A64Pilot

Maybe not, but over and over I’ve seen that the motors that seem to last the longest are those in training, that as you say cycle constantly from wide open to low power over and over, which most would say is the worst way to treat a motor. I think these motors are among the best test cases because they are rode hard and accumulate more hours per month than most do in a year. It’s like everyone knows most wear occurs at engine start, but pre-lubbers that were the rage in the 70’s didn’t seem to extend engine life and my little Prius which turned its motor off every time you took your foot off of the gas at 250,000 miles still didn’t burn a drop of oil, I only got rid of it because the car itself was worn out. Its a data point, one we may not want to hear, and I’d bet lunch that they before the test figured that if there was a problem it would be with valve recession and sometimes if you look hard enough you find what you were looking for. Valve recession is the problem that popped up in cars when we abandoned leaded fuel back in the 70’s, it is logical to suspect that it may be an issue when we abandon lead in Avgas. Can it be solved? I think so, but it will probably mean early top overhauls to do so.

I know nothing about Gami as a company, Years ago I did buy their injectors and put them in my C-210 and M6 -235 Maule. I don’t think there was ever an intent for them to be a fuel producer, and any comments about what it will cost etc are at best guesses, and the aviation world is full of smart people that got that wrong, meaning just about every manufacturer, think Eclipse jet for a gross example. In my opinion the intent is to sell the rights to produce when lead is outlawed, of course having an STC for a replacement fuel will certainly speed the elimination of lead, because the FAA has fought it for years because there was no viable replacement. What do they have to gain by testing their fuel? It’s approved. However it’s possible testing could prove the fuel unairworthy and then where would they be? So further testing could only possibly hurt them. There is nothing for them to gain by testing. In my opinion and it’s just my opinion but an STC for fuel is a very suspect way to develop a fuel. So far as I know there has never been an STC for a non existent fuel before, STC’s for existing fuels already in production and manufactured to an existing standard, sure but not for one that doesn’t exist. I think eventually we will all make him very rich, money from the STC will likely be trivial, the real money will likely come from production royalties.

I’m not saying we owners should add anything, perhaps the fuel supplier should though

Since the 70’s there have been lead replacement additives marketed, I suspect most are snake oil though, no idea how many if any work. I remember one I think was called “instead o lead” or similar. Redline is usually a respected brand, who knows? https://www.redlineoil.com/lead-substitute

ZDDP of course is THE additive that would most likely solve our cam problems too. Unfortunately it’s not ashless and an engine that burns oil it will leave deposits, so we shouldn’t burn it. Classic hopped up cars add ZDDP to their oil or their cams would be eaten up, modern Auto engines almost exclusively run roller tappets because ZDDP and many other additives have been eliminated from oil in order to protect pollution control devices and of course O2 sensors etc. ZDDP is a type of zinc and I think Phosporous?, Zinc among other things neutralizes acid in oil as well as an excellent high pressure lubricant, I think from memory it deposits a layer on metal that is sacrificial in wear? https://www.speedwaymotors.com/the-toolbox/zddp-content-chart-high-zinc-oil-list-brand-breakdown/32479

Disregarding Mike Busch and leaning, but lead has been known forever to prevent valve recession (fancy name for wear) The cure for valve recession is hard seats and Sodium filled exhaust valves (in automotive engines), of course we have run unleaded fuel in Autos for over 50 years, it’s just not an issue in autos. I’m theorizing that maybe it didn’t work on aircraft for two reasons, Air cooled heads likely therefore higher cyl head temps, and secondly higher continuous power settings (higher cyl head temps) I have no idea what the valve seat temp is on a water cooled engine is, does anyone know? I do know that classic autos without hardened seats do suffer from valve recession, but Stellite valve seats can be fitted and that cures the problem. However having said that many a C-85 and other small aircraft engines have been operating for decades on unleaded Auto fuel with no issues, but maybe they are lower stressed motors? None of these alternative fuels have really been fully tested, and likely can’t be due to the huge cost in doing so, there are too many variables, soaking fuel lines and O-rings etc in a jar at room temp only tells you that the fuel in a jar at room temp doesn’t hurt them, but the darnedest things happen in an aircraft in flight, things that weren’t tested. The only “real” test (in my opinion) is putting the fuel in fleets of aircraft in different operating conditions and putting hours and years on them, so it’s likely in my opinion that we will in truth be the testers.

