pretty warm if it’s cold then it will condense moisture in it and return it back to the sump, but I think it will very quickly then boil off again. Think dropping a drop of water into a hot oil filled fry pan. One assumes if you lived in the Great White North it would be very simple to wrap a piece of hose fire shield around your M20 and secure it with safety wire to keep it above the temp moisture will condense. It of course has a constant flow of pretty hot air going through it. I never insulated one because I never had to, anyone that does oil analysis should know if they have moisture in their oil, those that live in the cold often see it as a yellowish goop dripping from their crankcase vent and sometimes in the oil filler cap. I suspect moisture in oil is more from very cold temps as in the oil never getting hot enough or a series of short flights more than it is from a separator, but as it’s never been a problem for me I don’t know.

On the news just a couple of minutes ago, Auto insurance is up 30% to 40% Nation wide from last year. One has to wonder how much of this is due to the injury lawyers?

I had to even have the Marina named on my insurance where I kept my boat, insurance companies know and expect this and it didn’t seem to increase the rate. Every year the Marina would call me and I had to call the insurance Co and they would send the Marina a letter. Marina required 1 Mil insurance which is apparently normal for boats, it’s apparently the possible environmental clean up that drives that. I wonder when that going to happen to aviation or has it already? My hangar is on my house lot it’s detached but covered under my house insurance, I have told my insurance company it’s a hangar but they don’t specifically list it as such. Anyone know if that matters? Afraid if I push the issue I’ll be shopping for new insurance.

That of course is THE problem with budget insurance, I guess insurance in general, but how do you know if a company is going to fight or live up to the agreement?

I repack them whenever I change tires, mine doesn’t sit outside. I do check for pre-load and roughness when I do retract tests. On the helicopter we repacked them whenever we changed tires, or when they were submerged in water, which wasn’t infrequent when it was muddy especially in Germany. I’ve only seen bearings worn from dirt / sand due to the completely ridiculous seals we have. Beringer wheels use sealed bearings. Sounds like another STC money maker to me because surely we could pop out the races and fit a spacer and sealed bearings in our wheels? Sealed bearings I’d suspect would last decades perhaps longer, after all they last decades and 100’s of thousands of miles on cars. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2007/june/01/airframe-and-powerplant-(5) Repacking the average GA airplane bearings ever year is sort of the definition of over maintain, I have no idea where it comes from

So the motor wasn’t running? Is your airplane trapped until then?

Any small airplane that I’ve flown can easily be trimmed so that they will takeoff without any input elevator wise I don’t but it’s easily accomplished, in fact everything that I have flown has enough up elevator trim so that if you trim full up at full throttle it will stall. I did one go-around on my Maule with full up trim, I immediately had to turn loose of the throttle to push the yoke down, but of course had to let go to reduce throttle and roll down trim. It only had manual trim. I know the Maule has a particularly effective trim, but it scared me the pitch up was so extreme. I didn’t need to repeat that maneuver. I’ve forgotten what the target was but there is a Certification requirement of being able to slow to X airspeed I believe power off, max aft CG and full up trim. I don’t remember it because we easily exceeded it, easy test point no risk. A Thrush also has a very powerful elevator trim, it’s a lever you move that’s located above and aft of the throttle so full up to full down is as fast as shoving the throttle, no rolling a wheel. You can even of course land most small airplanes with just trim, I say most as I’ve only flown a rather small sample, but it was a stupid pilot trick in a C-152. I had to have 100 hours in airplanes before I could get my a commercial so I did silly things like how high can you get a 152 and how short can you land one etc? My Mooney and I assume it’s nothing different right after takeoff when flaps are retracted takes a rather substantial amount of down trim, so why would I want to be trimmed so it’s nearly hands off on takeoff? That would just require even more down force until the trim catches up.

I can believe that, just looking at a Caribou I wonder the same. I can see advantage of near zero lift at ground attitude, like more effective brakes etc. Due to the gear type it’s my understanding that the B-52 and B-47 can’t rotate, so the B-47 sits nose high so it will fly off at that attitude, but on the BUFF they raised the wing angle of incidence to deal with that, if you have the opportunity to watch on departing they do indeed climb nose slightly down , looks weird. Not sure about the U-2 only time I’ve seen them climb they were going up like a rocket

Back in 1978 I had an HP-33E, in College people would ask to borrow it, none ever figured it out. HP used Reverse Polish notation?

I think though that confirmation bias would rear it’s head. To do it properly you would need to instrument the aircraft, a fancy fish scale might help, some have markers that stop at the max weight. I should have kept my force gauge but left it at work. I’ve noticed that often, it’s just normal. It’s tough to not be affected. I’ll throw out a for instance, some swear that flying without an AOA is just unsafe. I can’t see the need on a GA airplane myself, but see no harm in having one either, unless based on your trust of it you put yourself into situations you might not should. Not saying any do, just it’s the only way I could see how maybe an AOA could do harm. Ag planes fly or at least turn right at the ragged edge of stall, the stall is what determines turning radius, if they could turn faster, it would increase profits. I’ve done an participated in testing of AOA sensors in Ag planes and came away with the opinion that sure why not, but that they didn’t increase safety

I assume it must be a pain to import from Canada as their prices are very often lower. I know exporting to Canada can be a bit of a pain because I’ve sold a few there. From memory they don’t accept US STC’s for instance, I would have thought we would be completely reciprocal with each other

What I’m saying is any A&P should make that part without issue. I don’t really understand the line that requires an Owner Produced Part, for instance if you smack a pole with a wing and I’m repairing it, no one raises an eyebrow if I make the skins and even wing ribs, stringers whatever. That’s been done forever. So where is the line that requires an owner to produce the part?