I don’t put much faith in oil analysis to determine engine condition. However it’s outstanding if used to determine the condition of the oil, but think of it this way, if you didn’t do an oil analysis, would you have any concerns? Look for metal in the oil filter, look hard even go to the extent of a solvent wash of the filter material through a coffee filter if you have a concern. I maintained fleets of Army helicopters for 20 years, never, not once did we change a component due to oil analysis, we always did based usually on chip lights which triggered inspection of the filters. The Army pretty much invented spectroscopic oil analysis at Ft Rucker in 1961, it has saved millions of gallons of oil and I’m sure billions of dollars because the ground fleet changes oil now on condition and not miles or months as it’s not uncommon for rarely used Army trucks to go years between changes, so it is valuable. I just bought a Diesel pusher motorhome and had an oil analysis done, not trying to determine engine condition, but looking for antifreeze and soot content of the oil as well as total acid number of the oil and total base number. For things like that it has value in my opinion. As far a a K&N air filter, they don’t really filter all that well, but like all filters as they get dirty they filter better, but their advertised better air flow comes from poorer filtration. In all honesty it’s hard to beat oil soaked foam, especially if it’s sticky oil. There is no reason at all for an owner not to clean their own K&N, but follow the instructions, just once with pressurized air or water and it’s trash. The oil is what makes a K&N filter, the gauge just holds the oil, don’t let one get dry looking, if it does from flying in the rain etc, re oil it.

I think maybe we may see a move toward the Canadian system where small, simple aircraft can be owner maintained, but I don’t see how that would ever happen to a complex pressurized aircraft, I’m surprised that home built ones are allowed because in my opinion that’s outside of the realm of the original intent of home builds. Its touchy and you had better have a decent relationship with the FSDO to pull it off, but you can take a Certified aircraft and modify it, and as long as you build 51% of it make it Experimental, I have a friend that did that with a Maule, and it’s pretty common for Super Cubs. https://www.kitplanes.com/experimental-maule/

How do they do it? AH-64A used a Shaft driven compressor for the pressurized air system for engine starts etc, D model went to bleed air for simplisticity. I can’t imagine anything could be simpler or lighter than bleed air?

The silicon confuses me as silicon is usually dirt. I wonder if it’s from the honing stones?

It’s due to a complaint having been made. I can’t quote Chapt and verse but the FAA must respond to a complaint, they have to put something in the file, so they made a call, logged that in the file and that was the end of it. I’m sure they felt that it was a waste of their time too, but they can’t ignore a complaint. I’d bet almost all of their activity is based on either complaints or accidents / incidents, very little comes from surveillance, thankfully we aren’t surveilled that much. How many ramp checks have you had? I’ve only had one, but then I mostly fly to rural airports. From what I’ve seen complaints are almost always using the FAA as a “weapon” as in the complainer has a beef with the complainant, I’ve seen some doozies between two different A&P’s based in the same area.

I think your probably a younger less experienced pilot, those of us that are Commercial / instrument or higher rated for decades don’t see any of that, even with decades of no accidents / incidents. In the beginning insurence has always gone down with experience, no claims and higher Certifications, but it didn’t on average increase in cost like it has in recent years. That’s new. I just bought a Motorhome and was surprised to find that it’s insurance if based on hull value was more expensive than my Mooney insurance, additionally as others have posted my house insurance has increased greatly since 2020 or so. Go look at your Auto insurence I bet if you run the numbers on the value of the car you may find the aircraft insurence is cheaper. Of course you can’t really compare the two because collision claims between aircraft are rare while they may be the norm for auto’s. In my opinion what the cause of these increased prices in everything is inflation. It’s a fantasy to believe we only experienced 8% inflation for one year or that it’s “transitory”. As long as the price of everything is increasing I think inflation is in play, that is the definition of inflation isn’t it? If I add up the cost of insurence I pay yearly, it’s phenomenal. Based on all the crooked Lawyer ads I carry a 2 Mil umbrella coverage that I’m sure exempts Aviation, but I think I pay monthly as much for insurence as a house payment. So yes for me it’s definitely a drag on my finances, if the Mooney wasn’t a retract I’d go “naked” insurence wise

I wasn’t aware the 28V is going away, I’d be surprised if the lower volt is just as powerful, methinks more likely the 28V due to its cost doesn't sell well enough to warrant continued production. You can get an idea if it is by battery size and weight, if the 18V is as big and heavy then it may in fact be as “powerful”

I don’t have any turbo experience either, just Supercharger, but the turbo ought to be on boost prior to brake release I’d think, if not I don’t know why not? I know in turbines I set torque prior to brake release if it’s a short field, surely a turbo can do the same?

Any chance the tach could be set for a 6 cyl or something? Whichever one doesn’t read 2700 on takeoff is the incorrect one is my bet.

While I don’t know about the VW Diesel, but you cannot adjust mixture in a normal Diesel. Common Rails can do all kinds of “magic” though, vary timing, multiple injection events, even inject fuel in the exhaust stroke to burn in the Diesel particulate filter to burn it clean, called “regeneration” Common Rail is a complete game changer, took Grandpa’s old chug chug Diesel and made it into a hot rod. They are arguably the ultimate LOP engine, because at all RPM’s and loads they take in a full volume of air, there is no throttle plate and therefore no vacuum in the manifold. While a spark ignition engine throttles both fuel and air, a Diesel only increases fuel to increase RPM / HP, so at part throttle they are exceedingly lean. At idle their EGT is in the 200’s F, but as power increases so does EGT, often the limit of the power you can get out of a Diesel is when the pistons melt, take one ROP and they smoke like a train, you see that at Truck / Tractor pulls until the Turbo catches up with the fuel I used to love Diesels but all the emission equipment took a simple mechanical reliable beast and complicated the dickens out of it and reduced reliability, couple that with ULSD price and there just isn’t the advantage that there used to be. I don’t know maybe the VW motor has a throttle valve? Wouldn’t surprise me as Diesels and gas motors are becoming more alike over time.

Modern cars don’t ever run LOP, they did back in the 70’s and 80’s but stopped I believe 20 years or so ago with I believe the Chrysler “lean burn” engine leading the pack, followed by Honda’s famous CVCC, then pretty much everybody else because of better fuel milage. They don’t run LOP anymore due to emissions, LOP increases some emissions that’s hard to deal with (NOX) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean-burn#Honda_lean-burn_systems Having said that stratospherically charged engines are I believe becoming more common, they sort of emulate some Diesel engines with their pre-combustion chamber, while the combustion isn’t LOP when the hot gases expand into the greater cylinder area it is Mazda has developed a spark ignition gas Diesel engine, I know sounds wrong doesn’t it, but I think it’s the next evolution of the gas auto engine, the differences in a Diesel and spark ignition engine further decreases. https://www2.mazda.com/en/next-generation/technology/ Finally the majority of stock aircraft flat engines just won’t run LOP, very few carbureted ones will, our Lycoming fuel injected IO-360’s are an exception, the overwhelming majority of engines when leaned to slight roughness then enrichened just enough to smooth out are being run very close to peak, right in the “red box”, without harm and have been done so for longer than most of us have been alive. The rest of that leaning technique was to climb full rich and only lean when at cruise power, which if you obeyed the charts put you at a power setting that ANY mixture couldn’t hurt the engine, that’s why they weren’t detonated to death. Our Grandfather’s leaning technique actually put you pretty darned close to an ideal cruise mixture if performance was a consideration, it’s only if your willing to give up some performance to achieve greater efficiency that LOP really becomes viable, now some will argue tgat you can run LOP and get better efficiency and not lose performance but that’s not true. There is only one mixture that you can get the most performance, Best Power mixture, any mixture other than it loses power either richer or leaner, the further away from best power the greater the performance loss. TANSTASFL. The only way to hurt a motor with the red knob is at high power, above 75% for Lycoming and 65% power for a Continental ( I can’t validate those numbers) but anyone who’s looking for efficiency won’t be even close to those power outputs, they are more likely to be in the 50’s % power output. In my opinion, if one watches cyl head temp and never lets it go above 380 or so and shoots for 350 as a target, it’s very difficult to detonate an engine running 100 LL. I’m talking non turbo engines here. So at the power levels that you should be leaning at in my opinion it’s not really a concern, you can’t hurt the thing, and power levels that you can hurt the thing, you shouldn’t be leaning anyway, if you “run the numbers” as in how much fuel you can save by leaning in the climb, the fuel savings is minuscule. I don’t count maintaining take off EGT as leaning, in my opinion it’s maintaining mixture, not leaning. Say you save 4 GPH by leaning in a climb, and you climb for 15 min, you will save 1 Gl, and I think 4 GPH isn’t realistic and most don’t climb for 15 min either, so 1Gl is probably optimistic, so just don’t lean in a climb, it’s just not worth it.

A J will do it, sure. But a K will do it better. Your use case pretty well describes the marketing brochure for a turbo aircraft. A turbo aircraft will cost more to fly, those who say it won’t haven’t owned one long enough to have to fix the turbo and associated systems yet, just remember TANSTAFL. ”There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. Every increase in performance will cost $$, it’s just a fact of life, whether it be a boat, car or airplane.

As with any battery powered thing the age of the Lithium battery should be taken into consideration. It’s possible that the degradation of the battery from age could offset any savings buying used. 28V Milwaukee batteries aren’t cheap. $180 or so?

I don’t see a downside to the tailbeacon ADSB myself, unless of course your spending a whole bunch on avionics, which I would advise against until at least the first year is gone, because it’s possible there could be some unknown $$$ expenses

Yes, of course, although there aren’t many flush rivets on a crop duster, only ones come to mind are there because something like a fairing etc lays on top of them. A lot of times the metal was thick enough for counter sinking instead of dimpling, but there was some dimpling, just not a lot However you don’t cut full size holes, for two reasons, the laser leaves a rough surface and secondly there is a heat affected zone” a very small portion of the metal around the hole’s heat treat is ruined so that has to be removed which is done when the hole is drilled out to full size. The rivet holes are just markers if you will, they have to be drilled / reamed to full size, but the Laser of course lays out perfect rivet lines, so it saves a lot of time in lay out. Secondly you never start cutting in the perimeter, the Laser blows a hole very similar to a torch, so you always have the Laser start cutting from the inside of the hole then cutting around. The thing moves very fast maybe 1 sec per hole? Knowing absolutely nothing about their problem I’d guess it could be they started cutting on the perimeter, if so then a visual inspection would find a small notch if you will in the edge of the hole, which you would see the crack propagating from. Either is to be honest Laser cutting 101, surprised any kind of aircraft manufacturer didn’t catch that right off, if that’s the problem. Every manufacturer outsources, for a Certified aircraft process specs must be met and regular on site inspections are required, I guess not for Experimental. I think pretty much every manufacturer Laser cuts, old way was Broken arm routers that were dangerous, and I suppose high speed milling machines would be best, but a Laser is fine, just requires deburring is all. Other than hearing Van had a problem, I know nothing at all about it so I’m speculating.

I don’t think a “Legal interpretation” is anymore regulatory than an Advisory Circular or Mandatory Service Bulletin is. The point is you can’t “pin” the FAA down, they are too slippery. However they all carry some weight with the FAA. 99 times out of 100, even if your wrong, but your apologetic and thank them for pointing out your error you will be fine, the 1% is either your argumentative or your actions were plainly way off base. But even something that falls into PM can get you into trouble, changing a light bulb, if accessing that light bulb has you removing aircraft structure to get to it for example. The not involving complex operations is how Garmin can get away with selling you a yoke mount for a 2.5 lb. GPS that’s so heavy that it will cause the airplane to roll if you let go of the yoke. To me that’s an obvious Major Alteration, but I’m not in the FAA. From what I’ve seen living where I do, the truth is on owner maintenance is that nobody cares, FAA may get involved if there is an accident or complaint.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with Lasar cutting if it’s done correctly, yes there is a heat affected zone but it’s very small and easily dealt with. Thrush has been Lasar cutting everything for decades, without any issues, only thick steel we water jetted, everything else was Lasar cut.

Float chargers will significantly increase a batteries life, but those that advertise pulsing high frequency or whatever to desulphate don’t do anything extra if you will, but they usually sell for a higher price because of course they say they have an additional feature. I’m only saying don’t pay extra for a charger with a desulphation cycle, not saying float chargers don’t work, because they do. Old fashioned trickle chargers often are bad for a battery because they don’t control voltage very well and if left on continuously can over charge a battery, which will lead to electrolyte loss, you can add water to a flooded battery but you can’t to an AGM. You can eventually dry out a Concorde even though it it is a recombinant gas battery meaning it recombines hydrogen and Oxygen to create water. I don’t know how though, always meant to ask but never have. I guess all I had to do was Google it https://www.eastpennmanufacturing.com/wp-content/uploads/Guide-to-VRLA-Batteries-1927.pdf

Nit picking but to be precise you’re supposed to monitor the battery temp and not air temp, reason is as a battery is charged the temp increases. These minders don’t measure battery temp, but honestly it probably doesn’t matter much when your only 1.5 amp charge. Often the neg terminal of the battery is where the temp is measured. We lived aboard and cruised a Sailboat for three years. and I got real deep into battery banks, first because they are exceedingly important, running refrigeration, navigation and every modern convince and secondly good batteries out in the Caribbean don’t exist at any price and cheap ones are very expensive. I had a 660 AH Lifeline bank, today I wouldn’t consider anything but LifePo4. I had multiple, redundant charge sources. The battery tenders I use are within .1V of Concordes spec absorption and float voltages, and your correct we don’t really need three stage chargers to be battery tenders, we only need float voltage, because it’s in the name, they are maintainers, not chargers Technically the Lifeline battery manual isn’t what we are supposed to go by as we have Aviation batteries, but in truth as the Lifeline and Concorde Aircraft batteries are essentially identical and the Lifeline manual is MUCH more comprehensive, in my opinion it really is the one we should be referencing